steady state

Monday

Plan: Free form steady state

Execution: Did a 4x2000m “biathlon game” Concept2 with 250m penalty rounds each interval for

1. Exceeding 190 strokes – penalty round 250m for every 10 strokes)
2. A 250m round for each second above 2:00 average pace for the interval (2:00.9 – zero penalty; 2:01.0 – 2:01.9 – one penalty; and so on)
3. A 250m round for each part of the interval where HR was 161 or higher.

I ended up doing a few penalty rounds as you can imagine. It made the time pass quick.

Tuesday

Plan: No training, rest day

Execution:

1. Alarm clock at 2:30 am to catch taxi to airport, then flight to Brussels
2. 10 am to 5pm – meetings in Brussels
3. 7pm to 11:30pm – travel home by flight to Vienna, then taxi home

What a rest day!

Wednesday

Plan: 3×20 minute steady state erg @ 200 W

Difficulty to wake up. Decided to work from home and do the workout before work. Would give me time in the evening to spend with my family.

Execution:

1. Wrote important email briefing on Tuesday’s meeting to my boss and other stakeholders. I bring home a few facts that may change a few important decisions. Then quickly sat down on erg. Between this and my first meeting of the day, there was only just enough time to do the workout and a quick shower
2. A 1km warming up, followed by the 3x20min
3. Power seemed to come easy. HR was high but the perceived rate of exertion (PRE) was OK and I didn’t have difficulty holding the 200W average.
4. Started second interval. RPE was a bit higher now. Still holding 200W.
5. A few minutes into the second interval, my audio stopped (I was playing some course material) and I noticed an incoming call from my boss. Stopped to answer the call and talked to him for the rest of the interval and the beginning of the third interval.
6. Finished 3rd interval and measured lactate: 1.7 mmol/L

I am not sure about the significance of the Lactate reading as I had an interrupted row.

I had 10 minutes left between end of shower and first meeting. Made a coffee and went to work.

Did some of the urgent “emergency” tasks, multitasking during the meeting and am now caught up enough to take 10 minutes to write this blog.

I had to make a few concessions but this week there are a more than a few crucial work topics to finalize and decisions to make. Also, I preferred a compromised row in the morning over spending the evening in the erg room without seeing the kids.

It’s a low volume week anyway, and the recovery is the most important part of the training. So, in that light, the decision to sleep in that caused the compromised row was a great one.

Morning ride to work: https://www.strava.com/activities/468553389

Average heart rate 134 bpm.

Overheard a conversation at work. Two ladies at the coffee machine commenting starting again with exercise after the Christmas break. “It’s incredibly hard,” she said. “My heart rate was over 145 bpm for the entire hour! I was naggered at the end of it.”

Took a train home, quick dinner and then on the erg.

I am starting to hate RowPro.  You set up 4x20min and then you do 4x20min. However, this time I really wanted to stop after 3x20min. My heart rate was high. It felt hard. It wasn’t right. My lactate was too high.

And here’s the lactate reading after 60 minutes:

2.6.

Two. Point. Six.

Another proof that  perceived exertion is a reliable measure.


Workout Summary - Jan 12, 2016
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|19027|80:00.0|02:06.1|174.4|20.9|155.7|173.0|11.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-|Comments
01|04956|20:00.0|02:01.1|197.3|21.4|150.7|169.0|11.6|
02|04870|20:00.0|02:03.2|187.2|20.7|162.2|173.0|11.8|
03|04875|20:00.0|02:03.1|187.7|22.0|165.7|173.0|11.1| 2.6 mmol/L
04|04326|20:00.0|02:18.7|131.2|19.6|143.1|173.0|11.1| paddling


So after that high reading I just paddled for 20 minutes to complete the fourth interval. Junk meters? Perhaps.

Rest day tomorrow.

Roads too slippery to cycle to work. 🙁

Did a 3×20 min capturing the data with Painsled. Played with a spreadsheet to create colorful graphs from the data.

The Drive Ratio is the duration of the drive as a percentage of the total stroke duration. I just wanted to see how consistent I am in this. Not a lot, it seems.

Woke up and wrist was better than yesterday, and improving during the day.

I am really wondering what caused this episode. The start is clear. I slipped on ice and instinctively broke my fall with my arm, thus landing my wrist on concrete. Probably caused some serious sprained wrist. As I started to relax in the evening, the healing process set on, causing swelling and inflammation.

Then I played a card game (Dominion) with my sons. I have a very strong suspicion that holding the cards in my painful hands didn’t help.

The next part of my theory is that training regularly actually helps speed up the “repair” of the damage. The body is used to micro damage and starts to repair as soon as possible. As soon as the swelling started to reduce the vicious pain disappeared and life became bearable again.

I now can feel that the wrist has gone through something. It is slightly stiffer and bigger than my other wrist, and making a fist is slightly painful. But otherwise it is fine.

My family’s theory is that I overreacted on Friday and showed some very fine acting behavior. 🙁

Anyway, I felt I could try a 3×20 minute. Normally I do a 4x20min in the weekend, but I had already done a 4×20 earlier this week, and I am already above my training hours targets for this week. Plus the wrist. I decided to dial up a 3×20 min and abort it if there would be a problem with the wrist.

Temperature in my rowing basement was 7 degrees inside, dropping to 4 degrees during the row, and -8 outside. Relative humidity around 40%.


Workout Summary - Jan 03, 2016
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14977|60:00.0|02:00.2|201.6|22.4|159.0|171.0|11.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-|Comments
01|04989|20:00.0|02:00.3|201.2|22.3|151.5|162.0|11.2|
02|05003|20:00.0|01:59.9|202.9|22.5|161.3|169.0|11.1|
03|04986|20:00.0|02:00.3|200.8|22.6|164.1|171.0|11.1| 1.2 mmol/L


The power seemed to come easily today. Although my average heart rate is one of the highest of all the similar rows since the end of November, and heart rate drift wasn’t small either, I found it very easy to hold 200W. Perhaps the low temperatures helped.

Let’s see what this does to my “injured” wrist, but I bet I will be able to row the erg race coming Saturday.