rowing

Jul 27 2016

Munich here we come

Tuesday and Wednesday: Too busy to do a training. Trying to get everything tied out at work before we leave to Munich.

I managed to move a few meetings to the morning, creating a longer time gap to load the trailer. It turned out to be a good move. Lots of thunderstorms. We managed to get everything done without getting too wet but it took time.

vlek 001 — Four boats, 1 pair of oars, 5 pairs of sculls, two bicycles, riggers, wings and slings. And beautiful towels in the background.

We are leaving tomorrow morning. There will be time for a training in the afternoon, although I will have to dial in to some teleconferences as well.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 4 • Tags: euromasters, OTW, race prep, rowing

Jul 25 2016

Speed work in the single

Sunday

No training. Well, a sort of strength session. We had some work to do on the rowing club. The work consisted of stapling a big mountain of interlocking concrete tiles on pallets. The reason why we needed to do this is a long story that goes beyond the topic of this blog. After three hours of work in 30 degrees we had 23 neat pallets of tiles. At the cost of a few members’ backs.

The dive into the lake was ever so refreshing. So was the cold beer.

Today, I was supposed to have a rest day, but I had to go to the rowing club anyway, because a guy from another club was bringing two boats. My trailer seems to be the only Czech trailer going to Munich. We loaded the boats on my trailer and then we chatted a bit about Munich, and about the Olympics, and the upcoming changes in rowing Olympic disciplines. It was interesting to listen to this guy who is the president of the Czech Rowing Federation.

By the way, if any of my readers wants to row a quad with three fast Czech guys, including the guy I just talked about, let me know. We’re in for a quad. The caveat is: You have to bring the boat. 🙂

Then I went for another ultra-short workout. In these last two weeks I am cutting back on the volume. Today was the “small pyramid” workout, in the single. The weather was extremely humid and hot with a threat of thunderstorms, but almost no wind during my outing.

After 3km of warming up I did the small Pyramid on the straight 2km.

Workout Summary - media/20160725-163344-2016-07-25-1621.CSV --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|07409|39:55.0|01:59.4|29.5|148.7|163.3|09.4 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|02927| 15:42 |02:41.1|18.4|125.0|139.0|10.1 warming up 02|00094| 00:20 |01:45.0|33.3|116.0|142.0|08.5 20" @ 36spm - from standing start 03|00183| 00:40 |01:48.5|33.3|166.0|173.0|08.3 40" @ 34spm 04|00271| 01:00 |01:50.0|32.2|172.0|177.0|08.5 60" @ 32spm 05|00174| 00:40 |01:53.5|33.5|165.0|172.0|07.9 40" @ 34spm - wake 06|00097| 00:20 |01:39.9|37.1|162.0|169.0|08.1 20" @ 30spm 07|03663| 21:13 |02:53.7|18.9|135.0|171.0|09.2 cooling down

During the second 40″ interval I had a choice between trying to sneak in front of one of the big tourist boats, or to adjust my course and go behind him, rowing through his wake. I couldn’t really judge well if I was going to make it in front of the boat with a comfortable safety margin, so I chose the safer option. Rowing through the wake slowed me down of course. Otherwise I am quite happy with the paces, especially since I was rowing them with a nice “light” stroke.

The summary data above are from CrewNerd. I am not sure how it calculates average SPM, but looking at the plot below I do not agree with the 33spm it reports for the first interval.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: OTW, rowing, single, small pyramid, speed work

Jul 23 2016

Munich & Steady State in mixed double

I woke up early and spent some time going through the news on my phone. Of course I found out about the shooting in Munich.

Munich. On Thursday we will go to Munich for the Euromasters 2016.

Munich. A beloved city. Fantastic museums. A very nice old town. Great airport. Nice regattas.

After breakfast, Romana and I drove to the rowing club for a short outing in the double. Steady state and a few practice starts.

At 9:30 it was already warm (around 27 degrees C). The water was perfect. Flat, as if the lake was filled with oil instead of water.

The 3km between 2000m and 5000m on the graph above was like a dream. Every stroke was perfect. Perfect sync. Nice 18spm. Effortless rowing.

Average power is a bit lower than what I perceived. Of course, in the mixed double, power is an average for the entire crew. Also, I calculate power from OTW pace, so any technique deficiencies will reduce the power.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: double, lake, OTW, rowing, steady state

Jul 22 2016

40″/40″ in the double with Romana

Warm, but damp after rain during the night. Twenty degrees. Almost no wind.

The session was a 40″ on / 40″ off. Similar to the session of Wednesday, but 10 seconds longer work and 10 seconds longer rest. Trying to work on relax during the recovery at the higher stroke rates, which led to a slightly lower stroke rate for some of the intervals.

http://rowsandall.com/rowers/workout/531/interactiveplot

Workout Summary - media/20160722-072853-2016-07-22-0723.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|07105|39:25.0|01:58.8|29.4|159.6|174.9|09.6 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|02896| 16:28 |02:46.7|18.0|129.0|167.0|10.0 02|00181| 00:40 |01:50.4|34.6|137.0|168.0|07.9 - standing start 03|00187| 00:40 |01:46.1|31.8|171.0|177.0|08.9 04|00187| 00:40 |01:45.7|33.3|172.0|178.0|08.5 05|00187| 00:40 |01:45.7|34.9|173.0|180.0|08.1 06|00181| 00:40 |01:49.2|33.4|172.0|177.0|08.2 07|00181| 00:40 |01:48.8|31.9|171.0|177.0|08.6 08|03105| 18:57 |02:59.8|16.9|152.0|175.0|09.9

I have been mystified by the “equivalent erg pace” on the plots on rowsandall.com. I was running the exact same algorithm as when I calculate it off-line, but the equivalent erg pace looked weird. Turns out I did one averaging step too much after the calculation of the result. So here is the proud result of today’s row, Power and Erg pace calculated by rowsandall.com, from the OTW pace and stroke rate, using the 2x rigging and weight parameters:

You can play with the original (interactive plot) here: http://rowsandall.com/rowers/workout/531/interactiveotwplot

So pushing around 1:39 – 1:40 Concept2 erg pace, which sounds about right. It is also interesting to note that the often heard phrase “erg pace is a four” is not true. It depends a lot on the crew weight, and it also depends on the actual pace. Looks like in sprint races our mix double is slightly slower than the erg.

Received some great photos of our friends/competitors in the Mixed Double, Karel and Vendula. They had the bronze, we had the silver 🙂 :

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

Jul 20 2016

Speed Work

Still not fully recovered from the race weekend. Tired legs. Painful arms and shoulders. Out in the single today, on a nice calm morning. Hardly any wind. Nice temperature.

The plan was 30″ on / 30″ off and I was determined to do this workout, but I didn’t know how I would get through it. I also decided that in these two last taper weeks the volume should be low, so I planned to:

Thoroughly warm up for 3km with a few 10 stroke speed bursts
Do the sprintervals for a full 2km. That would mean that I would probably get 4-5 minutes worth of high intensity rowing
Thorougly cool down for 5km

So I got help. After 2km of warming up, when I was turning the boat at Rokle, Radek came rowing up in his single. He launches from the other club, so when we don’t go in a double together we are not aware of each other’s training times. I immediately realized that having a sparring partner would have a very beneficial effect on the quality of the workout, so I asked him what he was doing. “Just rowing,” was the answer. Convinced him to row the intervals with me.

Workout Summary - media/20160720-091145-2016-07-20-0640.CSV --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|08745|44:31.0|01:55.1|30.2|167.8|179.2|09.6 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|02915| 17:00 |02:51.5|17.9|143.0|172.0|09.7 02|00139| 00:30 |01:47.4|34.1|135.0|166.0|08.2 03|00141| 00:30 |01:45.4|32.3|174.0|179.0|08.8 04|00135| 00:30 |01:49.9|32.3|176.0|180.0|08.4 05|00134| 00:30 |01:50.0|30.5|175.0|180.0|08.9 06|00133| 00:30 |01:50.7|32.7|174.0|181.0|08.3 07|00140| 00:30 |01:47.2|32.0|176.0|181.0|08.8 08|00132| 00:30 |01:50.7|32.8|176.0|181.0|08.2 09|00137| 00:30 |01:46.5|34.9|178.0|183.0|08.1 10|00140| 00:30 |01:47.2|32.1|179.0|185.0|08.8 11|04599| 23:01 |02:30.2|20.2|160.0|183.0|09.9

And here is a close-up of the intervals:

During the cooling down I did one 30 second piece to confirm that the wind didn’t have a big influence. It didn’t.

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

Jul 19 2016

Race recovery for Masters Rowers?

So I took a rest day on Monday, just as I was used to from my pre-Masters rowing career. Just went to the rowing club to unload the trailer, get all the boats ready for rowing and chat about the races.

For this Tuesday morning, my training plan prescribed 30″ on / 30″ off speed work. To paraphrase Amy Winehouse:

“They wanted to make me do speed work. Body said no, no, no.”

I knew it when I was driving to the club, I knew it when I carried the boat to the water, and I knew it for 100% when I did the warming up.

So I decided to do technique work in steady state fashion. One stroke at a time. Perfect stroke. Next perfect stroke. Not so perfect stroke. Try to row next stroke perfect. Repeat.

Recovery from a heavy racing weekend takes time. And a sound training plan should take into account the different recovery times needed for different types of exercises. Sprinty speedy stuff needs more time to recover from.

And Masters rowers need longer recovery than Elite rowers, I guess.

Workout Summary - media/20160719-205521-2016-07-19-0709.CSV --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|09953|51:29.0|02:35.3|17.8|151.0|171.0|10.9 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|09953| 51:29 |02:35.2|17.8|151.0|171.0|10.9

I ended up pushing the heart rate really high, because apparently today “rowing perfect strokes” resulted in rowing high pressure, low stroke rate. I am not saying this is ideal, but that is how it went.

I will have to reshuffle a few trainings in my plan for this week. So tomorrow will be the 30″ on / 30″ off, Thursday a recovery row, Friday 40″ on / 40″ off, Saturday recovery row and Sunday Speedy Fartlek. Hopefully, Friday in the double with Romana.

Rowsandall.com

With the OTW Physics calculations done, I thought I would let rowsandall.com stable for a month or so. However, the need to process my own data of last weekend’s races forced me to add a new feature. An interactive plot where you can pick your own y axis parameters. So you can plot both HR and SPM against time or distance, or Pace and SPM, Pace and HR, etc.

And, finally, I stumbled upon forecast.io which featured a free API for historical weather data and aggregates data from many sources, among other Dark Sky’s “hyperlocal forecasts”, data from The USA NOAA’s NEXRAD system (USA) and the UK Met Office (UK), the Norwegian Metereological Institute (which has actually very good data across Europe), as well as METAR data. Forecast.io has a very easy API so it was literally one boring meeting to implement a functionality that looked up the wind speed and bearing at the time and location of the row.

METAR data are taken at 10 m above ground. I was thinking if I need to apply a Hellman coefficient to get to the wind at 1m above ground, and what Hellman coefficient to take. For today’s row, forecast.io wind data (using METAR from LKTB, the local airport), was definitely higher than the very light breeze I had. I measured my wind to be 0.7 m/s. The forecast.io data said 1.7 m/s. Same difference when looking at the data for last weekend. That looks like a Hellman coefficient for neutral air above human-inhabitated areas is a good approximation. It’s just a tool to get some initial data. Better of course to measure wind speed directly.

Finally, a video that talks about using big data in rowing:

And finally, I have ordered my SpeedCoach GPS 2 with Data Pack. I am getting it in a week and a half, at the Munich Euromasters regatta.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: OTW, rowing, steady state, technique, weather

Jul 18 2016

Czech Open Masters Day 2

Masters C 2x

So I ended the Saturday blog by saying that Kazi and I took the double for a quick row and we were flying. Rowing Nirvana. The right stroke. The right rhythm. Microsecond timing precision.

It was noticed. And we were proclaimed the favourites for this Masters C 2x race, by all our friends. Talk about putting on the pressure.

I wasn’t so sure. We were up against an unknown Polish boat. I saw them row the mixed quad on Saturday and was impressed. They rowed effortlessly, and won by a very big margin. One of the guys was just a second slower than me in the single. Also, I had very strong suspicions that this is the Polish mixed quad that beat us in Hazewinkel. Checking this now and confirmed. It’s the same guys. See here. So the men from that mixed quad would be rowing against us.

The only problem was that they didn’t show up at the start. The umpires called them. We waited 5 minutes for them. Then the umpires decided that it was too late and we were started off, only three boats.

Our rowing was far from the Nirvana experience of the previous evening. We were in front, of course, but struggling to keep Olomouc (Polasek/Brazda) behind us. They kept doing pushes to come next to us. In vain. A 10 stroke push at the 500m got some light between the boats and we rowed the final 500m in relative comfort.

Won. A gold medal! And looking at the results, our time was not half bad. Wait, what are those Polish guys Szczepaniak and Bednarek doing among the B rowers (race 1403)? We asked them after the race. The explanation was simple. They hadn’t attended the representatives meeting and were unaware that our race was moved to an hour earlier. They found out 10 minutes before the scheduled start and came late. They went to the race organization to ask and were allowed to row in the B race. They won with a big margin in a time that is comparable to ours.

Mix Double

Talking about pressure, the pressure on us for the double was nothing compared with the pressure we felt for the Mix 2x. Romana and I were the defending champions. Most of the doubles competing in this race are couples, which means that this is a race that is discussed long after the event.

Although we were the defending champions, we were not the favorites. Petr Mitas with his doubles partner Jitka Masatova were. He’s the muscular guy who beat me by 9 seconds in the single. She is a fitness trainer from Prague. Other strong participants were the Cernak’s from Ostrava (husband and wife) and Pardubice/Olomouc (which will soon be Olomouc proper, because Karel will move and he will live together with his beloved Vendula in Olomouc). Romana’s double partner Slavka with her younger doubles partner (but only that, not a couple) were strong outsiders, and on a good day even Neratovice could go fast (not sure about any relationship between Mr Tockstein and Mrs Chovanakova).

We were quick out of the start and executed our race strategy of a very strong opening 15 strokes.That brought us in second position. The good news was that we were not far behind Mitas/Masatova. The bad news was that Karel and Vendula were on our heels.

Still we rated down a bit and tried to save some energy for what we expected would be a very tough second half of the race. With 500m to go I didn’t like how close Karel and Vendula came so I called for a 15 stroke push. This push had an interesting result. Not only did we row away from Karel/Vendula as if they were standing still (and we probably broke them at that point), also did this push bring us in the leading position, a few cm in front of Mitas/Masatova. We didn’t know that at that time, but spectators told us.

Mitas and Masatova stepped on the gas and soon they were in front of us. I didn’t dare to look too often. We were rowing in lane 2, with Mitas and Masatova over in lane 6. Passing the club house I took up the stroke rate a little bit and with 200m to go I really started to push. Unfortunately, also exhaustion started to play a role …

We finished second. A bit more than a boat length behind the winners. But Petr told me later that we scared the hell out of them and he had rowed the second 500m full out to stay ahead of us.

I am also happy that we had a faster time than any of the rowers in the second C race, with all the international participants.

Masters B eight

After the mixed 2x, I spent about 30 minutes lying in our event shelter tent, and then it was time to launch the eight. You can imagine I was pretty tired by now, but this was our revenge race against Blesk of Prague. See this blog post.

In Radek, my “other double partner”, we had a newbie cox. We told him to just keep talking to us. Count. Give information about the other crews. We had a detailed race plan which involved a push around the “water slide” (before the 500m mark) and a “strong last minute”.

We also had the determination to not let Blesk pass us.

Eight races are very emotional events. Fourty eight people lined up at the start. Lots of adrenaline. Big boats that take a while to get up to speed, so the start seems to happen in slow motion. High stroke rates. And, with masters rowing, lots of water splashing about.

Hysterical coxes.

Side wind.

Anyway, we were out of the start well and the first part of our plan worked. At 700m to go, we were half a length in front of Blesk. The bad news was that there was another boat in front of us. And more bad news. The half length lead was shrinking.

We did our push which we executed very well.

I had no tired feeling. All of us were just rowing in a trance.

We managed to increase the lead slightly.

Then it was just a struggle to stay ahead of them. We managed and I got another silver medal.

Overall, this was a super weekend. Four silver medals and one gold, out of five races.

My legs are very very tired today.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: Czech Masters, double, eight, OTW, race, rowing

rowing

Munich here we come

Speed work in the single

Munich & Steady State in mixed double

40″/40″ in the double with Romana

Speed Work

Race recovery for Masters Rowers?

Czech Open Masters Day 2

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