steady state

Dec 29 2015

4x20min at lactate

Managed to get RowPro not crashing, so I did a 1k warming up and then the main thing.

RowPro behaved well until it wanted to save stroke data for the row. It threw an error message and offered that I email this to assist at digitalrowing.com, which I did. In the rowing log it shows up as 0m rowed, but when I export a CSV file, I have the summary data, at least:

I started slowly, increasing from 170W to 200W during the first interval. Then I remained between 195W and 205W in intervals #2 and #3. This did feel a bit harder than it should and my heart rate seemed high. Did a Lactate measurement and got my suspicion confirmed: 1.7 mmol/L is a high value for me. I want to be around 1.2-1.5 mmol/L.

So I gave myself permission to back down during the final interval, which I rowed without much pace discipline, oscillating between 170W and 200W. Measured lactate again with the last strip from my first batch and got a nice value of 0.9 mmol/L.

I had some difficulties measuring lactate in the past few weeks. It has been very humid weather. The meter gave an error message indicating that it thought the strips were already used. I suspect that lying for an hour in my humid basement didn’t do them good. So I threw those strips away. Yesterday, I replaced the thermometer with a full blown weather station including a measurement of humidity. When I started today’s row, the air in my basement had a relative humidity of 61% at a temperature of 9 degrees C. This corresponded nicely with the Brno airport reported dew point of 2 degrees C (and an outside temperature of 4 degrees, and thus a partial H2O pressure of 7 hPa). During the row, the temperature rose by 0.1 degree but the relative humidity increased to 70%, I guess by my own breathing. In these conditions, the strips turned out to be usable, but I suspect that in the past weeks the relative humidity has been well above 85%, which is the maximum according to the spec of the strips.

Now I have RowPro misbehaving again. I may try to delete the database and see if that makes RowPro behave well again. Alternatively, I may stop using RowPro and just use the PM.

The training program says that I need to test a 60 minute row this week, but that was just to get nonathlon points. I looked at my half marathon result and decided that I would put a pro-rated score of 15319m on nonathlon. I also noticed that during the 60 minutes of my half marathon I covered 15380m, which is 37m past my PB. So I consider that a new Personal Best.

So I dropped the 60min. I moved a 5k test to January because it is that month’s CTC. I also moved the 10k to the next mesocycle where it will be a nice threshold training. That improves the focus on anaerobic capacity for this mesocycle, which is good.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: concept2, erg, lactate, OTE, rowing, steady state

Dec 24 2015

2 x 30 = $6.48

Tuesday

No training. I had a 3x20min on the program but decided to skip it. The body felt too tired and this is a light week so no big harm done.

Wednesday

Last day at work before the Christmas break. At home I did a 30 minute

row followed by a 30 minute strength training. I used the “heavier” bands and fewer repetitions.

As you can see from the graph, I spiced up my 30 minutes of light rowing with a few 10 stroke sprints:

Thursday (Christmas Eve)

In the morning, Romana and I went to a Christmas event at the Lodni Sporty rowing club. We parked the car a good distance from the club and walked along the lake. There was thick fog, visibility about 25 meters, and the water was mirror flat.

In the afternoon I did a 30 minutes easy row. I did a few 500s at slightly faster pace, to catch up with my pace boat.

These two rows brought me past the 200 km mark for the Concept2 holiday challenge. I have now rowed $6.48 in money raised by Concept2.

Considering my heavy travel program over the past month, I consider this a success.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: concept2, erg, OTE, rowing, steady state, training

Dec 20 2015

6x1500m and year plan

We slept in late and I spent the morning fiddling with my annual training plan, and in the afternoon we had the Christmas party on the rowing club. So I had little time to train. Wanted to do an endurance session and decided to try one of the sessions from the Olbrecht book. It’s a swimming endurance session described as 6x500m at 20 seconds rest. The description also seems to indicate to swim it as 50m fast / 50m slow but I am not 100% sure about that. Anyway, I decided that a good erg equivalent would be a 6x1500m at 20 seconds rest, and to do every fourth 500m at slightly faster (“6k”) pace.

Workout Summary - Dec 20, 2015 --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|09000|34:31.6|01:55.1|229.6|24.9|165.4|184.0|10.5 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-|Comments 01|01500|05:47.6|01:55.9|225.0|24.0|153.9|162.0|10.8| fast/slow/slow 02|01500|05:46.6|01:55.5|227.0|24.4|163.2|169.0|10.6| s/f/s 03|01500|05:46.6|01:55.5|227.0|24.4|164.1|172.0|10.6| s/s/f 04|01500|05:50.5|01:56.8|219.5|24.1|166.1|171.0|10.6| s/s/s 05|01500|05:45.6|01:55.2|229.0|25.4|170.3|173.0|10.3| f/s/s 06|01500|05:34.7|01:51.6|252.0|27.2|173.9|184.0|09.9| s/f/f

I should have done this at a slightly faster pace. It felt like a black hole training. Pleasantly exhausting but not too hard. Still it’s a good session to add to the mix. Should be more like a threshold session but I should do it slightly faster. If I do it another time, I should do the slow bits at today’s average and the fast bits at 6k pace. Perhaps I should also do alternating 150m fast and slow.

Year plan

In the past years I have rowed according to an intuitive year plan which I didn’t write down. I would build up endurance during the fall (like this year), use the Christmas vacation for some SB/PB attempts, then work towards the shorter erg tests (5km, 2km, 1km, 500m) during the spring, then prepare for the head race, and subsequently dive into sprint season.

This year will be no different in terms of macro cycles, but I want to try to plan the meso cycles a bit more explicitly. The Olbrecht book has some templates, with the instruction to copy and enlarge them for use. Of course I will use excel instead.

So this morning I looked at the race calendar and tried to build up a logical year plan.

I will skip Masters Worlds in Copenhagen. Instead, my important sprint races will be the Czech Open Masters and Euromasters in Munich. The other important race will be the 6km in Horin in the Men’s LW category. This gives me a distance (“head race”) peak in April and a sprint race peak in July. If I manage to get into Henley Masters, I will row it as well.

The Slovak Championship and the regional races will be training races, with little taper.

Draft Year Plan. Bigger version at the end of this post

This was easy to create. The hard part will be to plan the first few meso cycles. Looking forward to the challenge.

Romana and the girls want to row erg races on the 9th of January and the 30th of January, so I tentatively put them into the schedule. I have to make a confession. When I ignore my Junior/Young Senior career, I have never rowed an erg race. As a junior I dreaded the compulsory erg testing that we had to do with rowing association officials noting your time.

Looking at the results from the first round of the Czech Indoor Rowing cup, I guess I will be about 30 seconds behind the winner. But if I accompany Romana and the girls to the venue, I might just as well row the race, right?

The draft year plan in a bigger font:

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: concept2, endurance, erg, OTE, rowing, steady state, training, training plan

Dec 19 2015

Saturday: 4x20min

Spent the entire morning in the assembly of the rowing club. Don’t want to bore you with club politics, though.

Just want to mention that Jiri Pfeifer, a member of our club, has set a new Czech record on the 2k erg, in the 50-59 age category. He rowed an impressive 6:20.5. With that time he would lead this year’s Concept2 rankings by 7 seconds. An impressive result. On top of that, he is a grandfather since 2 days … The fastest grandfather in the Czech Republic.

Also, Romana and I got tickets for the Olympians’ Ball on January 23. I am quite nervous about it. Romana is thinking about what kind of dress to buy. I need to dust off my dancing skills. In theory, I could ask Mirka Knapkova for a dance.

I did a regular 4×20 minutes. I tried to do a lactate test after 60 minutes, but the meter gave an error that I was using a “used strip”. As there was a thick fog outside, the air humidity in my basement was around 100% so I am afraid that I spoiled the strip by having it prepared in that humidity for more than an hour. I shouldn’t do lactate tests in these circumstances. I hope I didn’t spoil the rest of the strips by opening the container for a few seconds to get the one strip to be used.

It was so humid that at the end of the row my arms were covered with dew.

In the first interval I built up the power slowly. The second and third interval were constant around 200W (+/- 5W). The last one started slower because I was thinking about the lactate strip, then I ramped it back up to 200W and then I took a 5W step back every 2 minutes.

And finally, as a reminder why I am doing all this steady state work, a picture from the last season:

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: concept2, erg, OTE, rowing, steady state, training

Dec 10 2015

Skipped Session & Steady State

Wednesday

I arrived home from my trip to Toulouse at 2AM. Got up at 6 for a long working day. In the evening, I decided to skip that day’s endurance session and relax. Tired from the trip.

One of the outcomes of my trip to France is that I will spend the entire next week in Brussels. Sunday afternoon to Friday morning. Sigh.

Thursday

Cycled home from work, which is 45 minutes of light endurance exercise, average HR=130. I forgot my heart rate belt (still in my travel bag) so today that heart rate was just an estimate.

Later this evening I did the 3x20min. Decided that I wouldn’t force the 200W this time.

When I had done my warming up, I noticed a 5k scheduled row on RowPro, so I joined that one:

Average pace 2:01. Average HR 165 bpm.

Then a 20 min:

Average pace 2:04, average HR 164 bpm. I started to severely relax the pace when I noticed my heart rate approach 170.

Next 20 min:

Average pace 2:05, average heart rate 161 bpm

Measured lactate immediately after this: 1.0 mmol/L.

So, should I have gone faster today? I don’t think so. I feel I was just below the threshold.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: concept2, erg, OTE, rowing, steady state, training

Dec 6 2015

Another steady state at lactate – and biathlon

Another endurance building session (hopefully). I decided to stick to the 200W level.

I expected this to be a hard session. After yesterday’s running I feel delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) and didn’t expect my energy stores to be fully replenished. Funny enough, during the session I sensed that I was OK and kept the 200W level, apart from a slightly slower first interval. Heart rate stayed nice and low (higher than I used to row my steady state intervals but at least it didn’t creep towards 165).
Workout Summary - Dec 06, 2015 --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|20432|86:00.0|02:06.3|173.8|21.6|149.9|160.0|11.0 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-|Comments 01|04872|20:00.0|02:03.2|187.4|21.1|143.6|154.0|11.6|#1 03|04972|20:00.0|02:00.7|199.1|22.4|152.5|159.0|11.1|#2 05|04969|20:00.0|02:00.8|198.8|22.9|153.9|160.0|10.8|1.2 mmol/L 07|04975|20:00.0|02:00.6|199.5|23.4|152.8|158.0|10.7|1.4 mmol/L

All good. A very successful finger stab at 60 minutes. Blood kept flowing out of my finger for another 5 minutes during the row. I am starting to be less nervous about this.

Listened to the radio during the row. Pop songs alternated with sport reporting. Biathlon is on. I love doing cross country skiing, but for watching (and listening) biathlon is much more interesting.

The leader of the World Cup is a Czech lady named Gabriela Soukalová:

Biathlon athletes must have fantastic aerobic endurance. What makes it interesting to watch is the shooting.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: concept2, erg, OTE, rowing, steady state

Dec 4 2015

Friday:Travel & 3×20 minutes

Woke up at 4:15 to take the taxi to the airport, through a rainy Brussels. Took the 6:25 AM flight to Munich, where I had a breakfast, had my shoes shined, and sat down at the gate for my connection with lots of German newspapers. It’s nice to read foreign papers. You get a different perspective on things.

The flight to Brno was empty. Really empty. Besides me, there was one other passenger. I chatted a bit with the flight attendant. It’s a new route and it hasn’t been advertised much, but I also think that the departure times around noon are not very well chosen. If I want to fly from Brno to have meetings somewhere (other than Munich), I need an extra hotel night, and I end up with a lot of unused time.

Well, it was pleasant for me and a relaxed flight for the attendant, but I doubt BMI regional makes money on this.

Had lunch with Romana in a good Italian restaurant in town, then drove home. Worked a bit, then a 3×20 min session.

Workout Summary - Dec 04, 2015 --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-DPS --|15365|64:00.0|02:05.0|179.4|21.4|155.4|11.2 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|DPS-|Comments 01|04907|20:00.0|02:02.3|191.4|21.4|146.7|11.5| 03|04964|20:00.0|02:00.9|198.2|22.0|159.5|11.3| 05|04947|20:00.0|02:01.3|196.1|22.3|162.9|11.1|

The summary pace is including the 2 minutes of rest between the intervals.

I didn’t really force myself to hold 200W, but rather rowed on feel. Ended up rowing very close to Tuesday’s result but it felt a whole lot easier.

Heart rate was just 2 beats lower. Heart rate drift was the same.

Lactate was at 1.5 mmol/L though, compared to Tuesday’s 2.5 mmol/L.

Tomorrow, Romana’s girls and I will do another running event under the “cross-training is fun” banner.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: concept2, erg, OTE, rowing, steady state

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steady state

4x20min at lactate

2 x 30 = $6.48

6x1500m and year plan

Saturday: 4x20min

Skipped Session & Steady State

Another steady state at lactate – and biathlon

Friday:Travel & 3×20 minutes

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