rowing

Nov 11 2016

6k Season’s Best

My wife Romana told my I was crazy to plan a 6k full out attempt for a Friday. I agree that being tired at the end of the working week is not the ideal preparation. On the other hand, Friday is the only day where I have a chance of getting home early enough to do the 6k before dinner.

The (ambitious) plan was to try and row a 1:51.5 average pace.

First, I did a thorough warming up:

Then on to the main event. The plan was to start conservatively and hold the average pace at 1:52 until I reached 1800m to go.

Of course, trying to hold 1:52, I pulled 1:51 and even 1:50 more frequently than 1:53, and so I reached the half way point with an average pace of 1:51.5. Still, it seemed to take ages to reach 4500m to go. I went by 300m intervals. They go by fast enough to see progress, and there’s “just” twenty of them.

I tried to remind myself to remain conservative, but a few times in the 4500m to 1500m interval I got carried away and started pulling 1:50 strokes.

In the end, I paid for that. With 900m to go I started counting sets of 12 strokes. With 600m to go I was convinced I wouldn’t make the end without going above 2:00 pace. In the end I limped home with 1:54 pace.

Summary:

Workout Summary - media/20161111-17100719o.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|06000|22:20.5|01:51.7|26.7|177.9|184.0|10.1 W-|06000|22:20.5|01:51.7|26.6|177.8|184.0|10.1 R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|00.0|000.0|184.0|00.0 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|00500|01:51.8|01:51.8|25.8|154.6|171.0|10.4 02|00500|01:51.5|01:51.5|25.7|173.6|175.0|10.5 03|00500|01:51.6|01:51.6|25.9|176.8|178.0|10.4 04|00500|01:51.6|01:51.6|26.3|177.3|179.0|10.2 05|00500|01:51.2|01:51.2|26.3|179.2|180.0|10.3 06|00500|01:51.2|01:51.2|26.5|180.4|181.0|10.2 07|00500|01:51.5|01:51.5|26.8|180.6|181.0|10.0 08|00500|01:50.9|01:50.9|26.8|182.2|183.0|10.1 09|00500|01:51.1|01:51.1|27.1|182.7|184.0|10.0 10|00500|01:52.2|01:52.2|27.1|182.8|184.0|09.9 11|00500|01:51.6|01:51.6|27.8|182.6|183.0|09.7 12|00500|01:54.3|01:54.3|27.7|180.9|183.0|09.5

I did this “beginning of the winter” 6k exactly a year ago, on November 11, 2015.

Then, I did a 22:28 time with an average heart rate of 177 bpm. Today it was 22:20, with an average heart rate of 178bpm. A year ago, I used a spreadsheet to analyze the row. Today, I can use the power of rowsandall.com and have additional interesting graphs:

bokeh_plot-1 — Peak and Average stroke power

bokeh_plot — Work per Stroke vs stroke rate.

In the Work Per Stroke plot, you can see how I used a range of stroke rates to try and remain at the same average pae (the green line). On the site, I can actually select the first half of the row and compare it with the second half:

And here is that dramatic last 1000m:

First, you see me rate down and increase the work per stroke. Then I fall down to a lower force per stroke. In the final strokes I rate up a bit but the work per stroke goes down even more.

After the row, I sat on the erg holding the bar. I was afraid to faint.

I didn’t faint. After five minutes of just sitting there, I had enough energy to do a 10 minute cooling down.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: 6000m, 6k, concept2, erg, OTE, rowing, test

Nov 10 2016

Snow!

First snow of this winter. Just a little and all dry and powdery. Nothing big.

Two sessions today. The first one was a gentle 15km bike ride from work to home, which was after the snow had turned into rain, and also after the rain had stopped.

https://www.strava.com/activities/771683402

The second session was a strength training. Also 45 minutes. Just to get into it again. I mainly focused on the upper body.

To add some illustrations, a few random pictures from my local friends on Strava. Everybody seemed to be excited about the snow and eager to go out and do some sports.

For fun, I overlaid parts of my ride over 19th century maps that are available on-line. It is interesting how many of today’s roads are exactly where the roads used to be 150 years ago. I wonder how my bike ride would have looked, cycling through the 19th century.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: bike, crosstraining, ride, rowing, strength, training

Nov 9 2016

Steady State row and bike ride

Monday

Working from the Prague office. Train ride to Prague. Then full day of work, finished by a dinner with my sister who happened to in Prague for business. Then a bus ride home. Got up at 5:20am. In bed at 00:45, technically Tuesday morning.

Tuesday

Notebook switch at work, which meant I was 4 hours without computer, and after that spending a big proportion of my time setting up my environment to my needs. I arrived at home tired and frustrated. Still managed to get down to the basement to do an erg row, but stopped after 10km to continue watching TV (US elections).

The rowsandall.com site now gives two kinds of Pie chart. One is based on heart rate zones and the other is based on Power zones.

The left plot is the power based Pie chart. The right plot is the heart rate based one. I think there is merit in using the power based one. I pushed on the gas from the first minute, and I think the left graph reflects that, with most of the row in UT1 zone and about a quarter of the row in the AT zone.

I contemplated staying up and watching the US elections, but in the end I decided to go to bed.

Wednesday

Well, this is certainly not going to be business as usual!

One of the first things I did this morning was checking the results of the US presidential elections. I can’t say I am surprised, having been in the US often enough, but definitely this will shake things up, and I am not sure whether for the good or the bad. Let’s say it is certainly an impulse for Europe to get its act together.

I cycled to work. It was cold, this morning, -2C according to the weather report, and it felt like that. A cold, sunny winter morning.

https://www.strava.com/activities/770315065/overview

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: concept2, erg, rowing, steady state, training

Nov 6 2016

Velká Baba Run

The title of this post, “Velká Baba Run”, can be translated in many ways. The Czech “Velká Baba” is, depending on the context, either a big old lady or a (slang) “big babe”. Velká Baba is also the name of a big hill close to my house.

Today’s run was not a loop, because I had to run to the rowing club to pick up my car. Yesterday night I was not legally fit to drive, so the car remained parked at the rowing club.

I put car keys, cell phone, rowing club keys in a little waist belt and took off. The climb of the “big babe” hill is quite steep.

After that climb it went downhill along the golf course and into the village of Jinačovice. After Jinačovice there is a nice part where you run through the fields.

Unfortunately, the best hiking trail marking system in the world turned out to have a weak spot at the right turn of the “red” trail. That, or I failed to see one of the markers.

Here is the part where I went straight (faint red line) instead of turning right with the red trail. I realized this pretty soon and had to consult the map on my phone. It was immediately clear to me that running back 100m and continuing on the red trail would have been the sensible thing to do, but that’s not how I am wired. I was running alone, so I was free to follow my twisted personality and try to run across the forest to pick up the red trail. That’s where you see my right turn. First, I ran across some wet and muddy fields. At a few points, I was afraid that my running shoe would stick to the mud, stay stuck, and I would find myself running on socks, but that didn’t happen, luckily.

The part through the forest was wild. There was no path, and it was uphill, so it was more hiking or climbing than running. I found back the red trail, but had to consult the map a few more times to determine the nicest way to run to the rowing club.

A nice 75 minutes of running/hiking.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: rowing, running, trail, training

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Nov 6 2016

Saturday: The Frog Event

Every year, my rowing club has a closing of the season celebration, called “The Frog”. It’s a fun day, followed by a fun evening. There are two mandatory parts of The Frog. In the afternoon, we have an awards ceremony for our club’s best crews. Then, late in the evening, there is another award ceremony, called “The Anchor of the Year”. The Anchor is awarded to a person or a crew who contributed most to slowing down our boats (which should be taken in a very broad way). Usually, the Anchor is given to a good rower who decided to end his racing career, or to someone who caught a crab in a crucial race. All in good spirits, of course. The Anchor is a big trophy in the form of an anchor, and a 1.5 L bowl of beer, to be emptied in front of the crowd during the celebration.

As I entered the changing room in the morning, the Boys (11-14 years) were already nervously debating who would receive the “Boys crew of the year” award, and they were even preparing their speeches. It was fun to listen to. Actually, one of the joys of being a master rower in a rowing club is listening to the kids discussions in the changing room.

We’re a small club but we take rowing pretty seriously. Here’s a video from our weights room, where we regularly set up ergs in this “double” or even “triple” configuration:

A club’s spirit is hard to describe. Perhaps browsing through our photo pages will give you an impression.

Anyway. before the activities would start, I wanted to get a steady state row in. Carrying my single to the dock, I realized that this could very well be the last OTW row of this year. The water level is getting lower every day, and our dock is almost resting on it’s lowest possible level, which means that if the water recedes even further, we either have to pull our a temporary small dock or we won’t row.

Also the weather has changed a lot. A few weeks ago we had this ideal autumn weather. Here’s a picture that was taken from the other rowing club, on the opposite side of the lake, that pretty much captures where we were rowing:

But the temperatures have dropped and on most days it is either windy, or rainy, or both.

Today it was dry but very windy, so I opted for the river. The workout I did was a 4x12min with 1 minute to turn, which exactly fits in the part of the river that is rowable. (Past the castle, the water depth is less than 15cm and I am afraid of fin damage.)

A pretty good Steady State session, I would say.

Then it was time for “The Frog”. The first part was a Futnet (Noheybal) tournament, to which I didn’t participate. I am a complete and utter failure in all ball sports, and I would actually be risking injuring either myself, or my team mate, if I would have participated. Here is our Futnet field, part of the club grounds:

If you don’t know the sport, here is a (longer) video that shows pretty much how it is played:

At 4pm, the tournament was interrrupted for the crew of the year awards ceremony. Yours truly got the “Best Masters Crew” trophy. The “Best Elite” was awarded to Milan Viktora. Here’s a video from the spring head race where you can see the guy has a really nice rowing stroke.

As the evening progressed, the author of this blog had a few more beers (but he wasn’t awarded the Anchor trophy, luckily). It was a very nice evening, but he is not going to write up any details.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: OTW, rowing, single, steady state, training

Nov 4 2016

That great feeling at Lactate=8.9 mmol/L (CTC+lactate test+nonathlon+ranking)

Today was a 4 results in one session. The training plan had a “2 speed test” scheduled. The tests consists of rowing 2x1000m at different paces. The first one at “6km pace” and the second one full out. This month’s CTC is a 1000m, and the 1k is also a ranking distance on both the C2 log book and the nonathlon competition.

I started with a nice 20 minute “Fletcher” warming up:

I have recently read a few studies about warming up and priming the Aerobic system to reduce the build-up of “oxygen debt” at the start of a race/workout. The Fletcher warming up is perfectly in line with the conclusions of those studies: It pays off to do a few bouts of hard strokes during the warming up. Also, the studies showed that the effect lasts for more than 30 minutes after the warming up, so I was confident that the warming up plus the first 1k would prepare me well for the second 1k.

Did I mention that the mental aspect of indoor rowing is huge? I normally told myself that I couldn’t row a Personal or Season’s best in that second 1k, because I would already have 1k at “6k” pace in my legs. Today I told myself that the first 1k was actually part of a very long, scientific warming up.

The first 1k was done in 3:40.9, which corresponds to 260W average, slightly lower than a month ago.

Workout Summary - media/20161104-182905-sled_2016-11-04T17-21-03ZGMT+1.strokes.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|01000|03:40.9|01:50.5|27.1|166.5|179.0|10.1 W-|01000|03:40.9|01:50.5|27.1|166.5|179.0|10.1 R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|00.0|000.0|179.0|00.0 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|00100|00:21.4|01:47.0|26.4|127.5|147.0|10.6 02|00100|00:22.5|01:52.4|26.8|156.5|161.0|10.0 03|00100|00:22.4|01:52.1|27.0|164.4|165.0|09.9 04|00100|00:22.2|01:51.2|26.9|167.0|169.0|10.0 05|00100|00:22.2|01:51.0|26.7|171.5|172.0|10.1 06|00100|00:22.0|01:49.8|27.1|172.7|174.0|10.1 07|00100|00:21.9|01:49.7|27.4|174.7|176.0|10.0 08|00100|00:21.8|01:49.0|27.6|175.7|176.0|10.0 09|00100|00:21.8|01:49.1|27.7|176.7|177.0|09.9 10|00100|00:21.8|01:48.8|27.5|177.8|179.0|10.0

Let’s say I started conservatively, but things went well and I got into a nice rhythm, so eventually I dared to go below 1:50 pace.

After the first 1k, I did 15 minutes of slow paddling, with a lactate measurement at 1 minute and 3 minutes after the 1k. The measured values were 4.1 mmol/L and 3.1 mmol/L respectively.

Then the main event. CTC, ranking piece, and second part of the 2 speed test in one.

Workout Summary - media/20161104-183109-sled_2016-11-04T17-44-18ZGMT+1.strokes.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|01000|03:21.4|01:40.7|32.2|176.9|185.0|09.3 W-|01000|03:21.4|01:40.7|32.2|176.9|185.0|09.3 R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|00.0|000.0|185.0|00.0 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|00100|00:19.1|01:35.3|34.3|136.9|161.0|09.2 02|00100|00:20.4|01:41.9|31.5|170.4|174.0|09.3 03|00100|00:20.4|01:42.2|31.3|176.8|178.0|09.4 04|00100|00:20.2|01:40.9|31.6|180.0|181.0|09.4 05|00100|00:20.2|01:40.8|31.5|181.8|182.0|09.5 06|00100|00:20.1|01:40.3|31.2|183.3|184.0|09.6 07|00100|00:20.2|01:40.8|31.7|184.5|185.0|09.4 08|00100|00:20.2|01:40.8|31.9|184.4|185.0|09.3 09|00100|00:19.9|01:39.3|33.3|184.8|185.0|09.1 10|00100|00:20.2|01:40.9|33.8|184.5|185.0|08.8

I did a race start and 10 hard strokes with my eyes closed.Then I settled to good hard strokes and continued counting.

First 250m went by without any problem. In fact, I reached 600m to go with ease, but then it started to feel hard. But the counting helped, and I managed to even accelerate in the second half. The trick was to watch the SPM and make sure I rated up whenever I saw the stroke rate fall below 32spm. With 150m to go it started to be really hard, but by then I was counting sets of five strokes and I even managed to keep the pace under 1:40 in the 9th 100m interval.

Happy with 3:21.4. It’s a Season’s Best. It’s just 2 seconds above my PB, and it’s a nice improvement of my nonathlon score.

The hardest part was taking the lactate measurement one minute after the 1000m. Breathing hard, shaking, sweating, and at the same time trying to go through the lactate routine is not easy. Wipe hands. Wash hand with wet towel. Dry hand. Prick a hole in a finger. Wipe off first drop of blood. Put the lactate strip in the lactate meter. Try to get the drop of blood at the open end of the lactate strip.

That last part is the hardest. The blood drop is not big. The lactate strip is small as well. I am shaking and breathing hard. Almost everything except my hand and the lactate strip is covered in sweat (which, if mixed with the blood, makes the lactate measurement invalid), and if I miss and deposit the blood drop somewhere else than on the few mm that is the opening of the lactate strip, I can start over.

But I managed even that. The first measurement was 7.5 mmol/L, then after 3 minutes of paddling I measured 8.9 mmol/L, and after 5 minutes the value was 8.1 mmol/L.

So, compared to a month ago the curve shifted to the right, and I did a much faster second 1k. I think that is progress.

In the “weird plots from rowsandall.com” department, here is today’s harvest:

This first plot show the work per stroke for both 1k efforts, using the cumulative plot, selecting a date range that covers only today’s rows, and filtering out all the strokes below 24spm. The Work per Stroke value is significantly higher than in my Steady State rows (where it is about 640 Joules).

The second plot is the peak and average drive force for both 1k rows. The average is 220/90 lbs.

This plot show stroke length vs stroke rate for the two 1000m efforts. Interestingly, I took longer strokes at the full out effort. This again confirms my theory that this is from the increased lay back that I do when I work harder. It’s just a few cm but it looks significant.

Here is an interesting plot from the second (full out) 1k. Instead of a scatter plot, I decided to do a line plot, which connects subsequent strokes. At the bottom of the plot, I enter the chart in the first stroke at 36spm. The second and third (short) strokes go up to 44spm, and then I go through my 10 stroke sequence, each one being at a slightly lower SPM as I start to take more length. Then I spend most of the time in the 32spm/1.42m area. At the end of the 1k, I trade stroke length for stroke rate, go up to 34spm at the cost of going below 1.4m.

Finally, here is another plot from the rowsandall.com site:

It shows my best efforts over the past twelve months (the red dots) and makes two curve fits to the data. The blue line is the famous Paul’s law, and the green line is a “CP model” (something I copied from cycling data analysis). Looking at the green line, which seems to fit the data better, I can predict a target pace for next week’s 6k effort. It amounts to 1:50.9 pace, 256W, and a total time of 22:11. My PB is 22:12.0. Let’s see.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 3 • Tags: concept2, erg, lactate, OTE, rowing, test, testing, tests

Nov 1 2016

Tuesday – 60 minutes Steady State and Stroke Metrics

Steady State was on the menu, and in a lighter form, because this is an easy week. On my commute, I read Greg Smith’s blog about his 4×20’/1′ rest plus stroke metrics session, so I tried to show exactly the same stroke metrics plots for my 60 minutes row. I didn’t take exact 1 minute breaks, but rowed a “Just Row” and took small drinking breaks. Also, I had to interrupt my row a few times (esp in the first 10 minutes) to fiddle with the radio.

My steady state rowing is not at “10 Watt per SPM”, but roughly 15 Watts below that, so at 18SPM, I row 165-170W, etc.

Power versus stroke rate:

My plot is a bit more fuzzy than Greg’s. I seem to be driven to 19SPM at these power levels. 19SPM is like a magnet, and I lacked the concentration to try and hit the prescribed stroke rates better.

Drive length:

On this parameter, I seem to be more constant and in a narrower band than Greg. Now, a metric where I will be significantly weaker. Peak and Average Force:

Interestingly, my average force is much closer to Greg’s than my peak force. A slightly negative correlation, although not as strong as on Greg’s plot. This may be something to do with drag factor and average flywheel speed as well.

Finally, Work per Stroke:

Again, the plot is strongly influenced by me gravitating towards 19spm. This was also one of my rows where I was hitting a higher Work per Stroke than on average. Here is a plot of my rows for the month October:

Here

download-78 — My October Steady State work (capped at 23SPM)

I have capped the data at 23SPM to filter out the hard distance rows. Here is the same plot with today’s data included:

To the left, and upward!

It was fun to do this. As the author of rowsandall.com, I spend more time programming additions to the site than using it for data analysis. And when I do use it for analysis, I can’t help but think of the way the data are flowing through the different pipes and filters:

There are still many good ideas to implement on the site, so the work is not done!

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: concept2, erg, metrics, OTE, rowing, steady state

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rowing

6k Season’s Best

Snow!

Steady State row and bike ride

Velká Baba Run

Saturday: The Frog Event

That great feeling at Lactate=8.9 mmol/L (CTC+lactate test+nonathlon+ranking)

Tuesday – 60 minutes Steady State and Stroke Metrics

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