steady state

Steady state row before breakfast. Breakfast. Drive to Prague. Traffic Jam. Park at first Underground station. Metro to work. Work. Metro back to other side of the city. Drive back to rowing canal.

Is there more I can say about today’s workout, you’re asking?

Yes, there is. Even though this was a time-pressed steady state at 18spm, there are a couple of things I would like to mention.

First, even though it started raining lightly during the workout and the temperatures were a lot lower than yesterday (about 3 degrees C), this was a superb row. The water was mirror flat, and I was the only person on the water. The birds were singing. The water was so flat that I did use the first 2k for drills, drills, drills. On our moody home lake, the water often is not suitable for doing drills.

Second, I tried a new thing. The Empower Oarlock with the SpeedCoach set to the “skills” display. I chose to work on finish angle and wash, which seemed a good one after the square blade rowing I had finished the drills with.

The SpeedCoach/Oarlock/HR belt combo hung up on me after about 3/4 of the workout, so the graphs come in two parts.

Here are the metrics plots. I still have to get a feel for it, but I think the Wash values are good for 18spm (at higher rates and pressure it is easier to get to lower slip and wash values). I also noticed that, indeed, when focusing on good form and a clean tap-down, the wash number was lower. When I concentrated, I could get the value below 10 degrees.

I am also quite proud on the constant stroke rate in the second part of the workout. Mind you, I only had finish angle and wash on my display. No other information. No stroke rate, no pace.

They are working hard to renovate the rowing canal and be ready for the European Championships in May. Here is an artist’s impression of the end state:

Most of it is done.

Another day at the river club house. First, Lenka went on the single. I gave her the SpeedCoach because I was curious to see her metrics.

During the workout of the girls, I did a crazy 50km tour around Brno, driving back home to get the papers to the company car that I had forgotten, fill up the car with diesel, then return the company car at work, get Romana’s car that was parked there, and return to the rowing club. When I returned after about an hour, the girls were still rowing.

I took some time to explore our river club house (1936). There are some 1930s notice boards, virtually unchanged. Also, you can see from the way the main club room is designed that rowing was an upper class sport in those days. It’s now rented out as store space, but this was a place with big open windows to a garden, and enough space to organize a ball.

Outside, I also opened what looked like a place to store oars, and I found about twenty wooden oars, in pretty good shape. Here are some random pictures from the 1926 chronicles:

Different times.

After Lenka’s row, it was my turn. I rowed up and down the river 2 and a bit times. There is really not much to say about these trainings. You cannot row really fast because of the turns and the traffic. I am really longing for the ice to melt and being able to train intensity rows on the lake.

That said, I dare to say that my boat feel is slowly returning. There were a few stroke sequences where the boat was running fine, according to my standards.

Here are the metric plots. I had catch angle and slip on the monitor and was pleased to see my catch angle consistently around 61 degrees, slip around 6 or 7 degrees when I was rowing well.

Accelerating slightly on the last bit of the recovery helps to get both catch angle and slip right. I have been working on that last year, when I didn’t have this excellent feedback tool, and I am happy to confirm that I was on the right track.

A few more of those fascinating old photos from our club. It’s a pity I don’t know the stories behind some of the scenes. That “new” building was our 1936 club house being built. Just two years before 1938-1945 …

A jedeme v tom zas. #cvkbrno #czechrowing #loveit

A post shared by Leňaa (@lenka_roosendaal) on Mar 4, 2017 at 3:18am PST

This morning I drove to the lake to pick up another batch of singles and pairs. In the erg room I saw Eda, who just finished his first set of 10 500m pieces (see yesterday’s blog). He was rowing them in 1:42-1:44 pace, but rating around 28spm instead of the prescribed 26spm.

Took the boats to the Pisarky (river) club house. Then quickly hopped in the single for a short row, knowing that Lenka would be around in 45 minutes for her row.

I had to reset the SpeedCoach after 1800m. I was rowing with Slip and Catch angle values on the bottom row of the screen. Suddenly there were no values any more. First I tried switching off and on the oarlock. That didn’t help. Then I reset the SpeedCoach, which solved the issue.

First part:

Workout Summary - media/20170304-102315-Sanders SpeedCoach 20170304 0927amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|01839|09:26.0|02:33.9|159.2|21.0|150.9|166.0|09.3
W-|01839|09:26.0|02:33.9|159.2|21.0|150.9|166.0|09.3
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|166.0|00.0

Second Part:

Workout Summary - media/20170304-102435-Sanders SpeedCoach 20170304 0938amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07351|38:53.0|02:38.7|147.4|20.7|161.4|172.0|09.1
W-|07351|38:53.0|02:38.7|147.4|20.7|161.4|172.0|09.1
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|172.0|00.0

I had moved the seat rails a bit sternward to allow for full reach with the new foot stretcher settings.

I was watching slip and catch angle for most of the workout. Only in the last leg did I change it to wash and catch angle.

It’s a great spring day today. I had to interrupt sitting in the sun in the garden to write up this training log. I guess the Rowsberry Pi work will have to wait until tomorrow.

Adding two pictures from an old album about our club.