OTW

mapka

Mar 22 2019

Mirror Flat Lake in Brno

Thursday. Sunny weather. Which means -2 C in the morning, which is a bit chilly on the scooter, and 14 to 16 degrees in the afternoon, which is great for rowing.

Half of our club is in Gavirate for a camp, and the other half are doing a camp on the Labe (Elbe) river in Pardubice. I will join the Pardubice crew for the weekend. But this Thursday it meant that I had the lake almost for myself. There were a few rowers from the club on the other side of the lake.

Steady state. I didn’t monitor the Power values during the row, but focused on Effective Length and Work per Stroke.

During km 6 to 8 I rowed without feathering. I was pretty happy with the execution of the drill, but looking at the data after the row, it shows that I significantly shortened the finish during that bit.

I had a fun “Masters Rower Price” moment in the final 3km full lake stretch. A junior from the other bank was trailing me and apparently doing some intervals. He was fiercely rowing at 30spm and catching up. His rowing was ugly, but he had the strong body of an 18 year old. When he was almost level, I increased stroke rate from 17spm to 24 spm and was able to stay ahead of him by keeping the length and rowing nice and clean, until he gave up. I enjoy those moments. Here’s a zoom in on that bit:

Recently, I have started to use Boat Speed in meters per second for the speed plots, but I am adding a pace (seconds per 500m) for those not used to the meters per second values.

How much more enjoyable is this. Being out on a sunny day on the lake, gliding over the water, outrowing a junior. Compare that to doing mindless steady state on a static erg in a basement, without company. I may ditch erg training early this season. Time to do more running.

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Mar 17 2019

Double the Fun

Beautiful weather today. The wind direction turned 180 degrees since yesterday and calmed down. It was sunny and 14 degrees, but on the lake it felt like 20. I am talking Celsius scale now.

The Masters were present in a large group. Martin, Lubica, Zuzana, and Darinka took a quad. Tomas went out in the single. Romana and I did our first workout in the Double of the year.

Warming up. Then breaking down the strokes by stops. In Dutch we call them “first stop”, “second stop”, and “third stop”. These are stops at, respectively, the finish, arms away, and body rocking over. We started with all three, then removed the first, then the second and finally went back to rowing continuously.

Then, we rowed without feathering for 2km.

And finally we did a special, secret, technique drill that makes us very fast. You can see its mark at 6800m and 9000m in the chart above. And here’s a panorama shot from our dock:

And another one:

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Mar 16 2019

Fanatically OTW

Thursday

A workout that doesn’t look so hard on paper, but after I’d done it I was sure my arms would fall off.

30 minutes of running/cycling. I did both, in the fitness center close to the office.

Then the following:

6 sets of 20 burpees / 20 jerk (20kg), one minute rest between sets

6 sets of 20 squats (12 kg) / 40 boxing punches holding 6kg dumbbell.

Pretty explosive and pretty heavy on shoulders. It was fun.

Friday

I was able to leave work early and arrived at the rowing club at 4pm. I decided to take the single out. It was “nice” weather. A light rain, but it wasn’t too windy. Steady state and mainly technique focus. I used the effective length metric on the NK SpeedCoach/Empower in combination with the Work per Stroke. Returning to the water after a winter of erging, my strokes are a bit too heavy around the catch. Need to lengthen up, lighten up and still get those Watts in the stroke.

You can see in the section between 0:42 and 0:56 how it all came together and I cradually increased the stroke rate to 24spm. Unfortunately, the Empower Oarlock disconnected after 36 minutes and I had to pair it again with the SpeedCoach. After the training, I downloaded and installed new SpeedCoach firmware.

Saturday

The forecast was that the wind would be strong during the night and slow down in the morning, but when I arrived at the club, it was not a calm lake. For a moment, I considered using the LiteBoat coastal single, but in the end I wanted to get more practice in in my own single. I figured that the water would be calmer on the opposite shore and in the canyon.

Here’s how I rowed (short sliding) the crossing of the lake to find calmer water:

The training was 3x2km at 24 spm. As I rowed up into the canyon, I decided to row two intervals into the headwind, and two intervals with tailwind on the way back. It seemed a pity not to do 4 2km intervals, and it was perfectly doable. The tailwind intervals were very enjoyable, and I was happy to see that I could rate up to 27spm in those bits without really getting tired.

Well, I did get tired, but I was having so much fun that I didn’t notice. After lunch, I had to do groceries, and at one point, all I really wanted was to find a quiet part of the store, lie down and rest a bit.

I do have video from the row, but as it’s the start of a new OTW season it’s not perfect. I mounted my GoPro 90 degrees rotated, so instead of a nice wide view, I have a portrait video. Also, I left my Windows computer in the office, and I am still learning the video editing software on the official Rowsandall developer’s notebook, which is running Linux (because developing under Linux is so much easier and the rowsandall.com site itself also runs on a Linux distribution). I haven’t found anything that could replace Dashware to get telemetry data into the video.

While my videos are uploading, I can only show a comparison between Friday’s technique session and today’s choppy, higher rate session:

You can see that I was a bit shorter today, but I find that acceptable given the conditions. Otherwise I think I should be happy with the result.

After the row, I had a nice coffee at the club house, giving me the opportunity to boss around the juniors who were loading my trailer. They are going for a week long training camp on Monday.

It was good to get some good OTW kilometers in the bank.

Edit 1

The first high res video has finally uploaded. The other one will be ready in 40 minutes:

Edit 2

Second video uploaded. Second 2km – headwind.

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Mar 7 2019

60 minutes of bliss and 5 minutes of terror

Monday

Up at 5:30 for transport to the airport. Flight to Paris, then on a (delayed) flight to Casablanca. Check in to the hotel and one local beer tasted before going to the land of nod.

Tuesday

Up early. It was still dark outside. Also, I wasn’t sure where to go running in Casablanca. It was a pity, because exploring new places by running is an excellent way to get more sight seeing out of a business trip.

I headed down from my 26th floor hotel room (magnificent views!) to the gym at the second floor. A typical hotel gym. The training plan prescribed 30 minutes of running which I replaced with 10min/10min/10min of treadmill/elliptical/spinning. After that, the second part of the session looked horrendous:

6x (20x burpee + 20x jerk 25kg)/60″

6x (20x squat 10kg + 40x boxing with 6-8kg dumbbell)

I was under time pressure so I did 6x (20x burpee + 40x boxing). And that was hard! So all in all a session of 50 minutes but I got some work done.

We had a good meeting, and then there was some time for sight seeing. We took a taxi to the biggest mosque of North Africa, right on the beach, and took a few pictures.

The famous lighthouse “El Hank”

Then we took a taxi to the fishing port. We passed “Rick’s Cafe“, then a part of the waterfront that looked like a piece of Monaco transplanted to Morocco. You can see it in the background of this picture.

In the port, we watched the boats getting prepared and leaving. We were at a significant risk of being covered in seagull poop, but we still stood there watching for a while, taking in the aroma of diesel, fish, sea water, and other undefined.

We had great seafood in a nearby restaurant.

Wednesday

Basically spent the whole day making it back from Casablanca to Brno, with stops in Paris and Vienna.

Thursday

Back in the office and lots of things to do. But it was great spring weather and I knew that our local rowers have been rowing OTW since Monday! I needed part of the action, so I left early, claiming to be tired from the business trip and grabbing the opportunity offered by one canceled meeting. Drove home, grabbed rowing gear, went to lake.

The lake was perfectly flat. Took out the single and did a little over an hour of 18spm steady state. I had no need to go any higher. This was a session to work on technique on the water, after a winter stop of three months. Oh, how I enjoyed feeling the boat run between strokes, something that no erg can simulate, dynamic or not.

I must have switched off the SpeedCoach after the warming up. I noticed half way the first “lake” that the SpeedCoach was showing “Ready”. It took a while for me to realize that this was not OK. So the session was recorded as 55 minutes, but I rowed for 68 minutes. I have the Garmin backup data to prove it.

After 40 minutes it started raining a bit, and when I was closing in on the last part, the water got a few wrinkles. I turned at “Sirka” and started the final 1000m back to the rowing club. After a minute or so I heard the wind, and then I felt it. A very strong headwind came up and within 30 seconds the lake turned very choppy. And another 30 seconds later I was rowing in white caps and getting water in the boat. As I caught water, a little later it took just too big waves to completely fill my boat with ice cold water. I saw my water bottle float away but I decided not to go back to catch it. I was only 400m from the dock but I was fearing I wouldn’t make it.

Actually, I turned around to see if anybody was outside on the rowing club who could help me. Nobody there. I swore loudly, but in the wind nobody heard it.

Look at the chart and you see the frightful bit. With 200m to go I was considering to just paddle in survival mode until the wind would die down, but eventually I made it to the dock. There, I found that my shoes had been blown into the water and were nowhere to be seen. Well, the advantage of cold, numb feet is that you can walk without feeling the sharp stones. I had to put the boat in slings  and secure it before I could put it in the boathouse, because the wind had slammed the doors shut.

Well, that was quite an unexpected adventure. But it was great to be out on the water again. Here are some of the metrics:

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Nov 8 2018

Novembervieren Race – battling on old battle grounds

Our CVK Brno/Naarden coxed quad was racing in block 3, so there was time enough in the morning. We arrived in Amsterdam around lunch time.

The water was nice and flat. I watched the races of Block 2 from the banks at the Omval, close to rowing club RIC.

The weather was nice, although humid and cold, but it wasn’t raining and there was a light tail wind.

Finally, it was time to launch. As we were the last boat in our division, we also launched last, so we received some comments from the umpires to not lose contact with the other boats steaming up to the start and receive an official warning.

As we were a relatively fast boat, there was no problem whatsoever. We steamed up to the start line in our usual 24 spm, about 10 minutes before the start of the first boat in Block 3. We quickly found our position among the large crowd of fours and quads, and waited.

The sun getting lower, and we ended up having to wait in the shadow. That made it a little colder, especially when we removed our turtle shells and prepared to race.

The chart shows only the race part, plus perhaps 100m of getting up to speed. As you can see we settled into 31-32spm and never lost that. The heart rate values are not correct for the first part of the race. I was fiddling with the Polar OH1 before the start, and I think it didn’t make good contact, until it snapped into place in the second kilometer.

It was hard work but at the same time I really enjoyed racing on my old battle ground. I was curious to see if I would still know every turn and every bridge, and I wasn’t disappointed. With every stroke, I knew exactly where I was and where the cox would turn the boat to. We had a great cox, by the way. Look at the line he took:

You can’t really steer this course any sharper. Here is us heading down the course:

I am not sure at which point this picture was taken. I guess from one of the bridges. The water was a bit rougher than I had expected. I think this had a lot to do with rowing as the last boat in our division, with 80 or more boats ahead of us.

Immediately from the start, our coxswain started encouraging us, letting us know that we were making ground on the crews ahead of us. Eventually it took until the Omval (1.5k to go) when we started to pass crews, but now we were passing them fast. We gained contact, quickly rowed through a crew, and sprinted to the next one. About 200m before the Berlage bridge I told Dennis that we could rate up a bit, which he did. I just wanted to let him know that I was ready to start emptying the tank. Now we had 800m to go. Rating up brought some unrest in the crew, so we stuck at 32/33spm. It was a long stretch rowing from the Berlage bridge to the finish at De Hoop rowing club.

Immediately after crossing the finish, our coxswain got his phone out of his pocket and announced that we were in the first 20.

In our division, we were 19th out of 63 boats. Not bad. Funny that we finished on a shared 19th position. The first 6 boats of our division were all rowing with formed elite rowers (mostly Olympians).

Happy faces after the race. In the background the Berlage bridge and the high rise office buildings at the Omval

We spent an hour preparing the boats for transport, and then it was time to get warm by taking a shower. I had some time for a quick coffee before I was headed to the airport. Took a flight to Munich, where I arrived at 1am, slept for a few hours and then continued with the 6am flight to Toulouse.

What a great race day!

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kaart

Nov 4 2018

Coxed Quad Training – Race Prep

That was an intensive experience.

The one and only training of the Masters C 4x+ Naarden/Brno combination, Richard, Jos, Sander and Dennis. I was on 3 seat following the stroke Dennis.

It was a glorious but cold November morning. In the warming up we started at 24spm straight away, zipping around the Fortress of Naarden. This was tough for me on three, as my main job was to copy and reinforce the stroke rhythm of the Dennis, but I was a tad slower on the tap down. These guys row an aggressive tap down!

After about a kilometer, we arrived at the beginning of the Muidertrekvaart and that’s where we used the 4km to do various drills. Fixed seat, quarter slide, full slide at various pressures and stroke rates. It was fun.

Passing under the Hakkelaarsbrug we started the final stretch of the “there” part of the row, starting gently but then pushing up the stroke rate to finish at 30spm after two kilometers. I was working hard, and you can see it from my heart rate response.

On the “back home” part we started with a drill again, alternating full length strokes with quarter sliding. At the Hakkelaar it was announced that we would do the next 4km in steady state, 28 spm. Okay!

Here’s a video taken at the end of the 4k and during the warm down:

The facts in graphical form:

That was the race prep! On Sunday (this afternoon) we’re racing in Amsterdam.

On Saturday afternoon, I gave a rowing data clinic. I will post about it later on the Analytics Blog. After the training I went for a walk through the fortress. I grew up here and learned to row at this club:

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Oct 15 2018

From One Extreme To The Other

Title will become clear later. But first, race pictures:

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Sunday – Quad Heaven

Half of our Head of Prague eight decided to go out as a mixed quad on Sunday afternoon. I sat on three seat instead of my usual stroke position and I loved it. Because of the heavy wind, we chose to go into the gorge and enjoy the autumn colors and the castle. It was absolutely gorgeous. As it was the day after the race, it wasn’t a very taxing row.

Recorded with the Garmin because I left my SpeedCoach as well as my phone at home. So no stroke rate data.

 

Monday – Erg Hell

This week is supposed to be a volume week, but I have to represent my boss at a meeting in Brussels, which cuts out almost 48 hours. Not knowing exactly how the rest of the week will unfold training and energy wise, I decided to take the heavy session today, even though I had raced just two days ago. I thought I could consider Sunday’s row as a recovery row.

Not.

I thought 240W would be a good target power for this 4x2km/5min row.

Not.

After one interval, I was convinced I was doing fine.

After the second interval, I knew the third one was going to be hard.

After the third interval, I negotiated a lower power for the fourth one with myself.

After 100m in the fourth interval, I broke down completely and just rowed a 2k cooling down.


Workout Summary - media/20181015-1845320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|16262|51:38.0|01:35.3|150.0|20.5|149.4|179.0|15.4
W-|07975|31:36.0|01:58.9|214.0|24.2|159.4|179.0|10.4
R-|08291|20:01.0|01:12.5|049.1|14.5|133.6|179.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01975|07:22.4|01:52.0|240.8|25.6|159.8|175.0|10.5
01|02000|07:37.3|01:54.3|240.1|25.5|167.7|179.0|10.3
02|02000|07:34.9|01:53.7|240.5|26.0|170.6|179.0|10.1
03|02000|09:02.1|02:15.5|147.9|20.5|142.8|149.0|10.8

I forgot to pull a stroke in the fourth rest interval, which messed up the stats a bit. The total distance was a lot less than 16km.

Oh, I rowed with the Quiske pod and RowP app  during the warming up.

I may have inserted the pod the wrong way under the slide, because I got 0 score for “Seat Stopped” and “Leg Speed”. Will try next time. I like how the app gives feedback during the row.

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