OTE

DSC_0257

Oct 1 2015

Thursday: Cycling and Steady State OTE

I posted about rankings earlier today. Here is a pic of my mate Arjan and myself studying the rankings / results in Hazewinkel:

DSC_0257

The results were also on-line immediately after the race but I like the old-fashioned way of discovering the results on a notice board and discussing them immediately with your opponents.

Cycled home from work today. As usual. Average HR 128, 43 minutes. As an experiment I used the Strava app on the iphone to record the ride. The advantage is that it gets correctly marked as a bike ride and automatically uploaded to Strava. Then Tapiriik does it’s magic and it all appears in SportTracks and Garmin Connect as well.

https://www.strava.com/activities/404166429

After dinner I set up a 30 minute and a 25 minute session on RowPro. The 30 minute session was a solo row, but for the 25 min I had company from the UK. I did steady state with bursts. In the 30 minute session I did a faster 1 minute every 6 minutes. Same for the 25 minute session, but with a 5 minute cycle. The “bursts” were at 22, 24, 26, 28 & 30 spm in the 30 minute row and at 30, 28, 26, 24 & 22 spm in the 25 minute row.

30min

25min

Tomorrow:

Pick up my trailer from Jundrov, drive to lake. Join work related call from clubhouse. Row. Load trailer. Sprint races on Saturday.

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0565_fi_00_p_751x371

Sep 29 2015

Blagnac Hotel Gym

Monday

Up at 3:20 to travel to the airport. A few meetings in Brussels and 2 flights later, I arrive in my hotel room in Toulouse Blagnac at 11:30pm. No training.

Tuesday

If I wanted to get some exercise in, I had to get up at 6am and work out in the hotel gym. Did that. I had to enter the date and time into the Concept2 erg and adjust the brightness so it didn’t show Mura defects.

The plan was to do a 4x2km intensive session, but after such a long day and a short night, I discovered during the warming up that I didn’t have the mental strength to do it.

So after the 2km warming up I did 20 minutes steady state. Very easy, because I didn’t feel like more:

pullman 002

Then I did a few strength exercises. Three sets of eight repeats for each exercise. I discovered a mat and a Pezzi ball, so I used them for situps, back, classical pushups. I also did squats, and all the arm and shoulder exercises possible with the fitness machine, adjusting the weights after the first set if necessary. Thirty minutes in total. It was a bit light on the legs in my opinion. Overall it was probably a bit light but I want to gradually work this into my routine, not do an all out once and then never again.

The Pullman hotel gym. There's a mirror so it's much smaller than it looks on the picture
The Pullman hotel gym. There’s a mirror so it’s much smaller than it looks on the picture

Then a 1km cooling down and some stretching. Has to be enough for the day.

Having dinner at the Brussels Airlines lounge at Brussels, I finished my exercise planner in excel. It calculates time in different zones. I already used it today to capture what I have done so far this week and adjust the rest of the week to hit the right percentages and fit my schedule.

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4x1km

Sep 24 2015

Building a training plan I – boat training

Training plan considerations

What does Das Buch say? Here’s a quick summary.

dasbuch2

First of all, for a Masters C rower, Das Buch advised that roughly 25% of boat kilometers are Compensation, 50% Extensive Endurance, 10% Intensive Endurance and 5% race specific. Race specific is not going to happen during the preparation period (October – April) that I am planning right now.

Another good remark is that most Masters rowers chose a too high training intensity. I guess we know the syndrome. Let’s do those fun interval sessions. It feels hard so the training effect must be high!

A couple of training examples given in the book:

  • Compensation/Technique training examples
    • 30 – 70 min continuous 18-21spm
    • Intervals 4-10x
      • 1min @ 20spm / 4 min @ 18spm
      • 500m @ 23spm / 250m @ 19spm
      • 5min @ 22spm / 5min @ 18spm
    • Fartlek
  • Extensive Endurance
    • Continuous (100% extensive) @ 18-23spm
    • Fartlek (95% extensive with intensive bursts) 18-26spm
    • Interval training
      • 2-8 min with 1-4 min rest
      • Examples
        • 4-10x1min @ 24spm / 4min @20spm
        • 4x2km @ 21-23spm / rest 2-6 min
        • (3-5)x4/3/2/1 min @ 20/22/24/26spm, 3 min rest
  • Intensive Endurance
    • Red lining
      • 10km @ head race pace
      • 2x5km, rest 10min
      • Fartlek 18-30spm varying
    • Interval training
      • 10sec – 3 min with 2-5 min rest
      • 4x2km @ 24-28spm, 4 min rest
      • (2-5)x4/3/2/1min @ 22/24/26/28min , 3 min rest
      • 5/2.5/1km @ 24-28spm, 4 min rest
      • 1-3x7min / 4 min rest
      • (2-4)x1000m / 4 min rest
      • 10x500m / 4 min rest
      • 2/1/0.5km @ 26-3spm, 4 min rest
  • Strength endurance
    • On ergometer with high drag
  • Threshold training
    • 5km max intensity
    • (2-4)x2000m @ 16-18spm, max power, 2 min rest
    • (2-5)x3/2/1min @ 26/30/34spm, 3 min rest
    • 2/1/0.5km @ 28-34spm, 4 min rest
    • 1-3x5min @ 28-32spm, 4 min rest
    • (2-4)x1000m @ 28-32spm, 4 min rest
    • 2/1/0.5km @ 26/29/32spm, 4 min rest
    • “red lining” 1 min @32spm / 1 min @28spm for 10-30 min

So Extensive Endurance looks quite like what the Wolverine plan calls L4, while Intensive Endurance seems to be a mix between L3 (hard distance), L2 and L1.

Here are my own thoughts:

  • I want to extend the quidance (in terms of time spent, not km) to erg and crosstraining. I am currently thinking of 25% compensation (mainly crosstraining), 50% extensive (rowing, erg, and crosstraining), 10% intensive (erg and rowing) and 10% strength training (circuits, weights). I am open to discuss this.
  • When on a business trip, I will have to substitute rowing with running, hotel fitness triathlon, or do a weights training. I have mapped my regular destinations, so I know the hotel in Toulouse with the Concept2, the Crossfit boxes in the US, etc. Should be doable.
  • Strength endurance. I have had good results from rowing with a bungee so I am definitely going to do that. I prefer to avoid the erg with high drag factor. I don’t like to take risks with my back.
  • For the extensive sessions I will vary “just row” steady state, steady state with bursts and “L4” rate ladders. Seems to be in line with Das Buch.
  • For the intensive session I will focus on Pete Plan L2 sessions and hard distance. Will do Pete Plan L1 (short intervals) occasionally, and during sprint season. I also like the red lining idea. You basically go at a pace that you cannot sustain for the entire duration, hold it for a few minutes, then go below, than above. Think of it as hard distance but instead of constant pace you oscillate above and below what you can sustain.
  • I will try to list the sessions per week, but each week I will need to smartly adapt the order to my work and travel schedule.
  • I don’t understand the example trainings under “threshold training”. They all seem like valuable training sessions but I am not sure they fall in one category. The rate restricted 4x2km seems to aim at a completely different training goal than the high rate stuff. Anyway, I will pick a session from that list now and then, to spice up training, but it has to be in the 10% intensive category.

The training plan is not ready. In subsequent blogs I will share more of what I learned in Das Buch and how I try to implement (some of) that in my draft plan.

Today’s Training

As I just said, my new training plan is still not complete, so I am repeating what I did a year ago. Looking in my training log, I did a 4x1km on this day a year ago. So without thinking I scheduled a 4x1km on the erg. However, as a race preparation for the head race on October 17, I decided to row it “at head race pace”.

But first, a little experimenting with compensation cross-training. At the end of the working day I grabbed my bike from the underground parking and rode home.

fiets

fiets2

Think it qualifies as compensation training. At home I had a quick dinner, then a coffee, and then I descended into my erg basement.

Between the warming up and the main set, I looked up last year’s results in my training log. I discovered I had rowed this on the water, and the splits were:


|Dist_|Time_|_Pace__|avg HR|max HR|Remarks
|00993|03:34|01:47.8| 179 | 185 |1km - headwind
|01015|03:41|01:48.9| 181 | 186 |1km - headwind
|01006|03:31|01:44.9| 170 | 182 |1km - tailwind
|01001|03:26|01:42.9| 177 | 184 |1km tailwind

Interesting … in a single? Then it dawned on me that this must have been a double or a quad. I checked now, while writing this blog, and yes, I rowed this in a quad.

Today I really tried to keep this to head race pace, so I lowered the drag factor, rowed with closed eyes and tried to get into the 28-30spm rhythm. Every twenty strokes I quickly opened my eyes to check the stroke rate.

4x1km


Workout Summary - Sep 24, 2015
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS|-SPI
--|04000|14:16.1|01:47.0|285.6|29.4|172.1|184.0|09.5|09.7
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-|-SPI|Comments
01|01000|03:32.3|01:46.1|292.7|29.1|165.6|180.0|09.7|10.1|
02|01000|03:34.0|01:47.0|285.7|29.2|173.6|183.0|09.6|09.8|
03|01000|03:34.8|01:47.4|282.5|29.6|174.4|184.0|09.4|09.5|
04|01000|03:35.0|01:47.5|281.7|29.6|174.9|184.0|09.4|09.5|

Perhaps not the smartest training, given all the good advice in the first part of this blog, but definitely fun.

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ctc1

Sep 21 2015

Pete Plan / Wolverine 5×1500 a la CTC

Back to the  erg because of lack of daylight in the evening. Also, September is traditionally a busy month at work, and with Belgium out of the way I have some catching up to do.

The CTC of this month is “Row a nautical mile (1852 metres), take 2 minutes rest then row at Mach 1 (well 751 metres). There are no restrictions.” Looking for training effect, I thought that if I would add 3x1500m to the end, it would be close enough to the 5x1500m of the Pete Plan. The first interval is a bit longer and the second is a whole lot shorter, but after a very short rest. Good enough.

I knew I wouldn’t aim at 2km PB pace, which some people seem to be doing (and they subsequently struggle to keep up the pace on the 751). I also decided to row the first interval from a standing start, even though the “no restrictions” could in theory be interpreted differently. Usually, CTC challenges are “from a standing start” in the first interval, so it seemed natural to me.


Workout Summary - Sep 21, 2015
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS|-SPI
--|07103|26:11.9|01:50.7|258.3|27.7|171.0|182.0|09.8|09.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-|-SPI|Comments
01|01852|06:39.0|01:47.7|280.1|28.6|172.1|182.0|09.7|09.8|
02|00751|02:39.2|01:46.0|293.9|30.5|173.3|181.0|09.3|09.6|
03|01500|05:38.8|01:52.9|242.9|26.6|169.8|180.0|10.0|09.1|
04|01500|05:39.0|01:53.0|242.5|26.7|169.8|179.0|09.9|09.1|
05|01500|05:35.9|01:52.0|249.4|27.5|171.0|181.0|09.7|09.1|

I negative splitted both CTC intervals. For the 1500s I decided to stick to 1:53, which is the average pace I rowed my first 5x1500m in fall 2014 (the numbers are still on the wall of my erg room). The first 1500m after the CTC was tough, but then it became easier to just pull 1:53 without thinking. So I will take 1:50.7 as the target for the next 5x1500m.

ctc2

ctc1

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ctc1

Jul 26 2015

Getting the CTC out of the way

The plan was to go cycling with Romana but the plans changed. Our boys came back from camp yesterday. Unfortunately, their coach broke down and they had to wait 3 hours on a gas station before another one would pick them up.

They seem to have had a great time, but Robin is a bit white and threw up in the night and another time this morning. I think they are just tired and need a day in front of the TV ;-).

So I sat down to do CTC and if the Robin gets a bit better we’ll do a short ride in the afternoon. Just a ride to a nice country pub, have a drink and ride back.

Not sure how to pace. Decided to do the short ones in 1:45 pace and the 2km in 7:30, which seemed reasonable.

But ouch, this erg thing hurts after so many hours in the boat. It is weird. A week ago I held 1:49 pace in the single for almost four minutes. Now I had difficulty getting under that pace for less than 2 minutes.


Workout Summary - Jul 26, 2015
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS|-SPI
--|03500|12:35.4|01:47.9|278.5|28.8|167.8|183.0|09.6|09.7
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-|-SPI|Comments
01|00500|01:45.1|01:45.1|301.3|29.7|154.7|169.0|09.6|10.2|
02|00400|01:24.5|01:45.6|297.4|29.8|162.2|171.0|09.5|10.0|
03|00300|01:02.9|01:44.9|303.2|30.5|160.9|171.0|09.4|09.9|
04|00200|00:41.9|01:44.7|304.8|30.1|159.3|171.0|09.5|10.1|
05|00100|00:21.9|01:49.3|268.0|27.4|149.6|168.0|10.0|09.8|
06|02000|07:19.1|01:49.8|264.5|28.1|175.1|183.0|09.7|09.4|

I did back down a bit on the 100m to make the “rest” a bit longer. The 2km was without issue. I was able to gradually ramp up the pace. Definitely not an all out affair.

ctc2

ctc1

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IMG_1537

May 17 2015

Praise from World Cup Rower

Saturday

My sister and brother-in-law are in Vienna for a theater festival. Romana had to get up early because of the Junior Regatta. In fact, she was so nervous she was up at 5am. So I found myself on the erg at 6am. Did 5km steady state, then the CTC, then another 5km steady state.

The CTC is 2 minutes all out. I figured I could do 630m if in Personal Best form, which would be 1:34 pace. The plan was to row it as the first 2 minutes of a 1km row, though. I knew I wasn’t in PB form. So 616m it was (1:37 pace). It’s interesting how much further a 2 minute is than a 500m.

Had a great time in Vienna, visiting Schoenbrunn and the zoo. IMG_1541 IMG_1540 IMG_1537

Sunday

Spent most of the day at the rowing club. The International Junior Regatta was held in Brno this weekend, so I had to see Lenka perform (2nd in the B final in the girls 4x-, didn’t make it to A or B final in the double) and spend some time socializing with the rowing crowd.

After the races, we went out in an eight. Slightly different constellation than the winning eight of last weekend:

11063764_885430808181859_1738395927617996128_n

But the core team is the same. We missed a cox, so we grabbed one of our lightweight pair to cox us. Interesting to be coxed by a guy who just the weekend before has rowed the World Cup in the pair, and will be representing the Czech Republic at the European Championships in Poznan.

We Masters Eigth always have a lot of self-criticism during the training, mainly about rushing the slide. What was interesting was that the cox just praised us. We are apparently in sync, sending the boat nicely, etc. Good to hear that for a change …

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1kmpace

Apr 30 2015

Last day to complete the nonathlon: 1km SB

Last day to do the last nonathlon distance: the 1000m.

I had about 3 hours left when I sat down to do it. No panic, though. I knew I could do a 1000m in under three hours.

I also knew I wouldn’t beat my PB. We had some visitors from the US yesterday evening and we had to taste some Moravian wine … 😳 Followed by a long working day, and a 1km attempt too short after dinner. It would be hard to come close.

So the plan was to take 10 strong strokes after the start, then settle on 1:40 and keep it as long as possible.

1kmspm
1kmpace

Workout Summary - Apr 30, 2015
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS|-SPI
--|01000|03:20.4|01:40.2|347.9|33.5|175.4|183.0|08.9|10.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-|-SPI|Comments
01|00100|00:19.0|01:35.0|408.3|37.9|137.8|160.0|08.3|10.8|
02|00100|00:20.0|01:39.8|352.3|33.1|170.8|175.0|09.1|10.7|
03|00100|00:20.0|01:40.2|347.8|29.9|176.2|177.0|10.0|11.6|
04|00100|00:20.1|01:40.5|345.0|35.8|178.8|180.0|08.3|09.6|
05|00100|00:20.0|01:40.0|350.2|33.0|180.3|181.0|09.1|10.6|
06|00100|00:20.1|01:40.7|342.8|32.8|181.9|182.0|09.1|10.5|
07|00100|00:20.2|01:40.8|341.6|32.7|182.6|183.0|09.1|10.4|
08|00100|00:20.2|01:41.0|340.2|32.7|183.0|183.0|09.1|10.4|
09|00100|00:20.4|01:41.9|331.3|32.4|183.0|183.0|09.1|10.2|
10|00100|00:20.4|01:42.2|327.7|35.2|182.8|183.0|08.3|09.3|

920 nonathlon points. Mission accomplished

So according to nonathlon, my 500m is my best SB with 930 points, followed by my 1000m with 920 points, then the rest. My worst SB according to nonathlon is my 60 min effort with 904 points.

According to the Concept2 ranked pieces, my 5km SB is my best at 92nd percentile. The 1000m is among the worst with 84th percentile.

I also tried to fit a “Paul’s law” like curve through my SB data. The fit gave a 4.8 seconds split increase per doubling of the distance. My 500m, 6k, 60min and half marathon are on the fitted curve, while my 1km and 2km are slower. That kind of corresponds to my feeling. I should be able to do faster times on the 1km and 2km. By about 2 to 5 seconds.

Something to try for next Erg season.

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