Oct 19 2016
October CTC – A season’s best by default
It was easy to expect a season’s best. With all the splashing around in boats, I hadn’t done a serious hard 10k since the start of the erg “year” on May 1.
Normally, I do a 6k around this time of the year, as a baseline to measure progress against through the winter. But then the PaddyPower October CTC came along, a straight 10k, so I changed my plans. I will do the 6k in a few weeks time. I consulted my pace predictor:
The blue line predicted a 1:54.0 pace, the green line even suggested a 1:53.1 pace. Given that my PB from last March is 37:45.4, which is 1:53.3 pace, I figured I would definitely be closer to 1:54, if not even slower. So I started conservatively, at 1:56 pace, and gradually turned up the heat as the row went along.
The 1:56 pace in the beginning meant that I fell into a low stroke rate groove, which I didn’t like. I always feel that I am tiring the legs too much, and if I could lighten up and rate up slightly, and row this pace at 25spm insteady of 23/24spm, I would arrive at the half way mark fresher. But somehow this is a very difficult thing to do on fresh legs.
The hardest part with between 7km to go and 3km to go. After that I set smart intermediate targets. I arrived at the 3km to go mark with a 1:55.5 average pace, and I tried to get the average down by one tenth at a time, taking something between 500m and 700m for each tenth.
Of course I did manage to rate up as the row continued. Here is the stroke cloud:
I basically moved from the left part of the cloud to the right part as time passed by.
And just because we can calculate it, I will throw in a histogram as well:
Oct 23 2016
Another Steady State – and letting the boat run
The original plan was a row in the double with Romana, and then on to the sauna.
But the rowing club had rented out the premises again to a birthday party. It’s good income for the club, but you never know what you find when you are the first to go rowing the next morning.
So the double part was replaced by indoor rowing. It’s a pity, because we haven’t rowed the double for a long time and it’s really a great discipline.
During the erg workout I listened to the Rowing Chat by Rowperfect, which was an excellent way to kill the time. Listening to the talk about sculling really made me realize how much I love the sport. It has everything. You need to be physically fit, there is a big technique element, and it comes the simplicity of getting from A to B in the fastest possible way with team spirit and with the elements.
I listened to a discussion with a coach from Craftbury Sculling Center, and I listened to the first 10 minutes of a chat with Kim Brennan. Both were very interesting to listen to. I liked how Kim described what she observes when rowing the single. Sitting on an erg and listening to someone talk about listening to the sound of the bubbles under the boat or looking at the shape of the stern wake really made the erg time fly by and I even had the feeling it will help my OTW rowing. There was also a lot of discussion about drills, which was good to listen to.
Here’s the row:
Workout Summary - media/20161023-093732o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|18000|77:40.0|02:09.5|20.6|157.4|171.0|11.2
W-|18007|77:41.0|02:09.4|20.7|157.4|171.0|11.3
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|00.0|000.0|171.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01162|04:57.2|02:07.8|19.9|132.4|145.0|11.8
02|01178|04:56.6|02:05.9|19.8|148.9|153.0|12.0
03|01205|05:00.7|02:04.7|20.6|153.8|158.0|11.7
04|01199|04:58.8|02:04.6|20.3|156.6|159.0|11.8
05|01207|05:01.7|02:04.9|20.0|159.1|163.0|12.0
06|01205|05:02.3|02:05.4|20.0|159.6|163.0|12.0
07|01197|05:00.1|02:05.4|20.2|160.6|163.0|11.8
08|01186|04:56.4|02:05.0|19.7|162.1|165.0|12.2
09|01222|04:59.5|02:02.6|21.1|167.2|171.0|11.6
10|01204|05:04.4|02:06.5|20.1|162.7|166.0|11.8
11|01186|04:56.5|02:05.0|20.6|164.1|166.0|11.7
12|01195|04:59.1|02:05.1|20.7|163.9|167.0|11.6
13|01228|07:14.6|02:56.9|22.3|157.1|167.0|07.6
14|01179|04:53.2|02:04.4|22.5|161.6|164.0|10.7
15|01144|05:08.9|02:15.0|21.3|152.3|162.0|10.4
16|00109|00:31.2|02:22.9|21.1|147.6|149.0|09.9
I also made a few “stroke cloud” plots.
So 180W average at 21spm median stroke rate. The two red blobs are “18spm” and “20spm”. There is also two minutes worth of “22spm”. I always row a bit higher stroke rate than I intend to.
By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: concept2, erg, OTE, rowing, steady state, training