Aug 1 2016
Thursday – Driving to Munich and test of new SpeedCoach GPS Model 2
The drive to Munich was without incidents. We left Brno around 9am and arrived at the regatta course at 3:15pm. The weather was nice and the site was bustling with activity. Romana went off to do her training in the quad and I went to the accreditation to get registered.
Then I walked to the other side of the canal to see Daniela and Dave from Rowline. These guys from Prague were the official Concept2 reps at the regatta, but they also sell NK electronics. I picked up my pre-ordered NK SpeedCoach GPS 2 (and received a 20 seconds introduction on how to operate it) and then proceeded to prepare my single for a row.
The row was a short one. The plan was 3x250m at race pace, with 500m rest. I did a 2k warming up which unfortunately wasn’t captured on the SpeedCoach, because I couldn’t find Just Row in the list of workouts. It turns out you just press the on/off button to get the device ready to record your Just Row and that’s all. This rugged piece of electronics with a simple monochrome display (which is excellent in sunny weather, by the way) works by pressing buttons, in contrast to CrewNerd where everything is done on your phone’s touch screen. I have to get used to that.
At the 2km mark I turned and went into the workouts menu to program my 3x250m workout. That turned out to be pretty intuitive. I like that you can program rest in meters or seconds, whatever you want. I set a 10 seconds countdown, started the workout and waited to see what happened. To be honest I did expect an audio signal at the workout start and end, which didn’t happen. I did the first 250m from a standing start, and looking down at a small screen doesn’t go with sitting in the ideal start position. I am not sure if the clock starts ticking after the end of the countdown or only when it registers your first stroke. Need to look into that. For now it seems that the countdown is more suited to pieces with running starts.
Anyway, I successfully recorded this session. I also was able to look at the session details on the device itself. I liked that.
The graphs were made on rowsandall.com, after I exported the data from the SpeedCoach to a FIT file, which I could upload to Strava, which enabled me to import the data into rowsandall.com. There is something fishy about the data though, so I will need to look into that.
The export of data works through LiNK, an application that runs on your computer. That is nice, but one doesn’t always have a computer at hand, and I think it would be good to be able to sync data to a tablet computer or smartphone directly from the device. Especially for self-tracking athletes, it is quite nice to be able to share workout data immediately through Strava or similar websites.
Here is the session information from the CSV file export:
The CSV file export also has a stroke by stroke table with time, stroke rate, pace, and heart rate information. Rowsandall.com cannot yet process this CSV file but I will work on that. Should be straightforward. It’s a pity that GPS coordinate info is missing from that file, though. I will need to look into a way to upload the FIT file to rowsandall.com directly.
So all in all I am happy with the device but I see a few points to improve (in a next firmware upgrade?):
- Add audio signals – may be hard if there is no way to produce audio
- Export full data (GPS, Heart Rate, stroke rate, pace) also for the rest between the intervals
- Add GPS coordinates to the CSV file export
- Develop a smartphone app to synchronize data from the speedcoach while on the go. (Travel, training camp, etc). Ideally the smartphone app has a feature to connect to Strava, TrainingPeaks, SportTracks, Concept2 logbook
I guess there is work to do to free the NK SpeedCoach data a bit more.
After the row we went off to our hotel, had a dinner and then went bed. Friday – racing day.
Aug 1 2016
Friday – Racing and supporting
Masters C (43 year and older) single
My race was planned for 10:44. The line-up was interesting
Lane 1: Petr Mitas, representing NED but a Czech, De Laak – yes the same guy that beat me at the Czech Open Masters
Lane 2: me, representing CZE, but a Dutchman
Lane 3: GER Michael Helbig
Lane 4: ITA Massimo Patea
Frank Arnold from Germany had withdrawn.
So this bunch was the four youngest participants in the C category. At Euromasters, the singles categories race as follows. Each winner of a heat gets a medal and proceeds to the final. If there are fewer than six heats, the next fastest times qualify for a final as well. If a rower qualifies in more than one age category, he will row the final in his age category, and for the other age category the next fastest time will be selected, so there was an incentive to row fast whatever your position in the field. The finals (one for each age category) for the “Munich Trophy” would be rowed on Sunday morning, before the Mixed events, and the winner would get the Munich Trophy. The nrs 2 and 3 in the final would get a medal.
After my usual warming up routine I found myself at the pre-start with Petr and the rest of the field. Petr and I started chatting (and got reprimanded for being too noisy). Then it was time to row.
Ready
Attention
(I almost shot out of the starting pontoon now but managed to control myself, while the starter was grabbing his flag)
Red flag went up
GO! Red flag down. We were off. Here is a picture of Petr (the guy in blue in the background) and myself doing our first stroke.
Despite the almost false start, my real start was an excellent one. By the 5th stroke I was leading by a length, with Petr in second position.
I managed to stay ahead of Petr in the first 250m, but the distance between us became smaller with every stroke. With 750m to go he passed me. Given my previous race experience with this guy, I decided to stick to my race plan and race for time, as well as defend the second place.
It shows better how the race evolved. I started very fast and then gradually dropped to my race pace as Petr was passing me. The 4.4 m/s of the second half of the race corresponds to a 1:53 pace. I pretty much rowed this out in a flat pace, keeping an eye on the German guy. While rowing in front of the grandstand (which is a full 250m long), I noticed a few 1:58 splits on the SpeedCoach, which motivated me to try and speed up a bit. In the end I was just 4 seconds behind Petr.
Also in the overall ranking I didn’t do bad. I had the 7th time overall, out of 38 participants. I was the fastest guy not qualifying for the finals for the Munich Trophy. 🙁
As this was all my racing for the day, I had the afternoon free to enjoy watching Romana racing, browsing through the merchandise, have a beer, and chat with various people.
Romana was racing an eight and a quad, both races in a younger field than her crew’s age category. They finished last in both races but they took it as a good rehearsal for the Saturday races.
Regarding the photos, I am reproducing the excellent pictures taken by Natascha Kral and the race pictures that I purchased from the official race photographer Patrick Frost. Only the lower quality pictures taken with a phone are my own.
In the evening I did a quick training in an ad hoc quad that we registered on Thursday afternoon. With the high price for late registration, we counted that we would pay 1,50 EURO for each stroke during the race, and although we were age category C they would only let us start in the A category. Still it was attractive enough and the race was on Saturday after my B singles race, so no clashes with high priority races.
Then Romana and I cycled to Dachau. We had an excellent Italian dinner at Mamma Rosa, a very nice place, and then went to our hotel.
By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: euromasters, OTW, race, rowing, single, sprint