taper

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Jul 17 2018

Taper?

Wow, it’s been a long time since my last post! The reason for the radio silence is that there was just a huge amount of things going on.

On Sunday, July 8th, I did a nice workout in the single, rowing alongside a mixed quad. The mixed quad is one of our irons in the fire for the Czech Masters. We did 15 strokes on / 15 off series.

Of course, they were a bit faster than I, so I had to catch up a bit during the 15 off. In the second series I took a bit of a head start and we finished nicely rowing next to each other. I think the workout helped both of us getting sharp for the racing. Here they are collecting their bronze medal from the Czech Masters Open:

You notice that they are not rowing in our club unis. This quad has been training regularly since winter, and they have their own pink unis, hand made by Darina (bow seat). (There is also a rumor that they call each other “girls” when on the water, but they are not confirming that.)

Here are my data for the workout:

And that, dear readers, was the last training before a long hiatus. On Monday morning, at 3am, I departed to the airport, flying to Brussels for meetings. On Monday evening, I flew from Brussels to Toulouse, arriving in my Toulouse hotel room at 20 past midnight.

I intended to do a workout on Tuesday morning, and selected a hotel with a C2 erg so I could do some (indoor) rowing, but I woke up with just enough time to have breakfast and go to the office. In the evening, I had a business dinner, combined with watching the Belgium – France football (soccer) game. I was rooting for Belgium, but surrounded by French fans.

On Wednesday morning, I headed to the airport at 5am, so again no time for training. Spent most of the day in meetings in Madrid, Spain. At the end of the day, I headed home. The exercise was a sprint from the last D gate to the last C gate to catch my connecting flight at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. I was in bed in Brno at 1am, Thursday morning.

On Thursday, I had a full day of meetings.

On Friday, I worked from home in the morning, and then Romana and I drove to Trebon, the place where the Czech Open Masters Championships are held. I did a pre-race workout in the single. The core of the workout was a 4x250m/250m at race pace. I am aiming at 300W of power. The challenge is to not go too far above that in the beginning of the race, because I know it will hit me back in the second half. I didn’t wear a heart rate monitor.

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Sep 12 2017

Tuesday & Wednesday – Travel & First Training in Bled

I haven’t blogged in more than a week. The reason is the World Rowing Masters Regatta. There was simply so much racing and stuff going on and no time to blog. But there was certainly a lot that I want to blog about. So here we go. A series of posts about the most important regatta of the season.

Tuesday

Finally! We are off to Bled. Picked up the rowers at a parking in Brno, then the trailer at the rowing club. Our lake showed its most mirror-like water, so we were tempted to unload the boats and go rowing, but traveling to Bled won.

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The drive was uneventful, luckily. I would hate an “eventful” drive with a boat trailer. The only point where I was a bit nervous was when we chose the left lane at Graz, and were diverted into a very narrow temporary highway lane, separated from upcoming traffic with concrete blocks. Romana was driving and she managed the 7km of driving in this lane with perfect calm. Millimeter precision steering, with a few cm on both sides of the trailer, or so it seemed to me.

Driving into Bled town, my passengers started to make phone calls to announce our arrival and go for a training in the afternoon.

Too early.

We were caught by the organizers and put on a temporary trailer holding area.

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After about an hour of waiting, we were allowed to drive to the venue. So, all in all the wait wasn’t long, and it was a good move by the organizers. If they hadn’t done this, they would have created a traffic jam of trailers on the venue.

Boats were unloaded, and the official Bled 4×4 pulled our trailer to the trailer parking. Romana and I hopped on the bike and rode to our hotel. We checked in, took a shower, and then went into Bled for a nice dinner.

Wednesday

I went for a quick training in the morning. The official training times were between 8am and 10am. First, I took some time to rig the boat. Then I had to carry it about 500m from our rack to the dock. I did two loops of the entire lake. A few practice starts and a few 20-25 stroke intervals.

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In the afternoon, we rode around on the bike. We had a nice lunch on the lake. The racing had already started, but we weren’t racing today, so it was nice to see the boats rowing their warming up.

 

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After that, we watched some races from the grandstand. I saw a regular follower of my blog win, and watched Tom Carter race the Masters A 1x. I also took the opportunity to look around the booths and chat to rowing electronics vendors.

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Sep 3 2017

Goodbye Prygl

Prygl is the nickname of the Brno reservoir. Today was the last training. Tomorrow we’ll load the trailer and on Tuesday morning, we’ll drive to Bled.

On the map, it looks like an easy drive. The familier route to Villach. Then turn left to the Karawanken tunnel, pop out of the tunnel on the Adriatic side of the Alps, a couple of hair pin turns, and we’re there.

Romana and I launched at 5pm in quite rough conditions. We decided to take shelter in the Gorge. In the Gorge, the water was flat but the wind was unpredictable. We did a 5 minute rate ladder, 3 minutes at 26spm, 1.5 minute at 30spm, 30 seconds at race pace, in mostly headwind conditions. We weren’t entirely happy. It’s a fine balance. Sometimes we get that light catch and we’re very close to flying. Sometimes, the timing is off just slightly, and it’s a slog. You don’t see it in the boat speed immediately, but the rowing is without a spark, it’s not playful, and it tires the body much faster than when the fire is on.

We turned around at the Castle, and on the way back we did a few start practices and short race pace pieces.

Then we crossed the lake in a fantastic strong tailwind, with very heavy chop. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Romana enjoyed it less, but she wasn’t as uncomfortable as usually. I just need to set the oarlocks a touch higher when there’s chop, on our double.

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Oh, and I forgot to blog about what I did on Friday and Saturday. On Friday, I cycled to work, through the rain.

At work, I moderated a strategy workshop for the full day. Then I cycled home, through the rain.

On Saturday, the weather was slightly better. I took a lazy day and the only exercise I got was a short cycle tour with my son Robin. We rode into Brno, had a drink at the Selepka pub in the park, and then rode home.

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On Saturday evening, we went to the movies, to see a new movie by Jan Sverak. The English title is “Barefoot on Stalks” and it is a great, slightly nostalgic, movie, telling the childhood memories of the director’s father, from occupied Czechoslovakia in WW II, seen from the perspective of a child. Here is the trailer.

So … goodbye Prygl. We’re going to Bled.

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Jul 13 2017

Wednesday Chop Day

I went out in the morning to avoid wind and chop.

I got wind and chop.

Another taper workout. 

30″/30″+45″/45″+60″/60″+45″/45″+30″/30″ at 38/36/34/36/38 spm. 

I did it as another mini workout in the taper. Six km in total. Three kilometers of warming up. A few higher spm bursts. Technique drill. Practice starts. 

Workout Summary - media/20170712-071021-Sanders SpeedCoach 20170712 0722amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|00988|03:30.0|01:46.3|391.9|35.5|172.9|181.0|07.9
W-|00991|03:30.0|01:45.9|390.5|35.5|173.2|181.0|08.0
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|181.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00147|00:30.0|01:42.1|444.1|37.2|160.2|173.0|07.9
01|00214|00:45.0|01:45.2|379.3|34.4|176.4|181.0|08.3
02|00277|01:00.0|01:48.1|371.2|33.9|176.7|181.0|08.2
03|00211|00:45.0|01:46.5|389.0|36.0|174.1|180.0|07.8
04|00142|00:30.0|01:45.9|394.2|37.6|173.4|178.0|07.5
 
I also looked at the metrics. Surprisingly good values given that I didn’t monitor them during the row and it was windy and choppy. Perhaps I should hope for chop and a cross tailwind on the races of coming weekend.
 

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Jul 12 2017

Tuesday Chop Day

Monday

The plan called for a 1k full out as race preparation, but I decided that I better spend more time at work to finish some things, and I also think that taking some rest in the taper week is not a bad thing. I adapted my plan for Tuesday to compensate for that.

Tuesday

Short training. I arrived at the lake after work and it was very choppy. A few white caps here and there. The plan was a 750m at race pace and then two 250m full out sprints. That’s all. I managed to fit that into 6km including warming up and cooling down. It’s taper week.

Workout Summary - media/20170711-1805210o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|00750|02:46.0|01:51.2|331.3|32.6|173.1|185.0|08.3
W-|00750|02:46.0|01:51.3|330.7|32.6|173.5|185.0|08.3
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|185.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00250|00:55.2|01:50.3|363.2|33.5|156.2|177.0|08.1
01|00250|00:56.1|01:52.1|319.2|31.9|180.2|182.0|08.4
02|00250|00:55.8|01:51.5|310.1|32.4|183.7|185.0|08.3

I rowed the 750m in cross/tailwind with white caps. That caused the stroke rate to drop a bit below the envisioned 34spm. I also had to make sure I crossed in front of a big tourist boat, so that required some head turning, and I rowed through the wake of two sailboats who were enjoying the windy weather.

It was fun but it felt awful. I am surprised that the summary gives such a low power average for the final 250m, because despite the chop I thought I was able to bring up the power again. Probably, because I check the SpeedCoach only now and then during the row, some of the strokes in the chop were a lot below 300W. It happens. When it happens in a race, all have the same conditions and the one who deals with them best, wins.

I paddled for ten minutes and got ready for the first 250m.

Workout Summary - media/20170711-1805480o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|00250|00:59.0|01:59.0|343.6|35.3|152.2|178.0|07.1
W-|00250|00:59.0|01:59.8|345.2|35.2|153.6|178.0|07.2
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|178.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00050|00:16.5|02:44.6|318.1|37.7|118.6|132.0|04.8
01|00050|00:10.7|01:46.8|390.0|35.5|149.2|161.0|07.9
02|00050|00:10.4|01:43.7|373.5|34.8|167.5|171.0|08.3
03|00050|00:11.7|01:57.0|336.0|34.0|173.2|175.0|07.5
04|00050|00:10.7|01:46.9|324.9|33.1|176.7|178.0|08.5
I guess that the SpeedCoach started a few seconds too early, due to the chop, causing the strange value for the first few strokes.
After some paddling, I ran out of lake, so I turned around my single and did a 250m in the cross/headwind:
Workout Summary - media/20170711-1806110o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|00250|00:59.0|01:59.2|366.6|33.6|160.0|178.0|07.5
W-|00250|00:59.0|01:59.7|362.5|33.4|162.1|178.0|07.5
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|178.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00050|00:11.7|01:57.5|421.6|35.3|127.7|142.0|07.2
01|00050|00:11.4|01:53.7|395.5|34.1|156.8|164.0|07.7
02|00050|00:11.7|01:57.4|370.3|33.6|170.6|174.0|07.6
03|00050|00:12.5|02:05.3|309.5|32.4|175.3|177.0|07.4
04|00050|00:12.5|02:04.5|322.5|32.0|177.9|178.0|07.5
That was even more fun, battling against the wind.
 
Data Analytics
In the evening I had some fun with rowsandall.com’s new Trend Flex chart. I have improved it to show the value of the third parameter in the color of the bubble, and by running the chart through various metrics combinations for the past two months of rowing, there are some nice insights to be had from them:

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May 4 2017

Mini taper for first sprint race

A 4x250m/250m is my traditional workout during the taper for a 1000m race. It is also the first workout I rowed when I got my SpeedCoach, in July last year, and the exported file from that workout is still one of the test files for rowsandall.com.

So I showed up at the rowing club after work, took my single for a quick spin, and then I prepared the boat for transport to Piestany in Slovakia.

During the warming up I did a few short 10 stroke intervals and test starts, building up the start with one more stroke at a time. First, one stroke. Then, two strokes. Etcetera.

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It was quite choppy, and there were a lot of other boats on the lake. There was a sailing class with lots of sailing boats, and there were people windsurfing. In the end, I decided to do my first two 250m intervals between the buoys of the 2k course, in the headwind. Then turn around and do the other two in tailwind, like this:

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Here’s the summary:


Workout Summary - media/20170504-175300-Sanders SpeedCoach 20170504 0520pmo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|01000|03:52.0|01:56.4|338.7|31.9|174.0|181.0|08.1
W-|01000|03:53.0|01:56.5|338.8|31.9|174.0|181.0|08.1
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|181.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00250|01:00.4|02:00.7|343.8|31.4|171.7|179.0|07.9
01|00250|01:02.2|02:04.5|334.2|31.6|175.9|181.0|07.6
02|00250|00:55.1|01:50.3|338.8|32.4|172.7|179.0|08.4
03|00250|00:55.3|01:50.5|338.5|32.2|175.8|180.0|08.4

Pretty happy with the result. It wasn’t nice clean flat water rowing. The chop made me concentrate and I didn’t look at the SpeedCoach display much. There was simply too much going on with the chop and the other traffic. I aimed for 320W average. In the end I managed a bit more.

Here are the metrics plots:

We’re leaving tomorrow afternoon. Monday is a holiday, so we plan to stay in Slovakia longer and hike to this castle, close to the town of Piestany where the races are held:

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Feb 16 2017

Taper

We have a 2k erg race in two days, so today’s workout was a light one.

3km warming up, 

2x500m / 5min rest at 2k race pace

250m full out

10 km in total 

I changed the 5 minutes rest to 1000m rest to make it easier to row as a “Just Row”.


Workout Summary - media/20170216-1940200o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10014|42:45.0|02:08.1|188.8|23.4|149.8|179.0|10.0
W-|07204|29:23.0|02:02.4|199.9|23.7|148.4|179.0|10.4
R-|02810|13:22.0|02:22.8|142.7|21.0|149.9|179.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02950|12:28.1|02:06.8|182.0|22.2|134.0|165.0|10.7
01|00500|01:45.0|01:45.0|303.0|29.3|161.8|175.0|09.7
02|00500|01:44.2|01:44.2|307.4|29.9|169.1|179.0|09.6
03|00250|00:47.0|01:34.0|424.0|36.8|167.3|176.0|08.7
04|03004|12:39.1|02:06.3|174.6|22.8|156.6|163.0|10.4

My pace and stroke rate was all over the place in the first 200m of the first 500m. The entire second 500m was much more regular and consistent. A nice light stroke at 30spm. That’s how I like it. I am not sure about the significance of the 250m, but I think that it is a way to tell the body that serious work is coming soon.

The flex charts. In the final 3km I was rowing a bit shorter than normal. I was very focused on technique, still having the recommendations from my video analysis in mind.

I didn’t train yesterday. I had to travel to Prague to visit the Dutch Embassy to arrange my urgent passport renewal for an upcoming trip to the USA.

During that trip, I received a phone call from our club’s head coach. Our elite rowers have spent a week in Italy. The club borrowed my trailer to get their boats to Prague, from where they traveled to Italy on the National Team’s trailer.

I had instructed the driver to take my trailer back to Brno, and then take it to Prague again to pick up the returned boats. Against my instructions, they had decided it was more efficient to leave my trailer parked in a hangar on the Dukla club, where the national team trains.

During the training camp, Dukla underwent a reconstruction, and they had to move my trailer, which was locked. Instead of pushing it to another place by hand, the Dukla guys decided to break the lock and tow it.

So I have my trailer back with a broken lock. I told our head coach that he has to get it repaired by the original manufacturer of my trailer, and that it is his problem how he gets it paid by the Dukla guys.

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