OTW

Jul 7 2017

Thursday – Sprint Sprint Sprint Sprint Sprint

Wednesday

A traditional “rest” travel day, which means sitting in a suit and a tie in a hot meeting room for eight hours, then doing the airport steeplechase (I had fast lane access today, hurray!), flying for 90 minutes, and a 2 hour drive, arriving close to midnight.

Thursday

It’s a holiday in the Czech Republic, and I slept in long, then had a long slow morning which ended around 2pm. I hacked together a prototype of a new chart, which I will explain soon, over on the analytics blog.

Around 2pm, I headed to the lake for a row. Getting to the rowing club was a challenge on this hot, sunny holiday. The road to the club is quite narrow, and when two cars meet, one of them has to stop at the nearest place that is slightly wider so the two cars can pass each other. Normally, this works pretty smooth, but this time the road was populated by people who don’t usually drive here. I am going to stereotype a bit, so apologies in advance, but I felt I was only meeting people in oversized SUVs who don’t really know how big their car really is. They were driving more than a meter from the guard rail, eyes big as tennis balls, scared to scratch their car. That made it slightly challenging to pass each other.

Anyway.

The lake was full of small boats, of course. I think the water is now actually a mix of suncream and water. Wondering if that makes the boat go faster or slower.

The session was 3x(5×30″/variable)/6min. So three sets of 5 30 second intervals, where the 30 second intervals were at 36, 38, 40, 38, and 36spm, and the rest is 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 1 minutes, 45 seconds.

With all the recreational boats, swimmers, etc, I had to chose the bearing in the direction of the least number of boats. That involved quick 180 degree turns and other course changes depending on the traffic situation.

I am happy to report that despite these challenges I was able to hit the prescribed stroke rates. This workout is not easy. You basically go at faster than 1k race pace for 30 seconds, then you have just enough rest to paddle 5 strokes, and then you go at an even faster pace. The rest after the 40spm is a bit longer, but you really need that rest. It does make you comfortable rating up when in pain.

All metrics were nicely in the usual range, so I won’t bore you with more graphs. But I will include a sneak preview of the new chart:

Work Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|-Pwr-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|00141| 00:30 |01:46.3| 36.0| 402 | 158 | 173 | 7.8 - tailwind 02|00142| 00:30 |01:45.6| 38.0| 409 | 175 | 182 | 7.5 03|00148| 00:30 |01:41.3| 38.0| 325 | 175 | 182 | 7.8 04|00143| 00:30 |01:44.8| 36.0| 323 | 171 | 181 | 7.9 05|00139| 00:30 |01:47.9| 36.0| 376 | 172 | 179 | 7.7 06|00133| 00:30 |01:52.7| 34.0| 395 | 160 | 173 | 7.8 - headwind 07|00133| 00:30 |01:52.7| 36.0| 403 | 175 | 180 | 7.4 08|00140| 00:30 |01:47.1| 40.0| 430 | 176 | 183 | 7.0 09|00139| 00:30 |01:47.9| 36.0| 397 | 174 | 180 | 7.7 10|00135| 00:30 |01:51.1| 36.0| 367 | 174 | 180 | 7.5 - tailwind 11|00139| 00:30 |01:47.9| 36.0| 378 | 160 | 172 | 7.7 12|00142| 00:30 |01:45.6| 38.0| 381 | 176 | 181 | 7.5 13|00135| 00:30 |01:51.1| 40.0| 420 | 179 | 185 | 6.8 - headwind 14|00136| 00:30 |01:50.2| 38.0| 393 | 176 | 182 | 7.2 15|00127| 00:30 |01:58.1| 36.0| 344 | 176 | 180 | 7.1 Workout Summary --|02072| 07:30 | 1:48.5| 36.9| 383 | 172 | 185 | 7.5

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: OTW, rowing, single, sprint, sprint training, training

Jul 4 2017

Monday – chop, Tuesday – race pace

Monday

Tired legs from the Sunday workout and a hectic day at work. I was wondering if I should work out. In the end I did drive to the lake, but about an hour later than planned. I decided to do what was planned. A short, light workout in the single. Main goal: Recover.

As you can see from the pace part of the chart, there was quite a strong wind, pushing me to 2:40 and slower on the warming up and to 3:00 pace on the headwind segment Sirka – Rokle, while speeding me up to 2:20 on the Rokle – Sirka segment and in the cooling down. There was quite some chop. The kind that occasionally breaks on your front stays and splashes your elbows and back. It was fun, actually.

Then a nice chat with the rowers at the club, about the National Championships (Juniors & Open) of last weekend. Our club has done quite well. One of our junior scullers, who wasn’t selected for the National Squad, turned his disgust into energy and took his Filippi to a strong victory in the J18 1x field, winning his heat, semifinal, and final with ease. The second place in the final was taken by another guy who didn’t get selected. We also had a guy in the winning (national squad) J18 4x-.

In the J16 fields, our club won virtually everything on the sweep side. On the girls side (Romana’s team), the results were varying, and disappointing in the final, getting beaten by crews that they beat easily in the heats on Friday. Lenka has just come back from a long illness, so three days of racing is a lot for her, currently. Iva wants to win so bad that she forgets about technique (not her strongest point) and tries to outpower everyone in the first 1k, then dies in the second 1k with people rowing cleaner and longer passing her. Well, she’s 16 so there is time for her to learn how to race.

Tuesday

Out early to get in a workout before heading to the airport. Today’s workout was a 2x(12x35sec/25sec)/6min with a target stroke rate of 30 to 32spm. Short and sweet.

I made a point of rowing strokes with stops during the warming up, focusing on body position during the recovery. This helps me tremendously in approaching the catch on “a stable platform” and getting the most (length, catch efficiency) out of every stroke.

The workout itself was interesting. I had to program it as 30″/30″ intervals, because the SpeedCoach doesn’t take less than 15 second steps. However, I used the final 5 seconds of each rest interval to take to strokes at full power (but lower stroke rate) to get up to speed. That worked out quite well. A 25 second rest is really short! Still, I was able to row well, and only in the second half of the second set (in a headwind) did the rowing start to fall apart – slightly. I think I could have managed a third set, but two weeks to the Championships, I prefer my workouts to be shorter.

Work Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|00134| 00:30 |01:51.9| 34.0| 145 | 161 | 7.9 - tailwind 02|00131| 00:30 |01:54.5| 32.0| 164 | 170 | 8.2 03|00133| 00:30 |01:52.7| 32.0| 165 | 171 | 8.3 04|00134| 00:30 |01:51.9| 32.0| 168 | 173 | 8.4 05|00134| 00:30 |01:51.9| 32.0| 168 | 174 | 8.4 06|00135| 00:30 |01:51.1| 32.0| 170 | 175 | 8.4 07|00134| 00:30 |01:51.9| 34.0| 171 | 176 | 7.9 08|00134| 00:30 |01:51.9| 32.0| 172 | 176 | 8.4 09|00134| 00:30 |01:51.9| 32.0| 170 | 175 | 8.4 10|00135| 00:30 |01:51.1| 34.0| 173 | 179 | 7.9 11|00133| 00:30 |01:52.7| 34.0| 172 | 176 | 7.8 12|00136| 00:30 |01:50.2| 34.0| 172 | 178 | 8.0 13|00132| 00:30 |01:53.6| 32.0| 160 | 168 | 8.2 - headwind starts here 14|00128| 00:30 |01:57.1| 34.0| 170 | 176 | 7.5 15|00131| 00:30 |01:54.5| 34.0| 173 | 179 | 7.7 16|00129| 00:30 |01:56.2| 32.0| 174 | 178 | 8.1 17|00126| 00:30 |01:59.0| 32.0| 175 | 179 | 7.9 18|00127| 00:30 |01:58.1| 34.0| 175 | 179 | 7.5 19|00128| 00:30 |01:57.1| 34.0| 175 | 180 | 7.5 20|00125| 00:30 |01:59.9| 32.0| 175 | 179 | 7.8 21|00126| 00:30 |01:59.0| 32.0| 175 | 180 | 7.9 22|00125| 00:30 |01:59.9| 32.0| 176 | 179 | 7.8 23|00126| 00:30 |01:59.0| 32.0| 175 | 179 | 7.9 24|00137| 00:30 |01:49.4| 36.0| 176 | 179 | 7.6 - tailwind Workout Summary --|03147| 12:00 | 1:54.3| 32.9| 170 | 180 | 8.0

Here is the pace and SPM plot from the FIT export from the SpeedCoach:

Here is the same plot from the CSV export.

The SpeedCoach CSV doesn’t denote the “rest” intervals as rest. In fact, it doesn’t contain any strokes taken during the rest at all. I find that quite disappointing, and will urge NK to change that. The FIT at least contains the time stamps, so you can see how the intervals are spaced apart, and it doesn’t fool rowsandall.com into believing that I have rowed a “breakthrough” workout:

Anyway, I was able to contantly push the power above 340-350W.

Some technique related charts. Try to guess where the rowing started to fall apart:

Now, I am sitting at the gate at Munich Airport, waiting for my connection to Brussels.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: lake, OTW, race pace, race prep, rowing, single, training

Jul 2 2017

A visit to Mordor

The ladies are still at the Open/J18/J16 Czech National Championships, so my sons and I are enjoying a men’s weekend.

Today, we hit the road at 8am, to arrive in Ostrava at 10AM. From Wikipedia:

Ostrava grew to prominence thanks to its position at the heart of a major coalfield, becoming an important industrial centre. It used to be nicknamed the country’s “steel heart” thanks to its status as a coal-mining and metallurgical centre, but since the Velvet Revolution (the fall of communism in 1989) it has undergone radical and far-reaching changes to its economic base. Industries have been thoroughly restructured, and the last coal was mined in the city in 1994. However, the city’s industrial past lives on in the Lower Vítkovice area, a former coal-mining, coke production and ironworks complex in the city centre boasting a unique collection of historic industrial architecture. Lower Vítkovice has applied for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

When we arrived in Ostrava, the boys and I started to call it Mordor. It’s a strange place. Lots of abandoned 19th and early 20th century industry sites. Lots of buildings falling apart. On the horizon beautiful mountain ranges. It has a funny atmosphere.

But the reason to visit this interesting place was rowing.

As I am rowing the Masters Nationals with Vojta Cernak from VK Perun Ostrava, I was up for a training on his Filippi 2x, on the river Odra. We installed my sons Dominik (12) and Robin (10) in the club house, where they were watching the Tour de France, playing games on their smartphones and other fun stuff, Vojta and I took the double out for a long row.

For this training, I had two aims. First, to do some technical drills to get us rowing together and set up a stable base on the double. In the past two sessions, we rowed on my boat on the Brno lake, but with all the traffic, Vojta wasn’t comfortable, and was turning around to watch traffic every few strokes, which negatively impacted boat feel. Now, on his home river, where he knows every turn, this should be better. So technical drills first, then some race pace segments.

We did a lot of square blade rowing in the first 2.5km against the stream. Then we used the downstream part to do rowing with stops, working on being together especially in the final part of the recovery.

Then we turned around for another loop, during which we did a 500m and a 30 stroke interval. Finally, we agreed on a usable format. Our “500m” at race pace would be 60 strokes at 34spm, followed by 10 strokes full out. That was fun to do. We did the 34spm strokes at 90%, focussing on technique and being together and I think we did quite well.

All intervals were done from a standing start in order to practice that as well. The Odra river is a slow “S” turn, and it was beautifully flat. In the low intensity strokes between the intervals, we were dowing 2:20 pace downstream/tailwind and 2:35 pace upstream/headwind.

It was a very nice experience. I think we finally nailed these 70 stroke intervals and we now feel very comfortable at 35spm. Also, we know that we are capable of doing a 40spm sprint while keeping technically together, so that is a good thing, because we may need it in the race.

After that, we had lunch together, and then I drove to the Lower Vitkovice area with the boys. This is an amazing place. A coal mine, coke production and ironworks complex in the middle of the city turned into an urban park, with a great technical museum. We spent more than three hours there, and we left only because I didn’t want to be at home late. It’s a two hour drive of 170km, so it was me who was getting tired. Given a choice, my sons would still be there, trying to operate a steam loc, playing in the automobile simulator, or learning about how an ironworks plant works.

To quote an online reviewer, agreeing with everything he says:

It was a brilliant idea to make something of Ostrava’s brutal industrial heritage. The ruins of a coal mine and a steel smelting plant have been converted into an area of clubs, concert halls, cafes, and attractions, including the splendid Bolt Tower that you reach by lift. The whole area is work in progress so it will only become more interesting in years to come.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: double, ostrava, OTW, race prep, rowing, training

Jun 30 2017

Wash no more!

Yesterday evening I read the book “How bad do you want it?”, which caused me to think about mental toughness and my rowing. I have always been more of a training animal than a racing animal, meaning that I regularly beat guys in training, who were able to beat me in races. The theory laid out in the book is that the conscious mind decides at what percentage of your true potential you work. In contrast to the “central governor” theory (which is about the unconscious), the theory promises that you can influence this. From my observations, there is a lot of truth in that. I improve by getting more fit, so my “comfort zone” shifts to higher power, but I don’t get as far out of my comfort zone as some other rowers.

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In 1k sprint racing, “comfort zone” being a relative thing. If you would climb the stairs at home and suddenly feel the pain you feel 600m in to a full out 1k, you would drop to the floor, start crying and think you are dying. (I am only exaggerating a bit, here.) In a 1k race, you don’t, because you anticipate the pain, which helps you coping with it. I think yesterday’s failure was a combination of being tired and expecting everything to go easy.

The book focuses on “flow”, a state where you are just doing what you do, instead of constantly judging what you are doing. Logically, but unfortunately, there isn’t a simple 5 step plan that will guarantee to improve your mental toughness if you follow it.

Now, let’s apply it to my training. I have two weeks to go to the Masters Nationals. I haven’t fully finished reading the book, so my recommendations may be premature, but what I took away from it for now is the following:

Mental toughness is a large factor in endurance performance
Mental toughness can be trained, mainly by doing a lot of the taxing endurance performances
The best way to cope with the perception of hard exercise is to find a state of flow, where the attention is focused outward, as opposed to judging and inward

Today, I was able to leave work early and get to the lake for an afternoon session in the single. So how to apply the lessons from the book?

I was scheduled for a steady state session, but I was also unhappy with yesterday’s 1k effort. At the same time, I want to avoid falling in a trap of focusing too much on 1k trials. Here is what I came up with:

Replace steady state with fartlek. Do race pace pieces as I feel
Enjoy the strong, gusty crosswinds. Build mental toughness by ignoring the weather and trying to put out a good effort despite it
Focus on “feeling” the boat, try to work in such a way that the boat moves forward in the most efficient way. Focus on the rhythm.

I also decided that in these final two weeks before the Masters Nationals, I would not focus on Wash and Effective Length any more during the row. I reprogrammed the SpeedCoach to show Stroke Rate, Power, Time, and Average Power.

No more wash! No more effective length! Over with technique metrics. Just feel the boat!

Being the quantitative guy, I was still obsessed with trying to improve my CP curve, though. I had to find a way to combine that with all of the above.

After a bit of thinking, I had it. I would just row on time (as opposed to distance), trying to hold an average power. So, I would for example row at 300W, and try to hold the average above 300W as long as possible. Note the time when I stop. Then, next time, try to add at least 10 seconds. And all of that in the worst possible conditions. Cross winds. Chop. Wind gusts. Trying to get the best out of the boat in all these conditions.

So here is how it went:

The first 18 minutes I rowed a warming up with three pace/spm bursts. Then I turned around and rowed back to the start of the 2k.

From the 2k start, in a nasty crosswind, I did a 300W effort from a standing start. After 4 minutes of rowing at 300W, seeing 307W on the SpeedCoach Average Power window, I bailed out. I rowed to the 2k finish, turned around, and rowed back to the start. Half way, I did a 30 stroke burst with 10 strokes at 300W, 10 strokes increase power by increasing length (at same stroke rate), then 10 strokes increase power by increasing stroke rate. I was imagining passing an opponent. First, I would creep on him by increasing only power (by increasing length), then I would increase the stroke rate and quickly pass him.

From the 2k start, I did a piece at 400W from a standing start, again in heavy crosswind and a lot of chop. After 1 minute, seeing an average power close to 400W, I decided to stop. I rowed to the finish of the 2k again, then turned and rowed another 1k.

There, I reset the SpeedCoach and did a standing start and then tried to hold 350W. I managed 2 minutes in the head/crosswind.

Then, it was time for a cooling down, but I was excited, and started from a standing start for a 325W effort. After 2 minutes, I had enough of it.

I am not sure how this training affects my physical fitness, but I liked it. It was fun to do, and funny enough rowing against time had a liberating effect. That may change now that I have some benchmarks.

Here is my CP chart before:

And here it is after the row:

I didn’t get any of the “Wow! A breakthrough workout!” message that I programmed into rowsandall.com, but I did manage to move the green curve. You get the “Wow” message when you row an effort above (or to the right) of the red curve. All I managed was to bring the red dots and the green curve closer to the red one.

Perhaps I should change the algorithm that determines if the workout is “WoW!”?

oh, here is the summary of today’s fartlek row in terms of power vs time:

Anyway, it was a great workout, and I think it helps me being this guy:

And I am looking forward to two weeks of sharpening and enjoying it, Sophia style:

Well … Sophia style but the Daddy’s Army Masters Rowing version of it. I happened to listen to the Dean Martin version of this song on the radio and I loved the careless, silly happiness that it radiated. So I searched for it on YouTube and found the version with Sophia. It made me very happy.

Tomorrow: Cycling with the boys.

Sunday: To Ostrava for a session in the double with Vojta. It’s gonna be fun!

The collective analysis plots from rowsandall.com for today’s session are fun too:

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: crosswind, Fartlek, lake, OTW, rowing, single

Jun 29 2017

Thursday – Failing to break through

Wednesday

It’s a busy week. Lots of things going on at work, including customers visiting and a business dinner on Tuesday evening. On top of that, temperatures are reaching > 30 degrees, already for more than a week, and on Tuesday it was 35 degrees with extreme humidity. At home, the thermostat in the living shows 28 degrees, and in the bedrooms it is warmer. This severely impacts my sleep quality.

On Wednesday morning, I rode to work. It was a dusty, high ozone affair, but I was glad I did it, knowing that the repair of my single hadn’t started, there was strong wind predicted due to cooler air nearing our region, and the fact that I still hadn’t found time to prepare my quarterly Town Hall meeting.

The mailman delivered “How bad do you want it? Mastering the psychology of mind over muscle”. I read just the foreword, because I had a presentation to prepare.

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Thursday

With the Masters Nationals in two weeks, I wanted to know where I stand. I got up early to get the workout in before work, and the plan was to do a trial 1k. I had originally planned to do this one on Friday, but it seemed smart to do it today. When I arrived at the lake, I was greeted by very choppy water. While the coolness has still not arrived (it was 21C at 5am), this is already the second day with strong wind.

I decided to row to the castle and row the 1k on the “straight kilometer”. The wind isn’t weaker on this stretch, but because the river is a lot narrower than the lake, the chop is reduced.

Usually I try to row these trials in calm weather, but this time I thought it doesn’t matter. I have a power meter, right? I am just measuring my max power over a certain duration. So, I thought, I might as well row the 1k in the headwind. Who knows when I will have to row a race in headwind, so I might just as well try to find out how hard I can pull over, what, 4 minutes and a bit? Just 1k. How hard can it be?

Before the row, I looked up my CP chart:

For a competitive person, there is a problem with this chart: It looks like a challenge. I want to move the data points to the right, or up. And as a bonus, if you set up notifications on rowsandall.com, you get a congratulatory email for every time you break through the red line.

For a four minute effort, the green line is at 305W, while the red line is at 326W. So, the plan was to do a start, then drop back to 320W, then try to increase in the final 250m, all the while monitoring technique. I was already composing the blog post with a before and after CP chart. I was also looking forward to rowing this 1000m “smart”, and not fly and die.

The reality was different. I had forgotten how hard 1k rows are, especially in the morning, alone, in non-ideal conditions.

I crossed the lake in heavy chop, then into the gorge. I did a few 10 stroke bursts on the straight kilometer, and a few practice starts after I turned around at the castle. I had the impression that the wind was getting stronger. I lined up for the start, dialed up a 1k, took a deep breath, and got started.

The plan fell apart after 200m. I didn’t know it immediately, though. I came out of the start strokes with 400W, and then I lowered the power by lowering the stroke rate, which probably was a mistake. I should have lightened up the stroke but not allow the stroke rate to drop below 32spm. It is very hard to recover from a low stroke rate. At that moment, I wasn’t aware of these risks. I just saw that there were strokes where the power was getting close to 300W. I tried to get the power back to decent values but it was very hard. Drifting a bit to port, I also had to turn slightly, which doesn’t help with the recorded power on the starboard oarlock. The gusty wind didn’t help either.

Anyway, here are the splits:

Workout Summary - media/20170629-063736-Sanders SpeedCoach 20170629 0653amo.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|01000|04:13.0|02:04.4|304.8|31.1|176.1|184.0|07.7 W-|01000|04:13.0|02:04.6|303.8|31.1|176.8|184.0|07.7 R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|184.0|00.0 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 00|00100|00:24.4|02:01.4|384.0|34.5|135.9|167.0|07.7 01|00100|00:24.0|02:00.7|328.6|31.2|173.9|177.0|08.0 02|00100|00:25.2|02:05.9|313.7|30.9|178.6|180.0|07.7 03|00100|00:25.1|02:04.5|315.8|30.8|180.4|181.0|07.7 04|00100|00:24.3|02:02.6|303.7|30.9|181.5|183.0|08.5 05|00100|00:25.2|02:05.8|298.4|30.6|182.4|183.0|07.3 06|00100|00:26.0|02:09.8|287.2|30.4|182.6|183.0|07.6 07|00100|00:26.3|02:11.3|283.7|31.1|182.9|184.0|07.4 08|00100|00:26.3|02:08.4|282.6|30.3|183.4|184.0|07.6 09|00100|00:26.8|02:14.0|249.9|30.1|182.1|183.0|08.1

Interesting enough, the average split was very close to what I had estimated before. I was expecting 2:05, based on the wind strength. So even though the power was lower than expected, the pace was in the ballpark.

I had about 3km to cool down and think about my failure. In the headwind, and demotivated, I didn’t go very fast. The lake part, the final 2km, were virtually unrowable. I saw plots around 3:30 per 500m. I eventually made it back to the club.

Of course, I want to set a better record. I even contemplated doing this again tomorrow. I probably won’t do it, but going into the last two weeks before the Nationals, I will have to focus on 1k race preparation, and do at least two more trials.

Anyway, today’s failure should lead to tomorrow’s success, and at least it will motivate me to read in the book about sport and psychology.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: 1000m, 1k, 1km, OTW, river, rowing, single, trial

Jun 29 2017

Monday – intervals in the double

Sunday

Instead of rowing, my son and I took the train to Vlkov, taking the bikes. We then cycled back to Brno, about 45km. It was a great ride. I am planning to do another such ride this weekend. My son is now big enough to ride 45km without big problems or complaining. Of course, I carefully selected a course that is mostly down hill, has nice pubs along the way, and is exciting (riding through rivers).

Here is a picture from the web that gives you an impression of the fun part:

Monday

I picked up Vojtech at the station and we drove to the rowing club. The training we planned to do was intervals of 6 minutes at three minutes rest. Each interval was 3 min @ 26spm, 2 min @ 30 spm, 1 min @ 34 spm.

We managed 5 of those intervals, but we weren’t entirely happy about the session. In the double, 30spm should feel like you want more.

We did the workout in two pieces. Because I didn’t know how many of those intervals we would manage, I first programmed the SpeedCoach to do 3 of them, and then I added two more. That enabled me to do comparisons between sets 1-3 and sets 4 and 5. In the fourth set, we almost bumped into a police motor boat that should have given us right of way. I shouted something ugly at the police guys, and when we continued the row, that was the best part of the entire session.

There was a nasty cross wind, and Vojta had to turn around a lot to make sure we didn’t bump into any paddle boats, swimmers, or other people who are unaware of the traffic rules.

Tuesday

No training. I agreed with the head coach that he would repair my single on Tuesday, and I decided to make that day my rest day, to give the glue and filler time to dry.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: double, hard intervals, OTW, rowing, training

Jun 24 2017

Saturday: Sprintervals

This was supposed to be a heavy week, but I have the feeling that the weeks of business travel and some stressful work issues are taking their toll. I did no exercise on Friday. Partly because I was moderating a full day workshop on strategy, and partly because I needed some rest. Well, if you can’t do volume, you have to make sure there is some intensity. And that was the plan for today.

Meanwhile in Prague, my son Dominik rowed a 1k race in 4:25, coming last in his heat. In two of the four heats, he would have been third and qualified for the semifinals of his National Championships (for 12 year olds).

This morning, we decided to row at 8am. A bit earlier than usually on Saturday, but necessary with this hot weather. The water was great. Mirror flat. A good day to work on race pace and above by doing sprintervals.

I decided for 45 sec sprints, long enough to get into a rhythm and feel how the boat moves, long enough to correct some errors, but short enough to be manageable. I also decided on 1:15min rest, long enough to make sure I would do each interval with maximum focus. A five minute break at the turning points, and you have a 3x(6×45″/1:15)/5′ workout. I also decided to row this at 30/32/34/36/34/32 spm, to make it more interesting.

Work Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|00191| 00:45 |01:57.8| 29.3| 152 | 168 | 8.7 02|00193| 00:45 |01:56.5| 32.0| 168 | 176 | 8.0 03|00199| 00:45 |01:53.0| 33.3| 171 | 180 | 8.0 04|00202| 00:45 |01:51.3| 34.7| 173 | 182 | 7.8 05|00199| 00:45 |01:53.0| 32.0| 173 | 181 | 8.3 06|00195| 00:45 |01:55.3| 32.0| 166 | 177 | 8.1 07|00189| 00:45 |01:59.0| 30.7| 159 | 170 | 8.2 - wake 08|00196| 00:45 |01:54.7| 33.3| 170 | 178 | 7.8 09|00202| 00:45 |01:51.3| 34.7| 172 | 179 | 7.8 10|00207| 00:45 |01:48.6| 36.0| 173 | 181 | 7.7 11|00196| 00:45 |01:54.7| 33.3| 175 | 181 | 7.8 12|00187| 00:45 |02:00.3| 32.0| 173 | 177 | 7.8 13|00190| 00:45 |01:58.4| 30.7| 157 | 168 | 8.3 14|00193| 00:45 |01:56.5| 32.0| 169 | 177 | 8.0 15|00196| 00:45 |01:54.7| 33.3| 171 | 178 | 7.8 16|00200| 00:45 |01:52.5| 36.0| 176 | 182 | 7.4 17|00202| 00:45 |01:51.3| 34.7| 172 | 182 | 7.8 18|00196| 00:45 |01:54.7| 32.0| 171 | 179 | 8.2 Workout Summary --|03533| 13:30 | 1:54.6| 32.9| 169 | 182 | 8.0

In the first series of 6, I rowed a bit too much on power. I corrected that in the second series. I got waked in the first sprint of the second series, but for the rest it was great. Tapping down was good today and reaching high stroke rates was thus very easy.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: lake, OTW, rowing, single, sprintervals, training

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OTW

Thursday – Sprint Sprint Sprint Sprint Sprint

Monday – chop, Tuesday – race pace

A visit to Mordor

Wash no more!

Thursday – Failing to break through

Monday – intervals in the double

Saturday: Sprintervals

Calendar

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