rowing

Nov 21 2015

OTW Row & First Lactate steps

Lactate fun

The “ding-dong” came just before lunch time on Friday. It was the UPS man ringing the doorbell, delivering my lactate meter. I will write a separate review blog about it tomorrow.

It came with a small lancing device but no lancets. No problem. Richard told me that lancing devices are sold in each pharmacy. As I was working from home, I went to the neighborhood Thai for a quick lunch, and as this is in the Czech Republic, there is a pharmacy on every street corner. I am exaggerating just a little. Tried 3 pharmacies and had to explain what I was looking for. I felt very weird, asking for a device to stab myself to get blood. In the third pharmacy they sent me to a shop selling medical devices in the town center.

There, they sold me the Accu-Chek lancing device but the girl told me that they didn’t have the lancets on stock. I asked if there weren’t any lancets in the package with the device. She checked. Negative. I asked her to order them. Tuesday morning.

A bummer, because of course I was very eager to test my new toy.

I ended up trying to stab myself with a (sterilized) needle. This was very painful and yielded just a minimum of blood, which I used to waste two strips.

This turned out to be harder than I thought.

This morning I finally opened the package with the Accu-Chek for a closer inspection. To my surprise there was a set of lancets packaged with the device.

The manual to the Accu-Chek said to first test at depth setting “2” (out of a max 5.5). I tried that, but apparently have a very thick skin. After a few more stabs I managed to get a reasonable drop at the maximum setting. It took another two stabs (and one wasted strip) until I had my first reading: 1.5. Hurray!

Tomorrow I will do my first test. I will probably miss one or two data points but who cares. I can repeat it next week.

I am going to the “long step test” where I will do a few 10 minute steps around my presumed 2.0 mmol/L intensity.

My club mates did the classical 4 minutes step test and the trainer has determined their training bands from that. Unfortunately I missed this opportunity. I don’t have the raw data but here is what I reconstructed from the training bands published in our club house:

Quite impressive numbers … I am afraid that when I will do this test, I will be somewhere to the left of this graph.

Today’s Row

We still don’t have a winter dock built and the water level is continuously falling. When I arrived at the club, the air temperature was +3 degrees C and the water was colder.

Instead of wading in, I decided to build an improvised dock. Actually, I was quite proud of the end result which was perfectly usable:

vlot 001 — First part of improvised dock

The water next to my improvised dock isn’t very deep, but when I had removed a few big stones, it was deep enough for a single.

Today, I didn’t have a lot of time, so I did one rate ladder, 4-3-2-1-2-3-4 minutes at 18-20-22-24-22-20-18 spm.

| Tstart_ | Tstop__ | Dist_ | Time_ | Pace__ | _SPM | avg HR | max HR | DPS | Remarks | 00:00.0 | 13:09.0 | 02278 | 13:09 | 02:53.2 | 18.9 | 140 | 153 | 09.2 | WU | 13:09.0 | 17:09.0 | 00831 | 04:00 | 02:24.5 | 17.6 | 144 | 152 | 11.8 | 18spm | 17:09.0 | 20:08.0 | 00639 | 02:59 | 02:20.1 | 19.6 | 154 | 161 | 10.9 | 20spm | 20:08.0 | 22:09.0 | 00454 | 02:01 | 02:13.2 | 21.8 | 164 | 167 | 10.3 | 22spm | 22:09.0 | 23:08.0 | 00227 | 00:59 | 02:10.0 | 23.1 | 169 | 171 | 10.0 | 24spm | 23:08.0 | 25:08.0 | 00387 | 02:00 | 02:35.0 | 21.4 | 166 | 171 | 09.0 | 22spm; turn | 25:08.0 | 28:10.0 | 00596 | 03:02 | 02:32.6 | 19.6 | 161 | 165 | 10.1 | 20spm | 28:10.0 | 32:09.0 | 00774 | 03:59 | 02:34.5 | 18.0 | 159 | 165 | 10.8 | 18spm | 32:09.0 | 47:15.0 | 02927 | 15:06 | 02:34.8 | 18.9 | 149 | 162 | 10.2 | CD

dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment 2278_____|_13:09____|_2:53.2|140|18.9|9.2|warmup 3907_____|_19:00____|_2:25.9|157|19.4|10.6|Main set 2927_____|_15:06____|_2:34.8|149|18.9|10.2|Cool down 9112____|_47:15____|_2:35.6|150|18.8|10.3|_Total

I still have mixed feelings about the new WordPress.com editor. Today I discovered that I miss the “code" buttons in HTML editing mode.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 6 • Tags: lake, OTW, rowing, single, steady state

Nov 20 2015

Steady State & Strength

Working from home today and taking the opportunity to start a little later.

I sat down on the ergometer when I normally start working. What happened next shows how conditioned we human beings can be. I did easy steady state and was listening to a lecture in parallel. About 5 minutes into the row, just as I was starting to sweat a little, ideas started flowing.

Work related ideas.

The nice thing about long rows and runs are that you get into this trance state where you are not overcritical to your own ideas any more. A big opportunity for the creativity muscle to start working.

So I had to stop, open up a text editor, and start taking notes.

Row.

Take notes.

Row.

Take notes.

The result was something like this:

By the way, rowing like this, starting “cold” and slow, then steady state but with a big drop in intensity at the end, messes up the value for Heart Rate Ratio Drift. For this row the value ended up being 11%. I have looked at a few older rows and I am normally below 0 and 5% in my steady state rows.

After the 30 minutes easy erg I did a strength session. I believe that variation is not bad, so I try to change exercises according to what I have available. Today I was working from home, so it was body weight, bodylastics bands, a small 3kg dumbbell, a pullup bar, and a Swiss exercise ball. Stations, i.e. 3 sets in a row on one exercise, then move on to the next

Pull ups – I did them slow and thoroughly and managed 10/9/7
Pistol Squats with a dumbbell – 15/15/15
Dorsal raise on Gym Ball – 15/15/15
Squats – black bodylastics band – 15/15/15
Crunches & twist 10/10/10
Squatted row with orange bodylastics band (somewhat like a bench pull) – 15/15/15
Lunges with dumbbell – 15/15/15
Breast press with blue bodylastics band. I put the door anchor higher than in the bodylastics instruction booklet, which I feel makes it more like a bench press but it has some aspects of a push-up as well: 15/15/15

Then some stretching, a glass of milk and some yoghurt, and a black coffee, and on to the home office.

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

Nov 18 2015

Steady State erg

A long working day ending with a meeting that started at 9am – Arizona time.

Standard steady state erg today. A 25 minute solo row, then a 30 minute online row on RowPro, and a 9 minute cooling down. My legs hurt quite a lot from DOMS from yesterday’s intensive run, especially the climbing muscles.

My lactate meter is on its way to me. UPS says it is in transit and on time, and has left Krakow, Poland, an hour ago. Exciting times. It will be interesting to see if I have been doing my steady state rows at the right intensity.

I have the feeling that I am rowing at a lower heart rate than a year ago, and I tried to compare “beats per km” which would slightly eliminate the pace effect … Beats per km was mostly above 600 in the 2014/15 winter, and mostly around 590-600 in this winter season. Could also be different clothing, or a different humidity/temperature etc.

Here are some pictures from yesterday’s run that I discovered on the internet. The guy with nr 416 was the guy I tried to run towards to during the second loop. I didn’t make it all the way to him but he was a good target. I am #313.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 6 • Tags: concept2, erg, OTE, rowing, steady state, training

Nov 17 2015

Jehnice running event

A national holiday today. Last event in my test week(s). The 10km run in Jehnice, three bus stops from my home. For some reason, I skipped this event in 2014, but this year I participated.

First, the kids run. Dominik came last on the 1000m which is a quite intensive run. The first 500m is a steep climb. Then a loop around the cemetery and then a steep descent. Robin was somewhere in the slower half of the 600m run.

Then the 6km. Lenka ran and finished 279th place but happy with the effort. 35 minutes and a few seconds.

The 1ok consists of a 1k segment, then two loops on Rakovec hill, and then the 1k segment again. Here is the Strava record of my run:

https://www.strava.com/activities/434324951

It’s nice to run an event with a few more Strava users. I set a personal record on the Rakovec – Koně segment. Also, I clocked 47.07 for the run, which is 41 seconds faster than two years ago. I ran negative split. Started to push the pace a bit on the first climb and passed quite a lot of people. Then relaxed on the descent and started to push the pace harder on the second climb. The climb is that Rakovec – Koně segment mentioned above. In the first loop I did it in 12:26, in the second loop I managed 12:03. My previous PR was 12:31. This is 2.6km with an average climb grade of 3%, 91m of climb in total.

Good effort.

In the afternoon I visited a local food market.

It was very nicely situated in an old rail cargo building. Good atmosphere. Nice food to taste.

Test evaluations

VO2 Max vs Peak Power. The ideal is 40-45%. My value is 50%.

Anaerobic threshold vs VO2 max. The ideal is 80-85%. My value is 81%.

I didn’t do a test to determine aerobic threshold. The “Rowing Faster” book recommends a 60min to 75min full-out steady state row. Greg uses his power at 2.0 mmol. I am sure he can row a fater full-out 75 min steady state than the 195 W he uses.

The Jehnice run tells me I am in better general fitness shape than 2 years ago (or perhaps running a little more often). My anaerobic threshold vs VO2 max is in the right ballpark. I may be able to improve on my 6k a bit. Peak Power is too low and could be improved.

Conclusion: I am on the good path with my current training schedule. I expect that adding the strength training into the mix makes me row my 2k at a lower percentage of my peak power, which will make it a more sustainable effort. I hope to improve my 2000m score in the coming winter.

On the 6k I may or may not PB this winter but I should really try. 🙂

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 3 • Tags: erg, OTE, rowing, running, test, testing, training

Nov 15 2015

2000m erg test: Classic and Too Conservative

Testing week. Today was the time for the dreaded 2000m.

I rowed the test in the afternoon. Spent the rainy morning, after a heavy breakfast, with the boys in Brno’s science centrum VIDA which was good fun. Having physics qualifications, I tried to fulfill my duties to science and society by patiently explaining the principles behind the experiments to the boys, but I am afraid some of my explanation was lost and they ended up running enthusiastically between the attractions.

Then a light lunch and some work preparing dinner. We’ll have my special “Turkey a la Duck” with red cabbage. Food that needs a lot of time to be prepared.

Lunch digested well enough, a quick espresso and off to my erg cellar. Did a full fletcher warming up without looking up the prescribed paces, just did the stroke rates as prescribed and let the pace come by itself. Some stretching and prepare for the main event.

I wasn’t sure what pace to aim at. My PB being 6:58.something, but not having done a 2k in ages, I thought that a 7:02 – 7:04 (i.e. 1:46 pace) would be a good target.

Standing start, of course. Race start and ten hard strokes with eyes closed. Opened eyes, saw 1:37 on the monitor, and slowed down to 1:46 pace, doing about 30spm.

My check points would be 1200m to go, 600m to go, 300m to go.

Of course I checked average pace after 500m: 1:44.1. That was of course due to the first hard 10 strokes which, as every rower knows “are for free”. I continued to row my 1:46 pace.

With 1200m to go I decided to accelerate. I was doing fine and decided I could risk this. If I would die a few hundred meters later, I would probably still be able to hold a pace that would bring me in on target.

I didn’t feel the usual panic at 1000m, which was strange. Usually I have this panicky feeling:
“Is this half way? You can’t be serious! I will not be able to hold this pace for another 1000m.”

Today? Nothing. Half way. OK.

With 900m to do I started to see the occasional 1:46 and had to work a bit harder to get back to the 1:45 pace. My predicted end time was now between 7:00 and 7:02.

I sat up a bit more straight and focused on technique. That brought me to 600m to go. I kind of accelerated but it wasn’t entirely consciously.

Entering the last 500m I started to count sets of 10 strokes and saw the splits come down. With 300m to go I started my final sprint and saw 1:43 splits.

That’s the point when I started to be aware of my mistake.

This was painful but it should have been much more painful.

Predicted end time was showing 6:58. Shit. That’s my Personal Best (at least as a Masters). I tried to add some power and get the monitor to show a 6:57 predicted end time but unfortunately I was running out of water. Finished the 2km with the feeling that I could have done at least 10 more strokes.

Disappointed? Not really. This was much faster than I expected, and the fact that it was relatively easy is a big confidence booster.

I say relatively easy, because of course I was tired.

But no erg cough. No urge to lie down on the floor. And I definitely didn’t have that half way panic, and that feeling with 300m to go that you have to short slide and pray that you can somehow hold the pace, seeing it slip slowly in the final 100m.

Workout Summary - Nov 15, 2015 --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-DPS --|02000|06:58.3|01:44.6|306.0|31.6|177.8|09.1 Workout Details #-|EDist|-Etime-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|DPS-|Comments 01|00100|00:19.6|01:38.1|370.3|36.7|135.9|08.3| 02|00200|00:40.6|01:44.8|303.9|28.6|166.5|10.0| 03|00300|01:01.7|01:45.7|296.0|31.2|171.8|09.1| 04|00400|01:23.0|01:46.1|293.2|31.1|175.8|09.1| 05|00500|01:44.1|01:45.5|297.9|31.3|178.1|09.1|average 1:44.1 06|00600|02:05.3|01:46.1|292.8|28.3|179.5|10.0| 07|00700|02:26.4|01:45.4|298.6|31.3|179.5|09.1| 08|00800|02:47.5|01:45.8|295.5|31.2|181.0|09.1| 09|00900|03:08.6|01:45.1|301.4|31.4|181.2|09.1| 10|01000|03:29.5|01:44.9|303.1|28.6|182.0|10.0|average 1:45.5 11|01100|03:50.5|01:44.9|303.2|31.5|182.0|09.1| 12|01200|04:11.5|01:44.7|305.0|31.5|182.5|09.1| 13|01300|04:32.6|01:45.9|295.1|28.3|183.0|10.0| 14|01400|04:53.8|01:45.6|296.8|31.2|182.7|09.1| 15|01500|05:14.7|01:44.6|306.2|34.4|182.0|08.3|average 1:45.1 16|01600|05:35.6|01:44.5|306.4|31.6|182.9|09.1| 17|01700|05:56.4|01:44.2|309.3|31.7|182.8|09.1| 18|01800|06:17.1|01:43.4|316.4|31.9|183.0|09.1| 19|01900|06:37.8|01:43.6|315.2|34.8|183.0|08.3| 20|02000|06:58.3|01:42.6|324.4|35.1|183.0|08.3|average 1:43.7

The 500m splits are a OTW rower’s classic. Fast first 100m. Cruise the middle part. Then accelerate.

Did a 4km cooling down. Then looked up my PB time: 6:58.2.

0.1 second faster than today’s effort. Damn.

I wanted to do this again.

Took a shower instead.

Next 2km attempt I need a bit more “contempt of death” and perhaps I will be able to seriously improve my PB. That’s not a bad outlook, isn’t it?

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: 2000m, 2km, OTE, rowing, test, testing

Nov 14 2015

Saturday: Running Jehnice with the girls

On Tuesday (a national holiday), there will be the Jehnice run. The girls, my daughter Lenka and her training partner Iva, will run the ladies 6km. I will run the 10km. Today we took the bus to the starting point and ran the 6km loop.

Instead of taking the bus home, the girls were happy to run 4km more, so all in all it was a nice 10km. I did a little back and forth running but all in all their running pace between 5 and 6 minutes per km is not bad.

For me it was a nice recovery run. I arrived at 00:30am after a tiring trip back from France.

Paris

When I checked my email in the morning, I noticed one of those automatic travel alert emails that we get when on business trips. Usually this information is quite innocent (strikes, demonstrations, traffic disruptions), but this time I read about the terrible attacks in Paris:

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By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: recovery, rowing, running, training

Nov 13 2015

Hotel strength session

Thursday

No training. In the morning I was in our Falcon doing the flight test.

We did 1 approach in Ostrava and 2 in Brno. Doing a low fly over the runway in a bizjet is always impressive.

Then I took the taxi to Vienna airport and a regular flight to Toulouse, arriving there at 10pm.

Friday

Almost an hour of strength in the hotel room:

Curl biceps 15 15 15
Squat 15 15 15
Push ups 15 15 15
Sit ups 15 15 12
Pistol squats 15 15 15 each leg
Row 15 15 15
Squat 15 15 15
Dips 15 15 15
Back 15 15 15
Bench press 15 15 15
Pull up 15 15 15

For the squats and curls I used the bodylastics bands. Row, bench and pull up where with bodylastics bands and door anchor.

Good workout. Here is my travel bag:

With the bands and door anchor it contains:

A wardrobe
Toiletries
An office
A library
A fitness center

Not bad. I am approaching one bag ninja warrior status.

Too bad I discovered that I left the door anchor in the hotel room. Well, I believe there is another one in the set at home, or else I can call the hotel if they found it – or order a replacement.

Full day of meetings. Now waiting for flight at Toulouse airport. Arriving home after midnight, but the good news is that I will go through Amsterdam so I will have a chance to purchase Dutch reading stock.

In other good news, I have an offer for a very reasonably priced lactate meter and strips. I will get it to try out of the lactate religion is something for me. 😉

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: rowing, strength, training

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rowing

OTW Row & First Lactate steps

Steady State & Strength

Steady State erg

Jehnice running event

2000m erg test: Classic and Too Conservative

Saturday: Running Jehnice with the girls

Hotel strength session

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