single

unnamed

Apr 8 2020

Maiden Voyage in a Socially Distant World

Lockdown status update

So the last time I wrote was on March 31. Here is how the number of positive tests developed. The source is https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data.

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The two charts are the same. Just that the right hand side is plotted on a logarithmic scale, so you can see how we are slowing down the growth. We are doing all the measures to make sure the healthcare system will be able to manage. So here is an interesting set of charts, taken from https://covid19.healthdata.org/czechia:

So according to the predictions, the number of Intensive Care beds should be sufficient, even if you take into account the uncertainty. The picture for invasive ventilators is the same. Here is a comparison between Czech Republic and Portugal, both countries with 10 Million inhabitants, reaching 10 confirmed cases on the same date.

So what is the difference? Let’s look at the lockdown measures.

Looks pretty identical, right? There may be a couple of differences:

  1. Czechs have been pretty disciplined in taking the measures seriously, especially in the first three weeks
  2. Czechs are not a “hugging” nation. I don’t know about Portugal, though, but here people greet with a nod or with a handshake (we don’t do that any more). Czechs don’t kiss or hug every time they meet each other.
  3. Face masks. It seems that virtually overnight, around the 17th of March, we have turned ourselves into South Koreans or Japanese. Previously, the only people wearing face masks were Asians at the airport and in the tourist hotspots. When the government announced mandatory coverage of nose and mouth outside your property, when there was a shortage of face masks, people were told that some protection is better than no protection, and that the masks serve to protect others in case you are infected, not the other way round. In a day or two, enough people were making face masks at home to supply an entire country of 10 million.

Wearing a mask is now seen as an act of responsibility. It’s unpleasant, but if it helps, it helps.

None of the numbers provided above are to be seen as scientific evidence, but I would say that wearing a home made mask is not a big sacrifice to make, especially if it allows to get the virus under control and start thinking about easing up some of the other measures.

So since a few days, the crisis team of the Czech government are starting to think about how to ease the measures, and allow more economic activity. This debate is very difficult, because it’s a huge balancing act. How do you protect the vulnerable groups while allowing others to go about their business? How do you balance “smart quarantine” measures with data privacy laws?

The first thing that is now possible again since two days is: Individual sport without a face mask. Maximum group size 2 persons.

Yes, we were already running in the forests and parks, but we were wearing face masks. And we were out in nature. All sports facilities (even outdoors) were forbidden. So for me as a rower that meant: No rowing on the water.

We have been working with the club board yesterday to install a way to comply with the government measures but still allow some rowing, now that external sports facilities are open again.

  1. We have a strict timing policy on when you are allowed on the club ground, governed through a simple Google spreadsheet. So if I want to launch at 9, I block the 9 to 9:15 time slot in the spreadsheet, and that is the only time when I am allowed on the club ground. This can be easily checked through the chip key access. In this way, a maximum of two persons is present on the club ground at any time. Of course they are wearing face masks.
  2. No access to any of the indoor facilities. You arrive in your rowing clothes, do your training, and shower at home.
  3. Desinfection of all surfaces you’ve touched.

I hope this will gradually be eased. But I guess it is more realistic to take a week or two between each subsequent easing step to see if we are not creating a second wave of infections. Crossing fingers!

Trainings

So what sessions have I been doing last week?

On April 1, I did a run:

I ran pretty slowly, taking pictures here and there:

I cannot remember if it was an easy run or a hard one, but I did really enjoy it. It was the first time in four days that I left my property.

On Thursday, I did nothing. Meetings from 7:30 AM to 7:30 PM.

On Friday, I did the land workout. It’s a workout I found on this youtube channel and it’s pretty balanced, doable and nice. I had a pleasant muscle soreness the next day.

On Saturday, it was time for an indoor rower session in the garden. It was great weather. I did 4 rounds of “Dart Games”. That’s a pretty nice way to work on stroke consistency. The trick, I discovered, is to not fuzz about the curve on the monitor, but to get in a trance, listen to the flywheel, and try to focus on leg pressure. I managed a high score of 14,625 points (out of 15,000 max)!

Unfortunately, BoatCoach disconnected itself in the middle of the second game, so the chart looks a bit weird.

On Sunday, I had a lot of computer work in the morning, and then I procrastinated before doing my workout. Actually, I switched on the TV and watched a movie “Catch 22” that they were broadcasting. Great movie, but not the smartest thing to watch during a lockdown.

The workout was 4×4 min/4min, a variation on the Pete Plan 4x1km/4min. I hate time based workouts, but I get why we’re doing them (to make it easier to do them in groups). Anyway, after three intervals I felt like Yossarian and just quit.

Well, three is better than nothing.

On Monday, I had to pick up a parcel at a parcel delivery spot, and I decided to take the bike. It was also a good way to air my two teenage boys who rode with me. Bike riding with a face mask is hard work.

It was a nice ride. Also interesting to see the town center again. It looked pretty busy, but I quickly realized that a normal Monday afternoon would have been much more busy. Parcel collected and a 90 minute bike ride is kind of equivalent to a 60 minute row, I think.

On Tuesday, April 7th, I did nothing. Even though I am on COVID-19 related unpaid leave (furlough) this week, I still find I have a pretty busy schedule. With two colleagues from work, we are trying to deploy a low cost video conferencing tool for basic schools. I am doing some maintenance work on rowsandall.com, and there is some volunteer work I am doing. So … busy days.

I also discovered that I started a bit too late with the hayfever pills, and on Tuesday I was suffering.

Maiden Voyage

So, with on-the-water rowing legal again thanks to the disciplined behavior of all people around me, I was able to row on the water today. Thanks, everyone!

This means a lot to me, because I have a new boat. It was sort of the last thing to arrive from Italy before the rowing club closed, so I hadn’t done anything with it except putting it together. Today was the day to test drive it. Here is the boat:

I won’t tell you its name yet.

First, I did a 1km paddle. I had to return to the club to adjust a few things. Luckily, the 15 minute slot after me was empty, so I could return and do some adjustments. After that, it was a prefect row on a flat lake.

Here are a few more charts, just for fun.

Unfortunately, the NK Empower Oarlock had some issues. Even though I had put in a freshly charged battery, it would disconnect from the SpeedCoach every few minutes. After a few times, I didn’t bother to reset it. So that’s causing the flat areas in the power curve.

So this was great. Of course, we will miss a big part of club life, and it’s not clear if there will be any racing in the coming few months (I personally don’t think so).

I am also aware that my readers who are in full lockdown may be very jealous. I am sorry. I know the pain. One day, also you will be taking out your single again. Remember, when that happens, it is because all people around you were disciplined and took COVID prevention measures seriously.

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mapka

Jul 14 2019

Sprint preparation

Saturday

The plan prescribed a 60 minute steady state session. It was a very rainy day, and Romana and I decided to do go indoor swimming. I swam 2000 meters and needed nearly an hour to complete it.

Sunday

Planned session:

20 minutes warming up

750m @ 32spm / 4min

500m @ 34spm / 4min

250m @ 36spm

20 minutes cooling down

It seemed the rainy weather was gone, so after lunch I rode the scooter to the rowing club. Unfortunately, the single rain shower of the day occurred exactly during my scooter ride, so I had to ride slowly and arrived completely wet. The lake was entirely calm after the rain shower, so I was looking forward to an awesome row.

Unfortunately, the wind grew stronger during the row. There was also two motor boats playing catch-up on the lake, creating some irritating wakes, and a few sailing boats to avoid. So I ended up having to do all intervals in quite a heavy chop / wake.


Workout Summary - media/mailbox_attachments/2019/07/14/f147438091254dc0a6a7732d15537f15.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|-Avg--|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|-SPM--|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|02558|14:20.7|02:55.0|204.0| 27.0 |155.0|184.0|09.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|-SPM--|AvgHR|DPS-
02|00750|02:51.1|01:54.2| 316.0 | 31.5 | 154.0 |08.3
04|00500|01:54.8|01:54.9| 301.0 | 33.0 | 169.0 |07.8
06|00250|00:54.9|01:49.9| 337.0 | 35.0 | 158.0 |07.8

The map shows the issues. The first 750m, I was able to row pretty straight inside the buoyed lanes. I wanted to continue down the course, but then I noticed the two motor boats chasing each other, so I turned and rowed back, then noticed the motor boats were going up the lake, so I turned again, and even had to take a direction outside the buoyed course to avoid a collision, then returned to the course in a heavy wake. The final 250 was rowed in the buoyed course but with pretty heavy chop.

The peak in power coinciding with a dip in pace is me turning into the buoyed course during the 500 and hitting the motor boats wake.

After the intervals, I did a 4km cooling down. It was a short but intensive row.

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20190705_102451

Jul 13 2019

Back on the sliding seat again

On Sunday, June 30th, Kazi and I rowed a fun fartlek style workout in the double.

Then, on Monday, we drove off to Romana’s family cottage in the Giant Mountains, Czech Republic, where we were joined by my sister, her two sons, and a close friend.

And that was the start of a near two week intermezzo of unstructured cross training, which consisted mainly of hiking, but also involved sawing, hauling logs, building camp fires, and other pleasant mountain activities.

We did a five day trek through the mountains, doing an average of 6 hours of hiking a day.

Some nice mountain huts. Some unexpected encounters:

And of course we had to cherry-pick:

Thursday was travel day and on Friday, I had my first outing in the single after this good break.

The weather was funny. It was clouded and there were intense rain showers, which lasted about 10 to 20 seconds. I got totally wet, but it wasn’t unpleasant, because the air temperature was still around 22 degrees.

The workout was just paddling and a few pieces to establish a baseline, going into the last 8 weeks of preparing for the World Rowing Masters Regatta. After a few warming up sequences and practice starts, I did the following pieces:

  1. Trying to hold 330W for as long as possible. I basically broke down at the first bite of lactate pain.
  2. A four minute piece, evenly paced, maximum Watts
  3. A full out one minute piece

The first piece is slightly above what I think I can hold for  a 1k race.

This was rowed into a slight head / cross wind.


Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00588|02:16.2|01:55.7|335.7|31.7|000.0|0.0|08.2

I originally wanted to continue pushing until the average power (on the NK SpeedCoach) showed 5W below the target, but somehow, after the vacation, I wasn’t prepared for the lactate rush and I just stopped rowing. Well, 588 meters. It’s a baseline, and I think pushing this out to something closer to 1000 meters is realistic.

I did a 3000 meter paddle to recover, then started a 4 minute piece. The goal of this one was to row it flat pace (power) but max out over four minutes. I was careful this time and chose 300W as the target.


Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00981|03:50.6|01:57.6|298.9|29.5|000.0|0.0|08.6

Again, this was done from a race start.

I was surprised by how low I could rate but decided not to bother about stroke rate. It turns out I was at 600 J Work per Stroke, which is above what I am aiming for. Need to work on lightening up.

The third piece was a full out minute, from a standing start, which I did after a 2.5k paddle.


Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00254|00:57.0|01:52.4|395.7|35.7|000.0|0.0|07.5

I have no heart rate data, because I forgot to pack my heart rate band. So why am I doing all this? Because, using the Critical Power plot functionality of rowsandall.com, I can use those three pieces to get a feeling for where I stand in terms of 1k fitness:

The chart takes data from yesterday’s pieces, plus a few longer pieces that I did in the fall and this spring. It doesn’t contain sprint data from the 2018 season.

Here’s a close-up:

This section of the CP curve starts at one minute and ends at five minutes. I expect the sprint races to take between 3:40 minutes and 4 minutes, depending on the weather conditions. The green curve is a conservative estimate and gives guidance for training pieces, while the red curve indicates where I should be for a regatta .

So the goal for the coming 8 weeks is clear.

Shift the red curve to the right and up.

The beauty of using the CP chart is that you can use different pieces, and you’re independent of the wind strength. I could do a full out 1k test, or I could repeat the pieces I did yesterday (what I intend to do) or I could use data from interval sessions.

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May 18 2019

The working week (Monday to Friday)

Monday

A busy day at work and no training. I decided that recovery from an intensive weekend of racing was a good idea.

Tuesday

Weights! My personal trainer decided that I am ready for the “big exercises”. So we did only three of them:

  1. Bench press
  2. Dead lift
  3. Squat

The protocol is to start with light weights (or only the bar) as a warming up, then gradually increase the weights until I can do about 10 repeats, with stretching between each series of 10. Then weights are increased one more time to get to failure somewhere between 5 and 10 repeats. After that weights are reduced again to do a few series at 15 repeats.

For the deadlift and squat the protocol was a bit more gentle. We didn’t push to failure but stopped at the point where I was starting to fail on technique, i.e. I was starting to use the wrong muscles to just get the weights lifted.

After that we did some 10 minutes of exercising the core.

Boy, I did feel this training the next three days.

Wednesday 

I have started calling our Masters eights crew together, and this time it was a success. We had 11 candidates show up, so we hit the lake with a double, a single, and an eight. The water was slightly rough and the coxswain slightly inexperienced, as the map clearly shows:

I had some data challenges. Forgot to charge my heart rate belt.

Well, it was just steady state. A pretty short workout as well, as some of our crew members were time pressed.

Thursday

More data issues. I still haven’t managed to sort my regatta bag and move some essential equipment from the regatta bag to the training bag. I have a pretty good system. A separate “rowing electronics” bag that goes into my small training bag or my big regatta bag. The problem with regattas is that they are so hectic that I become messy with where I put my gear. So rowing electronics ends up in the wrong part of my regatta bag, and then I show up on a training day to discover I have left the SpeedCoach holder at home. Sigh.

At least the OH1 heart rate arm band was charged. However, it didn’t seem to respond very well in the first 20 minutes of the workout.

The session was 4 series of 6×45″/75″ at race pace. These series are tuned to our lake length, and after doing one, I wondered if I would be able to complete the workout. In the end I manned up and just did it. It was so beautiful rowing weather that it would have been a sin to shorten the time on the water:

I gave myself some technique targets, focusing on finishing the stroke strong. I am not sure if I am fooling myself, but it looked like I was faster when I focused on that. Here are the data to prove it:

I am charting “Wash” vs “Boat Speed” for each “on” stroke. The line is my totally unscientific interpretation of the data. So a 5% pace improvement? That would be encouraging!

Friday

Another weights session. Bench press. Squats. Deadlift. And cable rows. Seventy five minutes of heavy work. I am due for a light steady state session today.

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mapka2

May 4 2019

Getting ready (?) for first sprint races

Tuesday – April 30

A long weights workout. Mainly worked on breast and shoulder, and legs.

Wednesday – May 1

A bank holiday in the Czech Republic.

5x6min. Power values by estimation and likely overestimated in the headwind intervals and underestimated in the tailwind ones

Romana and I went out in the mixed double. The workout was 5x6min with  a few minutes break. The even intervals were to be rowed at 26spm and the uneven ones at 22/24/26, making a shift every two minutes.

It was a bit windy, so we decided to row in the gorge. There were crowds of bank holiday paddle boarders who didn’t really respect the traffic rules, but we managed. It was a fun workout. We also made progress getting to our signature light, highly effective stroke.

Friday, May 3

A glorious morning row. Mirror flat water. I went out in the single. The workout was a brutal


6x(6x20strokes/15strokes)/5min at race rate

No heart rate data as I had forgotten to charge my OH1. I really enjoyed doing those 20 stroke sprints. I kept the stroke rate between 30 and 32.


Workout Summary - media/20190503-1040460o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15379|85:51.0|02:47.5|164.5|22.9|0.0|000.0|07.8
W-|04578|18:32.0|02:01.5|331.1|31.7|000.0|000.0|07.8
R-|10836|67:22.0|03:06.5|118.6|20.5|000.0|000.0|07.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00092|00:21.8|01:58.5|305.8|30.2|000.0|0.0|08.4
02|00123|00:29.2|01:58.6|321.6|31.1|000.0|0.0|08.1
03|00123|00:28.6|01:56.1|327.8|31.4|000.0|0.0|08.2
04|00124|00:29.0|01:57.2|311.6|31.1|000.0|0.0|08.2
05|00138|00:31.8|01:55.6|339.4|32.0|000.0|0.0|08.1
06|00125|00:29.2|01:56.7|327.5|30.6|000.0|0.0|08.4
07|00133|00:31.4|01:58.1|332.4|30.6|000.0|0.0|08.3
08|00132|00:30.8|01:56.3|332.0|31.3|000.0|0.0|08.2
09|00125|00:29.1|01:56.7|315.9|30.8|000.0|0.0|08.3
10|00120|00:27.7|01:55.5|336.7|32.4|000.0|0.0|08.0
11|00120|00:28.1|01:57.0|328.1|32.2|000.0|0.0|08.0
12|00138|00:32.3|01:56.7|329.2|31.9|000.0|0.0|08.1
13|00117|00:28.5|02:01.8|365.6|33.7|000.0|0.0|07.3
14|00123|00:29.0|01:58.1|317.0|30.8|000.0|0.0|08.2
15|00132|00:31.2|01:58.5|328.5|30.9|000.0|0.0|08.2
16|00132|00:31.4|01:58.9|328.1|30.9|000.0|0.0|08.2
17|00132|00:31.7|02:00.3|325.1|30.5|000.0|0.0|08.2
18|00124|00:29.1|01:57.4|321.7|30.7|000.0|0.0|08.3
19|00129|00:41.9|02:42.3|352.2|36.3|000.0|0.0|05.1
20|00127|00:29.3|01:55.6|309.5|30.4|000.0|0.0|08.5
21|00128|00:29.5|01:55.3|314.7|30.2|000.0|0.0|08.6
22|00120|00:27.8|01:55.4|334.7|32.3|000.0|0.0|08.1
23|00133|00:31.2|01:57.2|310.5|30.8|000.0|0.0|08.3
24|00123|00:28.6|01:56.1|321.0|31.4|000.0|0.0|08.2
25|00129|00:51.0|03:18.0|357.3|32.2|000.0|0.0|04.7
26|00125|00:29.2|01:57.1|315.7|30.7|000.0|0.0|08.3
27|00139|00:32.4|01:56.7|330.9|31.4|000.0|0.0|08.2
28|00122|00:28.9|01:58.1|327.6|31.2|000.0|0.0|08.1
29|00122|00:28.6|01:57.5|327.7|31.4|000.0|0.0|08.1
30|00125|00:29.1|01:56.7|322.1|30.7|000.0|0.0|08.4
31|00131|00:40.7|02:35.5|352.8|34.3|000.0|0.0|05.6
32|00131|00:30.5|01:56.4|328.5|31.6|000.0|0.0|08.2
33|00132|00:30.6|01:55.8|338.8|31.2|000.0|0.0|08.3
34|00133|00:30.4|01:54.6|332.2|31.5|000.0|0.0|08.3
35|00143|00:32.8|01:54.4|349.6|32.7|000.0|0.0|08.0
36|00134|00:30.2|01:52.5|355.8|33.8|000.0|0.0|07.9

It was nice to be back at race pace again. And it’s about time. I am racing next weekend. The summary algorithm didn’t catch all the intervals entirely correctly, but you get a good impression of what I did and the paces I achieved on this perfectly flat (still pretty cold) water.

You can also see from the map that our buoys are back in place again, and I am rowing perfectly straight lines in a buoyed course.

After my row, I hosted some guest rowers from Amsterdam, who are visiting Brno for rowing and having fun:

Two Brits, a German and 5 Dutch guys and one Dutch lady. They did two workouts on Friday.

In the evening I joined them for dinner and then visiting one nice Brno bar. It has an aviation theme and specializes in rums. A friend of mine commented that rum is for sailors and aviators drink beer, but I am willing to forgive that mistake because of the nice atmosphere of this place. I think my guests liked it too.

Saturday

Up early because of my son’s rowing training. So I hit the water too, of course. There was a pretty intensive workout on the plan, but during the first interval I changed my mind and did a long, low intensity steady state instead. I still felt the fatigue after Friday’s intervals (or was it the drinks).

This time I drew an interesting figure on the map. Is it only me or do others also see a bird?

The Empower Oarlock ran out of battery after a few minutes, so no power data after that point:

The long breaks were the points where I paddled back to the dock to (finally) welcome the Amsterdammers (who had slept in) and waiting for them to see them row by.

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maxresdefault

Apr 7 2019

No fiddling!

These guys seem to be happy fiddling, but the combination of Sander, rowing electronics, and fiddling is not a pretty sight.

Today there was too much fiddling with the Quiske app. I had moved the sensor to under the seat, but I am always uncertain about the correct orientation of the pod, and there is no quick google answer to that. Quiske has a couple of user guides and other documents, but all I need is a simple table which I could print out and put on the inside of my locker door.

Pod Position Pod Orientation
Under Seat (OTW) Oar handle from logo pointing to stern
On oar Oar handle from logo pointing to rower
On oar Pod facing towards bow during drive
Under Seat (OTE) Oar handle from logo pointing to erg handle

I think I got this correct, but I need to check it.

What added to my frustration is that the Quiske app sometimes doesn’t update the lines. The only way to get it to behave again is to go out of the application, kill it, and start again. Or, at least, that seems to be the procedure. On the water, of course, I am trying out all kinds of menu and settings combinations before I kill the app.

Anyway, enough about fiddling.

When I had finally set up my gear correctly at the end of the warming up, I was happy to find myself alongside another Masters team. In the spirit of GDPR, I shall not reveal who it was, but suffice to say it was a big, coxed, sweep boat. And there were eight ladies in it. Of varying age. The prettiest lady being Martin on stroke seat.

So, of course, I wanted to focus on technique, get some good Quiske curves measured at various stroke rates, but I also wanted the eight to not pass me.

We did three full lake stretches of about 3 kilometers each, and the score was 3-0 for the single sculler. Well, in the first two stretches the eight was also doing technique drills, but in the final one, they were rowing at a steady pace.


Workout Summary - media/20190407-172713-Sharing file: SpdCoach 2136923 20190407 0426PMo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11412|67:38.0|02:57.8|162.0|22.9|148.8|184.0|07.4
W-|05264|24:53.0|02:21.9|216.5|23.6|164.1|184.0|09.0
R-|06157|42:45.0|03:28.4|130.3|22.6|139.9|184.0|03.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00490|02:29.0|02:31.9|196.0|19.8|134.5|143.0|10.0
02|00150|00:46.0|02:32.9|186.3|19.5|134.7|145.0|10.1
03|00221|01:04.8|02:26.7|207.1|21.2|161.1|164.0|09.6
04|00251|01:10.0|02:19.7|229.8|24.0|164.9|172.0|08.9
05|00233|01:04.3|02:18.2|256.0|26.0|171.4|176.0|08.3
06|00422|02:01.0|02:23.3|193.3|20.8|152.7|161.0|10.0
07|00282|01:17.1|02:16.6|214.6|23.0|164.1|170.0|09.5
08|00284|01:10.0|02:03.2|265.3|27.4|170.2|177.0|08.9
09|00120|00:30.9|02:08.3|266.6|27.3|158.2|163.0|08.6
10|02810|13:20.4|02:22.4|215.9|24.4|172.3|184.0|08.6

The summary table shows the splits for the pink intervals shown on the chart. Looks like it was a bit harder training than intended. Well, I don’t think it hurt me. A bit of good sparring with random other crews (preferably when they are not aware they are in a race) is always healthy, I think. It pushes me a bit further.

And now follows a whole bunch of Quiske charts.

Headwind 3km, 22, 25 and 27spm intervals
Tailwind part – entire recording, 22spm , 25spm and 28spm bits

An interesting observation. At 22spm, my seat is accelerating during the recovery, but as stroke rate increases this acceleration disappears and at 28spm (and higher) the maximum seat speed is during the middle of the recovery.

Seat speed during recovery is, for me on the single at least, an intuitive thing. I hope I am trying to not slow the boat down too much, but to be honest I am not sure how I determine the subtle things (or not so subtle things) I do on the recovery. I did not try to change my natural rowing style in this outing. I just wanted a good baseline of my current style.

The new(ly discovered) red lines on the Quiske chart

By accident, I produced the above chart with the handy red lines on the Quiske web portal. I presume the lines coincide with, from left to right:

  1. Maximum deceleration of the boat (that is where Quiske places the start of the stroke cycle)
  2. Maximum acceleration of the boat
  3. Maximum boat acceleration during recovery (?)
  4. Seat speed reversal point
  5. Same as 1.

So what can we learn from this chart? To me the most significant point to notice is how much the boat slows down after the seat speed reversal. What Quiske cannot say if this is before or after the blade has entered the water. Here is a “powerpoint attempt” to determine this.

So what have I done here? I basically combined a few analyses from yesterday and today, selecting strokes at 27-28spm. I looked at the boat acceleration curves (not shown here) and determined that they were all very similar. From that, I conclude that these curves represent my typical (average) stroke at 28spm. Then I took screenshots of the oar angle velocity and seat speed curves (measured at different days) and in PowerPoint, I overlaid these charts, drawing a few vertical lines to indicate “significant” moments during the stroke. From left to right:

  1. Maximum boat deceleration point (Quiske stroke cycle start). Both the scull and the seat are moving. Quiske doesn’t tell if the blade is already in the water or not. During my rowing, I am making nice “V” splashes with the blade. That means that at entry, the blade is not moving in the reference frame of the water. However, because the boat has a non-zero speed, this means that I must be already moving the oar (and seat). At this point, the seat speed is about 0.56 m/s, the oar angle velocity is about 29 degrees per second from the measurements) and the boat speed is 3.1 m/s. If I wouldn’t open my back, then with my rig, the seat speed would translate to a blade speed creating a forward splash. If I look at the oar angle speed, the blade hits the water with a slightly negative speed, creating a backward splash. What happens in reality, I think, is that the blade enters the water a bit earlier than the Quiske stroke cycle start. The conclusion that I am opening my back still holds though. Interesting. Need video evidence.
  2. I have drawn the second black line at the point of maximum seat speed. What I find interesting here is that the oar angle speed curve shows a more pronounced bend than the seat speed curve. That would suggest that I stop opening my back here. After this point, the seat speed starts to decrease while the oar angle velocity keeps increasing. This is where I start the back swing.
  3. The third black line is at the point where the seat stops and my oar angle velocity is close to maximum. I suspect that this is close to the moment where I end the back swing and start the arms only phase.
  4. The fourth black line is at the point where the oar changes direction. This is slightly after the tap down.
  5. The fifth black line is at the point where my seat starts rolling again. Arms are away and, hopefully, the body is rocked over. Or is it?
  6. The sixth black line is at the end of seat acceleration. You can see that during the entire seat acceleration phase, the oar anglular velocity is roughly constant. That suggest that my body rock over hasn’t fully finished when my seat starts to go towards the stern. This is not necessarily a bad thing. After this line, there is a phase where seat speed and oar angular speed seem to be coupled well (taking a cosine by eye!), which indicates that during the second half of the recovery I am already in catch position.
  7. The seventh black line is the point where seat and oar angle reverse. These points coincide. Nice. This is also just before the catch.

Interestingly, this set of measurements shows no sign of any funny movement just before the catch, like an extra reach or anything. I am sure Olympian rower have better timing around the catch than I do, but all in all I don’t see any big flaws, apart from using a back opening to do the catch.

And that’s a long story to say I need side video analysis.

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bokeh_plot (27)

Apr 6 2019

Week Review

Monday

No exercise.

Tuesday

Prototype testing day. Romana and I were out in the double wearing some interesting new rowing kit. I am not going to tell much about it, but it was very interesting.

After the session, we analyzed the data, and zoomed in on a technique flaw of mine, around the catch. I should get my GoPro out and do a good side video, or have someone shoot a good side video from the launch. What we saw from the prototype’s data, my shoulders do a funny extra moment just before the catch.

I am wondering if it is related to this thing:

I mean the red circle. This is my oar angle velocity as measured with the Quiske pod. It basically says that the oar turning point is way before the point where the boat deceleration is maximum. So I am pushing on the footstretcher before my blade is fully immersed. Quiske doesn’t tell me if this is “missing water” or if this coming into the front stops too hard. More about that later (under the Saturday header below).

Wednesday

There are many things wrong with this summary of the 4x5min/4min workout.


Workout Summary - media/20190403-1917150o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07256|35:59.0|02:28.8|152.2|21.0|160.3|182.0|09.6
W-|05326|19:50.0|01:51.7|235.6|26.5|167.4|181.0|10.1
R-|01934|16:00.0|04:08.1|050.3|14.3|151.2|181.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01366|05:00.0|01:49.8|239.1|26.1|164.9|179.0|10.5
01|01348|05:00.0|01:51.2|233.3|25.8|169.2|181.0|10.4
02|01351|05:00.0|01:51.0|239.8|27.0|169.8|181.0|10.0
03|01261|04:50.2|01:55.1|230.0|27.2|165.7|178.0|09.6

The instructions said “4x5min” 1-2 at 26spm, then 3-4 at 28spm. I thought that the coach meant doing the first 1 or 2 minutes of each interval at 26spm, then increase to 28spm. I later found out that I was supposed to row the entire first two intervals at 26spm, and the final two at 28spm.

Oh well.

I actually thought that this was going to be too easy and was planning a fifth interval, to make this look closer to the 5x1500m/5min Pete plan workout. Well, here is what I did:

You see how the chart is missing strokes? That is PainSled dropping strokes, and it seems to be a BlueTooth issue. Greg Smith has done some extensive investigations and found that other apps on the same phone (ErgData) do not show the dropped strokes, using the same combination of bluetooth speakers (earphones) and PM5 connected to the phone through BlueTooth. He’s working with the Painsled developer to figure out what happened and how to correct it.

But you can still see how I was completely gassed in the fourth interval, so I didn’t attempt a fifth one.

The chart above is the Quiske record for one of the intervals, green line for 26spm, blue line for 28spm and red for entire session. Solid lines are handle speed and dashed lines are seat speed.

This chart shows the entire interval average curves for all four intervals. So first the good:

  1. [35% to 55% of time on the chart] Almost no seat movement during the last part of the stroke and the first part of the recovery – which is the arm swing mostly
  2. [80% to 100% of time on the chart] During the second half of the recovery, handle and seat have the same speed, as they should. That means that I am completely rolled up with my back and I am just sliding forward in catch position
  3. … that’s it. I can’t think of any other good things to say.

Now the questionable:

  1. [0-5% on the chart] In the first part of the drive, the handle speed is slower than the seat speed. It looks like I am shooting my bum a bit before the handle picks up speed.
  2. [0-20% on the chart] Nowhere in the first part of the drive is the handle speed equal to the seat speed. Actually, soon after the bum shooting, my back opens and the handle speed starts exceeding the seat speed.

Ideally, you would like to see the dashed and solid lines overlapping for the first part of the drive. The interesting thing was that I was looking at this chart during the row and I had the feeling I was rowing stroke profile that was closed to ideal for many strokes. Below, you will see that I have the same observation on the water. It seems almost as if the Quiske app (used during the row) is more positive than the Quiske cloud (used for post workout analysis, to generate the charts above). I guess I need to start making screenshots during the row.

By the way, I moved away from the “Quiske Virtual Coach” view and started looking at the raw curves directly. I want to work on one aspect of my technique, and the Quiske Virtual Coach gives feedback on 5 points after each stroke. I find that too much data. Using the stroke curve directly, I find it easier to focus on one aspect and on the technique flaw that is related to it.

Thursday

A 45 minute run. This was on the schedule, and it was an ideal way to workout in the evening. It’s light longer now, and I really enjoyed running through the forest.

We have some pretty tough things going on at work, and I am sure I wouldn’t have lasted for 45 minutes on the erg. I didn’t have time to drive to the lake and take a single (it would have been dark already).

In fact, the work things were going through my head during most of my run, and I even wrote up a “stream of consciousness” paragraph or three after the run. I need to look at it, check if it’s total crap or not. But perhaps that doesn’t matter. It was a better way to relax than to watch TV.

Friday

An hour long session in the gym. In fact, I paid a personal trainer to look at my muscles and their balance. She praised my lats and admired my “Plank”, but the rest was heavily criticized. We didn’t really do a workout, but basically went through all the exercises and worked on good form. I have been doing a couple of exercises wrong, employing the wrong set of muscles. Excellent feedback, and I am probably going to take a few more sessions with her, to see how she lays out the program.

Saturday

The workout (OTW) was 2x3km/7min. It was nice weather. Slight rain when we drove to the club but it cleared up. There was a mild wind, which was a head wind in the first interval and a tailwind in the second one.

Here are the summary data (obtained by the Rowsandall summary “Interval by Power” function, which is very handy for OTW workouts).


Workout Summary - media/20190406-0920370o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11309|65:12.0|02:53.0|153.7|21.9|147.9|183.0|07.9
W-|06133|27:44.0|02:15.7|221.9|26.0|172.2|183.0|08.5
R-|05179|37:28.0|03:37.1|103.3|18.9|129.9|183.0|06.9
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00082|00:21.9|02:14.0|224.4|24.6|105.9|108.0|09.1
02|00101|00:25.8|02:07.8|250.2|25.6|138.9|143.0|09.2
03|02974|13:54.4|02:20.3|216.2|25.1|172.7|183.0|08.5
04|02976|13:02.0|02:11.4|227.0|27.1|174.5|182.0|08.4

So a 2:15.7 average pace. Here’s the SPM and boat speed in one chart:

I checked a few 6k efforts that I did in the fall, and there my average boat speed was around 3.7 m/s, so 0.5% faster but without the 7 minutes rest in the middle. Maybe I shouldn’t be too worried about my base speed. Especially considering that my stroke rate was significantly lower than the target rates today. I was lazy, but not slow.

Let’s look at technique. This is from the second 3k. The green curve is just before the end of the interval.

I am disappointed to see that the oar angle velocity doesn’t start at 0! I remember it looking a bit better on the phone screen during the row. It’s also interesting to see the differences between handle speed and oar angle curve. One cannot compare these quantities one to one, as the erg handle goes in a straight line while the scull rotates around the pin.

Being conscious of the catch during the row, I checked my blade splash a few times, and I do have a nice V splash. That indicates that my blade is going in at the right speed. I think that it is too simple to say that I am missing water at the catch. It’s more about the dynamics of how I accelerate and decelerate during the recovery and how much I check the boat around the catch.

I think I need to do some seat speed rows as well and see what’s going on.

In the 2k cooling down I did a technical drill aimed at improving the dynamics around the catch each 500m. That helped a lot.

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