sprintervals

weather

Jun 23 2016

Thursday 1: Speed work in the single

I have a day off today, and I spent some time this morning working out my training plan for the coming few weeks. Here it is:

Week 26 – starting June 20

Thursday – morning – speed work (single)
Thursday – evening – steady state and a few race starts in the quad
Friday – morning – steady state and video in the single
Friday – afternoon – bike ride (relaxed cross-training)
Saturday – morning – Extensive steady state
Sunday – Bicycle ride (cross training or tour with the family)

Week 27 – starting June 27

Monday – rest day
Tuesday – morning – 4x2km
Tuesday – evening – recovery/technique row
Wednesday – morning –  Extensive Steady State (rate ladders)
Wednesday – evening – Technique/recovery row
Thursday – morning – “Lactate is the killer”
Friday – morning – 1km time trial in the single
Saturday – morning – in Racice, extensive steady state in the 2x
Sunday – morning – in Racice, speed work in the 2x

Week 28 – starting July 4th

Monday – rest day
Tuesday – 1km trial in the single
Wednesday – steady state & race starts
Thursday – rest day
Friday – Steady state & race starts
Saturday – Steady state & race starts
Sunday – Speed session in the 2x with Kazimir (in Hodonin)

Week 29 – starting July 11th

Monday – rest day
Tuesday – “Small Pyramid”
Wednesday – Recovery/Technique row and race starts
Thursday – Rest day – load trailer
Friday – 3x250m / 500m rest at race venue
Saturday – Masters Nationals (1x and 4x)
Sunday – Masters Nationals (2x, mix 2x and 8+)

Week 30 – starting July 18th

Monday – rest day
Tuesday – 30″ on / 30″ off or variant thereof. Speed work
Wednesday – Steady state and race starts
Thursday – 40″ on / 40″ off. Speed work
Friday – Steady state & race starts
Saturday – 1km trial
Sunday – rest day

Week 31 – starting July 25th

Monday – rest day
Tuesday – “Small Pyramid”
Wednesday – Technique and race starts
Thursday – 3x250m / 500m rest
Friday – Travel to Munich and races Euromasters Munich
Saturday – races Euromasters Munich
Sunday – races Euromasters Munich

As the weeks come, I will probably fine tune a bit more and may have to swap sessions within the week to make it compatible with my schedule.

Basically, what I did is a good review, and sprinkle in some of the sprint racing preparation sessions that I decribed earlier.

Today’s row

Today was speed work and I decided to do a row that I had preprogrammed in CrewNerd. It’s a session designed by our head coach and it is quite good:

Warming up
5×30″/30″ rest – at 32spm
8 minutes rest
5×30″/45″ rest – at 34 spm
8 minutes rest
5×30″/60″ rest – at 36 spm

The weather was hot. I didn’t manage to get to the lake early and launched around 11am. It was above 30 degrees, sunny. There was a light east wind, which changed direction:

weather

I did the first interval (at 0:19 in the graph) with a race start. I splashed some water on the phone screen (inside a watertight holder), which caused CrewNerd to go to the Settings screen. I wasn’t sure if my workout was continuing or not, so I stopped, went back to workout screen, and continued. I should have just rowed.


Workout Summary - media/20160623-134913-2016-06-23-1041.CSV
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|06065|36:54.0|02:01.9|31.2|158.4|170.9|08.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02953| 16:29 |02:46.6|18.9|129.0|166.0|09.5
02|00107| 00:30 |02:19.5|32.0|120.0|144.0|06.7
03|00130| 00:30 |01:55.6|32.0|162.0|172.0|08.1
04|00126| 00:30 |01:58.9|32.1|167.0|175.0|07.9
05|00129| 00:30 |01:56.5|30.0|169.0|175.0|08.6
06|00134| 00:30 |01:51.8|32.1|169.0|176.0|08.4
07|00137| 00:30 |01:49.7|34.0|159.0|171.0|08.1
08|00138| 00:30 |01:48.7|34.0|168.0|177.0|08.1
09|00140| 00:30 |01:47.2|34.0|171.0|179.0|08.2
10|00139| 00:30 |01:47.7|34.0|172.0|178.0|08.2
11|00141| 00:30 |01:46.8|34.0|172.0|179.0|08.3
12|00141| 00:30 |01:46.4|36.0|161.0|173.0|07.8
13|00144| 00:30 |01:44.4|36.0|168.0|178.0|08.0
14|00143| 00:30 |01:44.6|36.1|169.0|178.0|07.9
15|00147| 00:30 |01:42.5|38.0|172.0|181.0|07.7
16|00140| 00:30 |01:46.9|38.0|172.0|181.0|07.4
17|01076| 06:17 |02:48.2|18.9|134.0|140.0|09.4
18|00000| 06:38 |0000:00|11.1|118.0|153.0|00.0

Including the rest, the entire session was 10.3km. During the intervals I tried to focus on reach at the catch and a strong finish. I think I managed to get it roughly right.

This evening: Steady state in the quad.

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nemo-from-the-sky

Jun 17 2016

Travel = Bad Training

Wednesday, Thursday

I wanted to go running but I didn’t manage to. On Wednesday I woke up with a headache and feeling an upcoming cold, as well as tired from the long day at the conference the day before, which ended with a welcome cocktail. I remained in bed long enough to pass the last moment to get up and get a decent training in before having to go to the venue.

Same thing on Thursday. Then it was even harder, because this was the morning after the VIP dinner. I left very early (some were still sending pictures to social media at 4am … not really pictures you want to spread by the way, but who am I to comment), but still reached bed way after midnight.

A conference is hard work. There were fun parts too:

Fun part 1: Overflying the conference venue during one of our test/demo flights
Fun part 1: Overflying the conference venue during one of our test/demo flights. Conference venue = the green building.
Fun part 2: Me explaining something important to a government official
Fun part 2: Me explaining something important to a government VIP

Being back in Amsterdam was fun as well. Even though I didn’t have time to visit my family, being back in the place where I was born and spent a large part of my adolescent years was fun. Nostalgic fun.

So a lot of eating and drinking, socializing, talking, explaining, listening, etc. The good thing was that the temperatures in the auditorium were so high that my suit doubled as a wearable sauna and I actually lost weight during these few days. :-/

Friday

So today I was going to do my fun OTW training, 16×45″/60″R at 1000m race pace.

It wasn’t to be. The wind was so strong I didn’t even have to drive to the lake. No way I would be able to row a decent workout on the water.

So back to the erg.

Not fun. I did a 2k warming up, then dialed up a 45″/60″ rest workout and started doing it. I do these workouts at 1k pace, which means just under 1:40/500m. Every fourth interval I go full out to prove that the 1k pace is slower than max. Slow down if the “full out” interval turns out not to be faster than the last few intervals. I guess my explanation is confusing … please comment if you don’t get it but are interested to know.

After 8 intervals I comforted  myself with the thought of being half way.

Then in the 9th interval I handed down. Just like that.

My “inner coach” (see this comment) talked to me during the rest period but couldn’t convince me to get rowing and finish the workout.

So I dialed up a 4k and rowed that one out, starting at 2:00 pace and slowly slowing down:

Tomorrow: 4x1k on the water and I should really video it.

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pazdi

May 19 2016

Good sprintervals in the eight, and a few words about coxing

We had a very good outing in the eight. The head coach accompanied us during the training and made us do a 4km long warming up, including technical drills. This really made the boat come together. After that it was time for the 15 stroke on / 10 stroke off training (2x3km).

Timing is everything. When we had the timing right, there were hints of boat speed. 🙂

 

The first 30 minutes were warming up. I had the feeling we were doing higher rates than the 32spm that the plot shows. Still, I felt surprisingly comfortable on stroke side (not my preferred side), and the coach’s instructions were good and helpful. The rowing stroke is subtly different than the sculling stroke. Actually, for a sculler it feels as much less subtle but I guess there are different subtleties. One of the things I need to pay attention to (even more than in sculling) is to first push on the legs and then use the back swing to help the arms. Otherwise, the blades pop out of the water, the boat stops accelerating, and suddenly everything become much more difficult.

We had a new cox, the son of one of the rowers. I think he will be good at it, but of course today he made the classical beginner’s mistakes. Too much steering (oversteering) and not enough talking. Can’t blame him. It must be scary for a 16 year old to be suddenly in charge of 8 old men. Here’s the result:

pazdi

If you think that’s not so bad, compare it with my trajectory in the single:

lake

As said, he will eventually learn it. 🙂

Tomorrow a long racing weekend will start. First, on Friday, there is the CEFTA, or the “Rowing Regatta of the Olympic Hopes” as it is called with a beautiful English name. This regatta is for 15 and 16 year olds, from former Communist Eastern European countries only. The regatta used to be organized under communism, and after the fall of the iron curtain it just continued under  a different name. The location is different every year, but this year it will be in Brno.

Then on Saturday and Sunday there is the Brno International Youth Regatta, an annual event on our lake for rowers in the 15/16 and 17/18 year old categories. My daughter Lenka will row in a quad.

So while we were out on the water about three trailers, two clubs from Prague and a trailer from Poland (I believe) arrived and the club was busy with youth. Also the lake was full of young rowing teams. Nice atmosphere.

In other news, I received an email from David at Concept2. He will check what I am sending to the Concept2 Development logbook server and when he finds it ok, we will migrate rowsandall.com to the real thing! Exciting!

He also lifted the data limitation on the Concept2 logbook server, so we can now upload each and every stroke, up to 9 hours of rowing. Exciting. It will be a challenge to do a row which exceeds the Concept2 data limit!

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horarip

Mar 22 2016

Račice day 2 – living like a monk

Here’s an overview picture of the area around the watersports center in Račice. horarip.jpg

In the foreground you can see the river Elbe. In the top middle of the picture there is a funnily shaped mountain, the legendary mountain Říp:

According to a traditional legend, first recorded by the ancient Czech chronicler Cosmas of Prague in the early 12th century, Říp was the place where the first Slavs, led by Forefather Čech, settled. The land was named after the leader. In the 16th century, the legend was revived by Václav Hájek of Libočany who claimed that Čech was buried in the nearby village of Ctiněves and, later on, by Alois Jirásek in his Old Bohemian Legends from 1894.

On top of the hill there is a romanesque rotunda of Saint George, which is one of the oldest buildings in the Czech Republic. It is for the first time mentioned in 1126, when Soběslav I, Duke of Bohemia to commemorate his victorious Battle of Chlumec where he defeated Holy Roman Emperor Lothair III, have rotunda repaired and extended by the western circular tower. The present appearance of the rotunda is the result of a purist reconstruction from the 1870s. Inside the rotunda, there is a stone sculpture by the renowned contemporary Czech artist Stanislav Hanzík (1979) – The Good Shepherd, that symbolizes the arrival of Czech ancestors to the country and the beginning of the Czech history there.

Near the rotunda there is a tourist hut that was built in 1907 that still serves travellers today. In accordance with the patriotic spirit of the time, a wooden plate is mounted on the hut wall that says “What Mecca is to a Mohammedan, Říp is to a Czech” (Czech: “Co Mohamedu Mekka, to Čechu Říp”).

As you can see, the canal is in a turn of the river, quite a dead end, so there is nothing here except for the rowing center. Silence. The only thing you hear is the birds sing and the sounds of rowing: splashing and coaches shouting instructions. Our accomodation is spartan, but clean. No radio. No TV. So it’s just rowing, meals, and work … True living like a Monk. After breakfast I worked for two hours, then I went for my morning training, followed by work, lunch. Now I am writing this. In the afternoon I will go on a technique outing. Followed by dinner, then quiet reading … and bed time.

The training of this morning was 20×30″/60″ rest. Given the 2km length of the canal, there has to be a slightly longer break for turning the boat after every 6 or 7 intervals. Lubos and I decided to do 3x2km as 30″/60″ rest.

Again, side by side in singles. It’s really great. Again, Lubos was surprised that this Masters rower was able to keep up with him. I was doing 30-34spm and he was significantly higher.

30sec.jpg

Another CrewNerd/excel tool annoyance. I had programmed 30″/60″ intervals. Of course, at the end of the straight 2km, I had to press “stop” to allow for more time to turn the boat. It looks like the heart rate remains constant during that rest interval. Well, I can use a few hours in my rowing monastery to migrate to a python based environment to create nice tables. For now, here’s the plot from the Garmin:

L1 Račice 3-22-2016, Heart rate.png

So in the end we did 19 intervals. The last interval was a shorter one, because we were approaching the finish line. So we did “red buoys until finish line” which was about 20 seconds. I like this workout. The interval is 15 to 17 strokes, which is long enough to focus on technique. The rests are long enough to recover and keep the focus on technique, which for me, at these rates, is “light” touch, don’t force it in the water.

The sprinty stuff was followed by 4km of cooling down. Almost 13km in total. Three “swimming pools” plus a few extra meters rowing from lane 1 to lane 6 and back, and between the finish line and the docks.

IMG_0745.JPG
My single in the racks. No races so plenty of rack space.

| Tstart_ | Tstop__ | Dist_ | Time_ | Pace__ | _SPM | avg HR | max HR | DPS | Remarks
| 00:00.0 | 13:49.0 | 02195 | 13:49 | 03:08.8 | 18.8 | 143 | 165 | 08.5 | WU
| 13:49.0 | 14:19.0 | 00132 | 00:30 | 01:53.9 | 31.3 | 137 | 161 | 08.4 | tailwind
| 14:19.0 | 15:19.0 | 00205 | 01:00 | 02:26.1 | 19.8 | 159 | 164 | 10.4 |
| 15:19.0 | 15:49.0 | 00133 | 00:30 | 01:52.7 | 30.5 | 163 | 169 | 08.7 |
| 15:49.0 | 16:49.0 | 00200 | 01:00 | 02:29.7 | 19.5 | 164 | 171 | 10.3 |
| 16:49.0 | 17:19.0 | 00133 | 00:30 | 01:52.7 | 31.4 | 165 | 172 | 08.5 |
| 17:19.0 | 18:19.0 | 00199 | 01:00 | 02:30.8 | 19.8 | 167 | 174 | 10.1 |
| 18:19.0 | 18:49.0 | 00134 | 00:30 | 01:52.3 | 31.6 | 167 | 172 | 08.5 |
| 18:49.0 | 19:49.0 | 00197 | 01:00 | 02:32.3 | 19.1 | 168 | 174 | 10.3 |
| 19:49.0 | 20:19.0 | 00134 | 00:30 | 01:52.3 | 31.8 | 168 | 173 | 08.4 |
| 20:19.0 | 21:19.0 | 00188 | 01:00 | 02:39.6 | 18.7 | 166 | 174 | 10.0 |
| 21:19.0 | 21:49.0 | 00133 | 00:30 | 01:52.9 | 31.3 | 167 | 174 | 08.5 |
| 21:49.0 | 24:38.0 | 00337 | 02:49 | 04:10.5 | 19.2 | 160 | 175 | 06.2 | turn
| 24:38.0 | 25:08.0 | 00122 | 00:30 | 02:03.3 | 30.2 | 153 | 166 | 08.1 | headwind
| 25:08.0 | 26:08.0 | 00170 | 01:00 | 02:56.1 | 18.7 | 163 | 168 | 09.1 |
| 26:08.0 | 26:38.0 | 00122 | 00:30 | 02:03.3 | 30.3 | 166 | 173 | 08.0 |
| 26:38.0 | 27:38.0 | 00171 | 01:00 | 02:54.9 | 18.5 | 167 | 175 | 09.3 |
| 27:38.0 | 28:08.0 | 00119 | 00:30 | 02:06.5 | 29.8 | 167 | 172 | 08.0 |
| 28:08.0 | 29:08.0 | 00182 | 01:00 | 02:44.5 | 19.4 | 168 | 173 | 09.4 |
| 29:08.0 | 29:38.0 | 00124 | 00:30 | 02:00.5 | 30.1 | 169 | 174 | 08.3 |
| 29:38.0 | 30:38.0 | 00173 | 01:00 | 02:53.9 | 19.0 | 169 | 175 | 09.1 |
| 30:38.0 | 31:08.0 | 00126 | 00:30 | 01:59.4 | 30.4 | 169 | 174 | 08.3 |
| 31:08.0 | 32:08.0 | 00169 | 01:00 | 02:57.6 | 19.5 | 170 | 176 | 08.7 |
| 32:08.0 | 32:38.0 | 00122 | 00:30 | 02:03.3 | 30.5 | 170 | 175 | 08.0 |
| 32:38.0 | 36:25.0 | 00324 | 03:47 | 05:49.8 | 22.0 | 164 | 177 | 03.9 | turn
| 36:25.0 | 36:55.0 | 00129 | 00:30 | 01:56.2 | 34.5 | 140 | 163 | 07.5 | tailwind
| 36:55.0 | 37:55.0 | 00197 | 01:00 | 02:32.1 | 19.7 | 163 | 166 | 10.0 |
| 37:55.0 | 38:25.0 | 00136 | 00:30 | 01:50.0 | 32.8 | 168 | 174 | 08.3 |
| 38:25.0 | 39:25.0 | 00191 | 01:00 | 02:37.0 | 19.4 | 170 | 176 | 09.8 |
| 39:25.0 | 39:55.0 | 00132 | 00:30 | 01:53.6 | 31.4 | 170 | 175 | 08.4 |
| 39:55.0 | 40:55.0 | 00186 | 01:00 | 02:41.0 | 18.8 | 170 | 177 | 09.9 |
| 40:55.0 | 41:25.0 | 00133 | 00:30 | 01:53.1 | 31.4 | 167 | 174 | 08.4 |
| 41:25.0 | 42:25.0 | 00181 | 01:00 | 02:46.1 | 18.9 | 169 | 175 | 09.6 |
| 42:25.0 | 42:55.0 | 00132 | 00:30 | 01:53.3 | 31.0 | 167 | 174 | 08.5 |
| 42:55.0 | 43:55.0 | 00188 | 01:00 | 02:39.9 | 20.0 | 170 | 176 | 09.4 |
| 43:55.0 | 44:25.0 | 00135 | 00:30 | 01:50.7 | 32.8 | 171 | 177 | 08.3 |
| 44:25.0 | 45:25.0 | 00180 | 01:00 | 02:46.6 | 20.1 | 172 | 178 | 09.0 |
| 45:25.0 | 45:55.0 | 00112 | 00:30 | 02:13.9 | 29.9 | 173 | 177 | 07.5 |
| 45:55.0 | 10:03.0 | 04295 | 24:08 | 02:48.6 | 19.2 | 148 | 177 | 09.3 | cooling down

Summary:
dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment
2195_____|_13:49____|_3:08.8|143|18.8|8.5|warmup
2441_____|_09:30____|_1:56.7|164|31.2|8.2|Main set
4295_____|_24:08____|_2:48.6|148|19.2|9.3|Cool down
3640_____|_22:36____|_3:06.3|166|19.7|8.3|rest meters
12572____|_10:03____|_2:47.2|155|19.8|9.1|_Total

At lunch I heard about the horrible stuff that happened in Brussels today. Metro station Maalbeek and the airport are places that I travel through numerous times per year. I do hope that none of the people I work with was on that metro or in that arrival hall. Here in Račice, the birds sing on in the silent woods.

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CPchart

Feb 11 2016

Take me to the river … No

Romana is still ill (she calls it recovering), so I rowed my training at 4pm at the rowing club, so I could help the girls with their training.

I also took a look into the boat house, because I knew my trailer was parked behind the parts for the new dock. Just wanted to make sure I had a plan for Friday – take boats to the river day. That’s when I discovered that the new dock parts are pretty heavy. You need at least six strong men to move one part, and there are many of them.

We’ll be building the dock next week, so I decided to wait another week. It would be hard to organize a group of six strong men at such short notice, even if a rowing club has high concentrations of strong men. Old strong men have day jobs and family commitments. Young strong men have an important erg race coming Saturday so will not be willing to help.

This was the moment where I should have used my brain and reorganized my micro cycle plan. I had a sprinty interval session planned for today, just because I wanted to spend Friday to Sunday fine tuning technique on the river …

After yesterday’s 30 minute intensive row, a light endurance session would have been ideal, and now that the OTW plans were canceled, I should have just done that.

Instead, I stuck to the plan …

Good thing about rowing in the erg room is that there are always rowers walking 0r standing behind the erg, and with me that has a very healthy effect on my splits. I needed that today …

intervals HR.JPG

Average pace of 1:40.2. Last week I did the same session with an average pace of 1:39.3.

I have been playing with free software called Golden Cheetah. It’s a desktop program to keep training logs and analyse the data, just like SportTracks, which I use as my central tool.

Golden Cheetah is very power oriented, so if you have many sessions where you don’t have power data (OTW rows, cycling, running), it’s going to be of less use for keeping and analysing all your data. I loaded all my painsled data plus some selected erg tests into it, just to play. One of the plots I did was the following:

CPchart.png

So horizontally it shows the interval length in minutes on a log scale, and vertically (erg) power. The solid blue line is the best effort the program found in my training data. So, for example, at the edge of the “Z7” and “Z6” zones, you can see that I have done a full minute at just under 400W. This was from the 1 min on / 1 min off session on January 4. Actually, the entire “Z7” part of the curve is from that session. The red curve is my 2k erg test from November 15. The dashed blue line is a (pretty bad) fit. I guess that with more data the fit will become better and the whole thing could become a kind of a pace predictor. Reading about their model, I discovered that it’s a more sophisticated version of what I did in this blog post.

Nice, but I will stick with SportTracks and using excel to do pace predictions from my SB/PB rows.

When I drove home and switched on the car radio, they were playing “Take me to the river” by the Talking Heads. Not kidding!

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20x40sec2

Feb 5 2016

Sprintervals Friday

I did this workout on January 15 and it is my evolution of 20x1min on / 1 min off. I used painsled and the PM3 and rowed with the January 16 row as a pace boat. The goal was to beat the pace boat every time, as well as do every fourth one full out. The fun part was that I didn’t remember the paces from last time. During the first few strokes of each interval, I looked at the pace boat pace, then tried to row each stroke one second faster. So, if the pace boat was at 1:43.5, I would row a series of 1:42 strokes.

20x40sec.jpg

So I did it, but intervals 17 to 20 were hard.

20x40sec2.jpg

All good. Tomorrow, a running training with the girls. Thinking of adding some hill fartlek to the mix.

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20x40sec

Jan 16 2016

Friday: Sprinty intervals

Another reason why I didn’t write a blog yet, is because after Friday’s training I preferred to take the family out to our neighborhood Thai restaurant.

Friday was another half work from home day. I had a “conformity review” meeting to host at 3pm, with a large crowd dialing in from Phoenix, AZ. Must have been pretty early for them. 😉

Rowed this one with Painsled running to collect the data. Worked even better than I expected. Instead of programming the entire session as a variable intervals on the PM, I did a “just row” warming up, a fixed intervals main part, and a fixed distance 2km cooling down.

Then I exported the three rows by selecting them and exporting to tcx file. After the import into SportTracks I had my entire session there. Great! The import from RowPro sometimes creates wrong total distance and has difficulties with the rest periods.

Even sweeter was the data analysis with excel and the CSV. First, it didn’t work, but the only thing I had to do to make it work was order the CSV data by time. Will update the spreadsheet to make this automatic. The issue was that the CSV didn’t have the three rows in chronological order, but as every stroke has a time stamp that is very easy to correct.

It was a modified 20x1min. I shortened it to 40second and increased the rest time to 80 seconds. Then I rowed it with increasing pace.

20x40sec.jpg

Average 322 W (1:42.8 pace).

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