Jun 29 2017
Thursday – Failing to break through
Wednesday
It’s a busy week. Lots of things going on at work, including customers visiting and a business dinner on Tuesday evening. On top of that, temperatures are reaching > 30 degrees, already for more than a week, and on Tuesday it was 35 degrees with extreme humidity. At home, the thermostat in the living shows 28 degrees, and in the bedrooms it is warmer. This severely impacts my sleep quality.
On Wednesday morning, I rode to work. It was a dusty, high ozone affair, but I was glad I did it, knowing that the repair of my single hadn’t started, there was strong wind predicted due to cooler air nearing our region, and the fact that I still hadn’t found time to prepare my quarterly Town Hall meeting.
The mailman delivered “How bad do you want it? Mastering the psychology of mind over muscle”. I read just the foreword, because I had a presentation to prepare.
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Thursday
With the Masters Nationals in two weeks, I wanted to know where I stand. I got up early to get the workout in before work, and the plan was to do a trial 1k. I had originally planned to do this one on Friday, but it seemed smart to do it today. When I arrived at the lake, I was greeted by very choppy water. While the coolness has still not arrived (it was 21C at 5am), this is already the second day with strong wind.
I decided to row to the castle and row the 1k on the “straight kilometer”. The wind isn’t weaker on this stretch, but because the river is a lot narrower than the lake, the chop is reduced.
Usually I try to row these trials in calm weather, but this time I thought it doesn’t matter. I have a power meter, right? I am just measuring my max power over a certain duration. So, I thought, I might as well row the 1k in the headwind. Who knows when I will have to row a race in headwind, so I might just as well try to find out how hard I can pull over, what, 4 minutes and a bit? Just 1k. How hard can it be?
Before the row, I looked up my CP chart:
For a competitive person, there is a problem with this chart: It looks like a challenge. I want to move the data points to the right, or up. And as a bonus, if you set up notifications on rowsandall.com, you get a congratulatory email for every time you break through the red line.
For a four minute effort, the green line is at 305W, while the red line is at 326W. So, the plan was to do a start, then drop back to 320W, then try to increase in the final 250m, all the while monitoring technique. I was already composing the blog post with a before and after CP chart. I was also looking forward to rowing this 1000m “smart”, and not fly and die.
The reality was different. I had forgotten how hard 1k rows are, especially in the morning, alone, in non-ideal conditions.
I crossed the lake in heavy chop, then into the gorge. I did a few 10 stroke bursts on the straight kilometer, and a few practice starts after I turned around at the castle. I had the impression that the wind was getting stronger. I lined up for the start, dialed up a 1k, took a deep breath, and got started.
The plan fell apart after 200m. I didn’t know it immediately, though. I came out of the start strokes with 400W, and then I lowered the power by lowering the stroke rate, which probably was a mistake. I should have lightened up the stroke but not allow the stroke rate to drop below 32spm. It is very hard to recover from a low stroke rate. At that moment, I wasn’t aware of these risks. I just saw that there were strokes where the power was getting close to 300W. I tried to get the power back to decent values but it was very hard. Drifting a bit to port, I also had to turn slightly, which doesn’t help with the recorded power on the starboard oarlock. The gusty wind didn’t help either.
Anyway, here are the splits:
Workout Summary - media/20170629-063736-Sanders SpeedCoach 20170629 0653amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|01000|04:13.0|02:04.4|304.8|31.1|176.1|184.0|07.7
W-|01000|04:13.0|02:04.6|303.8|31.1|176.8|184.0|07.7
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|184.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00100|00:24.4|02:01.4|384.0|34.5|135.9|167.0|07.7
01|00100|00:24.0|02:00.7|328.6|31.2|173.9|177.0|08.0
02|00100|00:25.2|02:05.9|313.7|30.9|178.6|180.0|07.7
03|00100|00:25.1|02:04.5|315.8|30.8|180.4|181.0|07.7
04|00100|00:24.3|02:02.6|303.7|30.9|181.5|183.0|08.5
05|00100|00:25.2|02:05.8|298.4|30.6|182.4|183.0|07.3
06|00100|00:26.0|02:09.8|287.2|30.4|182.6|183.0|07.6
07|00100|00:26.3|02:11.3|283.7|31.1|182.9|184.0|07.4
08|00100|00:26.3|02:08.4|282.6|30.3|183.4|184.0|07.6
09|00100|00:26.8|02:14.0|249.9|30.1|182.1|183.0|08.1
Interesting enough, the average split was very close to what I had estimated before. I was expecting 2:05, based on the wind strength. So even though the power was lower than expected, the pace was in the ballpark.
I had about 3km to cool down and think about my failure. In the headwind, and demotivated, I didn’t go very fast. The lake part, the final 2km, were virtually unrowable. I saw plots around 3:30 per 500m. I eventually made it back to the club.
Of course, I want to set a better record. I even contemplated doing this again tomorrow. I probably won’t do it, but going into the last two weeks before the Nationals, I will have to focus on 1k race preparation, and do at least two more trials.
Anyway, today’s failure should lead to tomorrow’s success, and at least it will motivate me to read in the book about sport and psychology.
Jun 30 2017
Wash no more!
Yesterday evening I read the book “How bad do you want it?”, which caused me to think about mental toughness and my rowing. I have always been more of a training animal than a racing animal, meaning that I regularly beat guys in training, who were able to beat me in races. The theory laid out in the book is that the conscious mind decides at what percentage of your true potential you work. In contrast to the “central governor” theory (which is about the unconscious), the theory promises that you can influence this. From my observations, there is a lot of truth in that. I improve by getting more fit, so my “comfort zone” shifts to higher power, but I don’t get as far out of my comfort zone as some other rowers.
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In 1k sprint racing, “comfort zone” being a relative thing. If you would climb the stairs at home and suddenly feel the pain you feel 600m in to a full out 1k, you would drop to the floor, start crying and think you are dying. (I am only exaggerating a bit, here.) In a 1k race, you don’t, because you anticipate the pain, which helps you coping with it. I think yesterday’s failure was a combination of being tired and expecting everything to go easy.
The book focuses on “flow”, a state where you are just doing what you do, instead of constantly judging what you are doing. Logically, but unfortunately, there isn’t a simple 5 step plan that will guarantee to improve your mental toughness if you follow it.
Now, let’s apply it to my training. I have two weeks to go to the Masters Nationals. I haven’t fully finished reading the book, so my recommendations may be premature, but what I took away from it for now is the following:
Today, I was able to leave work early and get to the lake for an afternoon session in the single. So how to apply the lessons from the book?
I was scheduled for a steady state session, but I was also unhappy with yesterday’s 1k effort. At the same time, I want to avoid falling in a trap of focusing too much on 1k trials. Here is what I came up with:
I also decided that in these final two weeks before the Masters Nationals, I would not focus on Wash and Effective Length any more during the row. I reprogrammed the SpeedCoach to show Stroke Rate, Power, Time, and Average Power.
No more wash! No more effective length! Over with technique metrics. Just feel the boat!
Being the quantitative guy, I was still obsessed with trying to improve my CP curve, though. I had to find a way to combine that with all of the above.
After a bit of thinking, I had it. I would just row on time (as opposed to distance), trying to hold an average power. So, I would for example row at 300W, and try to hold the average above 300W as long as possible. Note the time when I stop. Then, next time, try to add at least 10 seconds. And all of that in the worst possible conditions. Cross winds. Chop. Wind gusts. Trying to get the best out of the boat in all these conditions.
So here is how it went:
The first 18 minutes I rowed a warming up with three pace/spm bursts. Then I turned around and rowed back to the start of the 2k.
From the 2k start, in a nasty crosswind, I did a 300W effort from a standing start. After 4 minutes of rowing at 300W, seeing 307W on the SpeedCoach Average Power window, I bailed out. I rowed to the 2k finish, turned around, and rowed back to the start. Half way, I did a 30 stroke burst with 10 strokes at 300W, 10 strokes increase power by increasing length (at same stroke rate), then 10 strokes increase power by increasing stroke rate. I was imagining passing an opponent. First, I would creep on him by increasing only power (by increasing length), then I would increase the stroke rate and quickly pass him.
From the 2k start, I did a piece at 400W from a standing start, again in heavy crosswind and a lot of chop. After 1 minute, seeing an average power close to 400W, I decided to stop. I rowed to the finish of the 2k again, then turned and rowed another 1k.
There, I reset the SpeedCoach and did a standing start and then tried to hold 350W. I managed 2 minutes in the head/crosswind.
Then, it was time for a cooling down, but I was excited, and started from a standing start for a 325W effort. After 2 minutes, I had enough of it.
I am not sure how this training affects my physical fitness, but I liked it. It was fun to do, and funny enough rowing against time had a liberating effect. That may change now that I have some benchmarks.
Here is my CP chart before:
And here it is after the row:
I didn’t get any of the “Wow! A breakthrough workout!” message that I programmed into rowsandall.com, but I did manage to move the green curve. You get the “Wow” message when you row an effort above (or to the right) of the red curve. All I managed was to bring the red dots and the green curve closer to the red one.
Perhaps I should change the algorithm that determines if the workout is “WoW!”?
oh, here is the summary of today’s fartlek row in terms of power vs time:
Anyway, it was a great workout, and I think it helps me being this guy:
And I am looking forward to two weeks of sharpening and enjoying it, Sophia style:
Well … Sophia style but the Daddy’s Army Masters Rowing version of it. I happened to listen to the Dean Martin version of this song on the radio and I loved the careless, silly happiness that it radiated. So I searched for it on YouTube and found the version with Sophia. It made me very happy.
Tomorrow: Cycling with the boys.
Sunday: To Ostrava for a session in the double with Vojta. It’s gonna be fun!
The collective analysis plots from rowsandall.com for today’s session are fun too:
By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: crosswind, Fartlek, lake, OTW, rowing, single