Aug 6 2017
Saturday: Sprintervals in the double – minus one GoPro camera
Friday
Another heat wave day. I decided to cross train, cycle to work (15km) and, after only half a day of work, cycle home (15km), which was a good endurance workout in the heat. I took the afternoon off and did some work around the house, helped by my son Dominik.
I didn’t know the route through the city center is shorter:
Saturday
We drove to Pardubice, where we celebrated my youngest son’s eleventh birthday at my mother-in-law’s place. Big lunch. Then coffee with birthday cake. Then unwrapping of gifts, followed by a refreshing hour of splashing in the pool.
At 5pm, my brother-in-law Tomas and I, as well as my daughter Lenka and her boyfriend took off to the University rowing center in Pardubice (where Tomas is coaching). Tomas and I took a double, and Lenka and Vasek would row a quad with two Pardubice student girls.
I fitted the double out with my GoPro camera, because I wanted to film this workout.
Then we were busy getting the girls (+ one boy) out on the water, and in the hassle I forgot to put on my heart rate belt. I only noticed that after the row.
I also forgot to record the cooling down on the SpeedCoach (because I was pretty exhausted by the time we started the cooling down). So for the entire row, I only have the Garmin Forerunner recording:
The workout was great. The only minus was that we got terribly waked three times by a waterskier. Normally water skiing happens on a lake not far from Pardubice, but this guy decided it was a good idea to do water skiing.
I also noted that Stand-Up Paddle boarding has reached Pardubice. There was a SUP rental station 500m upstream from the rowing club, so there we would row through about 15 paddle boarding beginners. Exciting!
One of the wakes must have washed my GoPro off our front deck. We ended the row without camera. It’s a pity I don’t have the footage, because it was a good workout and we wanted to look at some technical flaws. I am not too depressed about losing the camera. I was a very early adopter of the GoPro, so I am due for an upgrade! 😉
The workout was 2x(8×45″/1:15″)/5min. The 8 intervals were chosen to fit nicely into the 4km stretch of river that we rowed on. It was an interesting experience. There were intervals where Tomas was perfectly in sync with my rhythm, and there we hit 35spm easily with good pace. But about half of the intervals were “miss”. We were slightly out of sync, which means that the boat suddenly feels heavy, you have difficulty getting the stroke rate up, and about 20 seconds into the interval you feel the lactate rush to your legs.
Work Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|-Pwr-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00206| 00:45 |01:49.2| 32.0| 000 | 000 | 000 | 8.6
02|00222| 00:45 |01:41.3| 33.3| 000 | 000 | 000 | 8.9
03|00217| 00:45 |01:43.6| 33.3| 000 | 000 | 000 | 8.7
04|00226| 00:45 |01:39.5| 36.0| 000 | 000 | 000 | 8.4
05|00210| 00:45 |01:47.1| 33.3| 000 | 000 | 000 | 8.4
06|00218| 00:45 |01:43.2| 33.3| 000 | 000 | 000 | 8.7
07|00215| 00:45 |01:44.6| 33.3| 000 | 000 | 000 | 8.6
08|00219| 00:45 |01:42.7| 34.7| 000 | 000 | 000 | 8.4
09|00205| 00:45 |01:49.7| 32.0| 000 | 000 | 000 | 8.5
10|00198| 00:45 |01:53.6| 32.0| 000 | 000 | 000 | 8.2
11|00204| 00:45 |01:50.2| 33.3| 000 | 000 | 000 | 8.2
12|00201| 00:45 |01:51.9| 34.7| 000 | 000 | 000 | 7.7
13|00183| 00:45 |02:2.9| 30.7| 000 | 000 | 000 | 8.0
14|00189| 00:45 |01:59.0| 32.0| 000 | 000 | 000 | 7.9
15|00220| 00:45 |01:42.2| 36.0| 000 | 000 | 000 | 8.1
16|00227| 00:45 |01:39.1| 36.0| 000 | 000 | 000 | 8.4
Workout Summary
--|03360| 12:00 | 1:47.1| 33.5| 000 | 000 | 000 | 8.4
Sep 26 2017
Unexpected focus on boat run
Because I had swapped Friday and Saturday, messing up my three day schedule of hard/easy/easy workouts, I had another hard distance row to do on Monday. Saturday was 8km. This time it would be the 7k. Probably a bit shorter. I wanted to row it without 180 degree stop and turn interruptions. From the 90 degree turn close to Veveří castle to Sirka is 6.5km.
Doing so many of these makes it easier to churn out another one. One gets used to it.
Arriving at the rowing club, I discovered that I had forgotten my SpeedCoach. No power values. I would have to row this one purely on ‘boat feel’. Well, that actually wouldn’t be a bad idea, and the flat water on the river part of the 6.5km would help keeping a focus on technique.
I used the Garmin Forerunner as my reliable data recording tool. On the Android phone, I had a choice between Quiske RowP, but that doesn’t export sessions yet, a non activated version of CrewNerd, and an app I had never personally used: BoatCoach. Well, my rowsandall support for this app was long overdue, so why not try out that one.
So the row started by crossing the lake and then a 5 km paddle through the gorges. On the lake I noticed a stiff tailwind, which would be a headwind battle on the hard distance part of this session. In the gorge, there was no wind and mirror flat water. Cool. Also cool was that some of the tree are slowly turning yellow.
I didn’t get BoatCoach to give me reliable information about stroke rate. The value kept jumping up and down between 10spm (missing to register a stroke) and 40 spm (registering boat movements as strokes). I tried several settings combinations, playing with stroke sensitivity and phone orientation. Nothing helped.
That is how I arrived at the castle, rowed up to the turn, and turned the boat. A few moments of doubt snd contemplation, and then I set off.
I wasn’t sure what pace to hold so I tried to row on feel, but I was happy to see faster than 2:10 at a pace that seemed sustainable. As spm on BoatCoach was unreliable, now and then I counted strokes over 30 second intervals. Thirteen to fourteen strokes consistently, so 26 to 28 spm.
It was fun. I had the comfort of my rear view mirror. Although I still had to look now and then to make sure, because the contrast between the reflection of the trees in the water and the trees on the bank wasn’t great, it allowed me to turn, pick a course, and row 10 to 20 strokes without checking, focusing purely on letting the boat run, getting that springy lightness into the catch, sitting up straight, and generally showing the wildlife how good rowing looks. (Or so I pretended.)
In the narrow and twisty part I had to hug the bank to avoid an oncoming big tourist boat. I also noticed that the reported pace showed values below 2:00. Looking at the GPS trace, the cause is clear. This is not me needing a steering clinic:
The GPS of the phone apparently didn’t like rowing under the trees in the gorge.
Coming on to the lake I was still holding a 2:09 average and feeling good. This row was a blast!
After the nude beach (without nudes) I hit the headwind. Pace slowed down to 2:20 as I battled through that. Towards Rokle the lake started to be a bit more shielded. I wound up the rate. The water was flat again, and boat speed responded positively.
I wasn’t too exhausted after this row, and my heart rate values are in a nice range, slightly lower than on the previous few hard distance rows.
Paddled home happily. In the locker room, I casually mentioned that I did a full out 6k. Actually, a 6.5k.
By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 7 • Tags: head race prep, lake, OTW, river, rowing, single