training

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Apr 19 2018

Wednesday – 4x2km OTW

Monday and Tuesday – no training. It’s a tough week to find time to train. My parents are visiting. On Tuesday, it was my daughter’s 18th birthday. On Thursday, it will be my birthday.

The weather is great and we visited one of the attractions of Brno, the Villa Tugendhat, a 1930 building by Mies van der Rohe, a famous architect.

Yesterday, we went to the rowing club so my parents could watch the rowing training of their grandsons, and I made use of the opportunity to sneak in a 4x2km/5min. The last time I had done this session OTW was in August.

Interestingly, in warm water and with little wind, I managed a 247W average power and a 2:10.2 average 500m pace.

Today, the workout summary is:


Workout Summary - media/20180418-1525480o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|08000|36:17.0|02:16.1|231.9|26.2|173.2|183.0|08.4
W-|08000|36:17.0|02:16.1|231.9|26.2|173.2|183.0|08.4
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|183.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02000|08:28.1|02:07.0|238.2|25.6|169.2|179.0|09.2
01|02000|09:39.9|02:25.0|234.4|26.0|173.1|179.0|08.0
02|02000|08:32.5|02:08.1|227.9|26.6|175.5|181.0|08.8
03|02000|09:36.9|02:24.2|227.4|26.6|174.8|183.0|07.8

So a 231W average and a 2:16.1 average 500m pace. It was quite choppy, which usually reduces the power a bit (at same perceived rate of exertion), and the water was colder. So at 93% of the power, compared to last August, I rowed at 96% of the pace. Seems pretty consistent. I was expecting the average pace drop to be larger. I am thinking that water depth is important too. The lake in Trebon (where I rowed last August’s 4x2km) is shallow with a sandy bottom. The Brno lake is deep, with a rocky bottom.

When I downloaded the charts, I was annoyed that I had forgotten that the NK SpeedCoach doesn’t record the rest strokes when you program intervals with rest.

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The slide show shows the technique charts that I found interesting. Catch angle influenced by head vs tailwind and by chop. The same thing can be seen for effective drive length. Wash was gradually increasing during the workout, as I got more tired.

This was a nice, pretty intensive workout. I had fun. It’s nice to row at 26/27spm, 80% of maximum effort, and cover the 8-9 minute effort with confidence. Also, there were sailboats and other scullers out on the water, so I had to pass people and watch traffic, which makes time go by so fast, in comparison with the ergometer.

I am adding to pictures from the weekend, which I forgot to attach to the blog. One of a coach who got towed in on Saturday morning. Engine problems with the launch, on the middle of the lake. The water guards told us he was their first “rescue” of the year. Another picture showing the mirror flat water on Sunday, which quickly became choppy while we were changing clothes. An old trick of our rowing lake.

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Capture

Apr 18 2018

3x(3x2min/2min) in the Single

Romana went out in the double with her partner Veronika and I took the single. I was looking forward to this workout, and a little worried about the prescribed stroke rates:

3x(3x2min/2min)/6min, two minutes are 1 minute at 28spm, 1 minute at 30spm

The coach always writes stroke rates for bigger boats, so for a single we are supposed to subtract 2. Still, I haven’t spent much time at stroke rates above 25spm this year, and the water was a little rough.

It was, actually, ideal weather for the youth sailing regatta happening on the south end of the lake, confining us rowers to its northern half:

A bit of a zig zag course. I warmed up to Rokle (top left on the map) and then on to the start of the 2k course (top middle, close to “Osada”). I did two of the three intervals in headwind (south direction), followed by a turn, and then one interval in tailwind, followed by a paddle back to the start of the 2k. In the last series, I had to change course quite abruptly at the beginning of the second 2 minute interval, to avoid a crash course with some sailing boats, so I rowed the last interval in front of the rowing club, and the cooling down was quite short.

I am pretty happy with the stroke rates I managed, especially given that the charts below seem to suggest I was holding up technique pretty well at the higher rates, despite the choppy water. This is in line with what I felt during the row.

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Capture

Apr 18 2018

Saturday – A great row in the double

In the double with my wife Romana.

The first row in 2018 and it was great. The water was mirror flat when we launched, but degraded slightly during the training. We did technique drills at low spm and then we went on to do a rate ladder. The boat was moving nicely and lightly, so the next lake length was another rate ladder, but going a bit higher. We ended up at 24 spm and enjoying ourselves greatly.

Almost 12 km in a little over an hour.

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A118BDBD-4121-442E-89FE-2FC27BF99BE2

Apr 13 2018

Crime Scene Investigation

I was hesitating between a morning session and an evening session, but chose to row early because of the weather forecast. When getting to the lake, I had s glorious view of mirror flat water, and sunshine..

A few minutes later, I opened the gate to the rowing club venue, parked my scooter and unlocked the building. Not aware that I had just entered a crime scene.

The locker room was a mess. Most of our members do not lock their lockers, and all the lockers were open, clothes lying on the ground. The window in the weights room was open.

The keys to the hangars were not at their usual place. I still wasn’t connecting the dots. The keys had disappeared over the weekend, and we had replaced all the locks. Probably the keys to the hangars were now stored at a different place? So I went to search them. Then, I discovered that the door to the workshop was open. This was starting to look very suspicious.

Then, the contractor who is doing the renovation arrived. He discovered that most of his tools and equipment had disappeared, and that’s when we called the police.

All the time the lake was extremely rowable, mirror flat and sunny.

The police arrived and we explained the situation. They called the crime scene investigators, who arrived thirty minutes later, along with the club president.

I won’t go into details but by the time the police had done their work we knew we were missing at lest $10,worth of tools (estimate increased significantly in the course of the day as we realized more things were missing), a large TV (new), computers, SpeedCoaches, CoxBox, and whatever valuables members had left in their unlocked lockers. I keep my locker locked, and I have only rowing clothes there.

The thieves had also taken the keys to the club van but the car was still there. I guess they had failed to open the remotely controlled gate. A good thing we have secure tech for that gate, with a record of which member at which time. We did however have to get the van towed back to Renault for a change of locks.

Romana was busy dealing with the insurance.

By 11am I wasn’t needed any more and it was high time to get to the office. The wind had started and the lake was choppy with white caps.

At the end of the working day I was looking at the flags in front of our office and it seemed the wind had gotten weaker, so I took the gamble and rode to the club. One advantage of the safety cameras we will now install is that we will also put up a web cam pointing at the lake, taking the guess work out of my looking at a flag pole 20km away.

The gamble turned out well. During the warming up, the lake was still choppy, so I decided to do the first interval of my 3x10min/3min session in the gorge. That isn’t ideal because it requires a lot of turning which messes up the power measurements and makes it hard to adhere to the prescribed stroke rates (alternating 22spm and 24spm every two minutes) but it was doable.


Workout Summary - media/20180412-1820260o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10403|54:00.0|02:35.7|172.9|21.7|149.8|176.0|08.9
W-|06360|30:00.0|02:21.5|206.7|23.2|164.5|176.0|09.1
R-|04048|24:00.0|02:57.9|130.6|19.8|131.3|176.0|08.7
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02215|10:00.0|02:15.4|215.7|22.8|161.8|171.0|09.7
02|02126|10:00.0|02:21.1|204.0|23.4|164.9|174.0|09.1
03|02019|10:00.0|02:28.6|200.4|23.4|166.9|176.0|08.1

First interval was in the gorge with tailwind. The second one was in the gorge with headwind. The final one was on the lake with strong headwind and chop for the first 6 minutes.

rowing chart

I did not make this a very long session, as I wanted to be home in time, so I did the minimum amount of kilometers that would still fit the prescribed session.

Today: Strength Training

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Apr 11 2018

We don’t train at all in the eight

Of course we don’t want to win the Primatorky and the Masters Nationals this year, like we did last year. Therefore, we haven’t been on the water in an eight yet. Actually, we aren’t training at all. If we show up at those races, it will be the first time we sit together in a boat.

So, today, we didn’t go out with a nearly complete crew and one substitute. We didn’t work on technique and we didn’t have long discussions on what we should improve in our stroke. We didnt do those technique drills at all and it didn’t come together for s few stretches. The following chart is not from a Masters eight. Our competitors can sleep quietly.

not an eight

The first 15 minute of this chart is noise because I mounted the mount and started BoatCoach when the boat was in the rack, before we didn’t launch.

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Apr 7 2018

Saturday – A Confrontation with my Single Rowing Skills

This was another planned hard workout. On Thursday and Friday, I had to work long and I didn’t have time for rowing. I felt pretty bad about missing two sessions and was prepared to make this an extra hard one to compensate.

A nice 2x3km, with a 5 minute break in between. Instructions from the coach. First one in 26spm, second one in 28spm. He writes instructions for pairs and fours, and has explained me many times that singles rowers subtract 2 from the SPM values. So I was supposed to do this at 24spm and 26spm. Of course I forgot.

It doesn’t work like that.

I arrived at the club at 9:30, just in time for my sons to start their training. I quickly changed to rowing gear (shorts, it was only 9 degrees but very sunny).

When we arrived the lake showed its mirror flat side, but the weather forecast had predicted a pretty strong wind, so I wasn’t sure it would remain flat. When I launched and during the warming up, the water was still nice, and I didn’t notice that the tailwind slowly increased in strength.

I turned around at Rokle and got ready for my first 3k. Go!

A few minutes later it was the 20th minute in the chart below.

With around 1.6km to go, this wasn’t going well. My heart rate was very high and I was having difficulty holding the stroke rate. Also, I was rowing very hard on the first part of the drive and I had the feeling this wasn’t sustainable.

It was a head wind and it was stronger than I had expected, and little waves were starting to build.

All this was adding up in my brain, and I stopped abruptly. Then continued technique drills at low stroke rate.

At Sirka, I turned around and drank some water, then got ready for Plan B – do the second 3km in 24spm and focus on taking a light catch. Even in the tailwind, the rowing wasn’t easy. The waves were getting bigger, and I was not as fresh as I wanted.

I held that for 10 minutes, then stopped.

It wasn’t to be, today.

I did run the Quiske app during the “intensive” parts of this session, and the charts are shown above. The lines are averages over pretty short time intervals. I think they are the average over about 10 strokes maximum, perhaps fewer. The Black line is the average over the entire session. The curves look pretty close to the single stroke ones that the Quiske RowP app shows during the row. I started an interesting discussion on the in-stroke data over at the Rowing Data Analysis Facebook Group. I am thinking deeply about that first acceleration bump around 7% into the stroke. According to Kleshnev, having this bump, i.e. a local maximum in the acceleration, is good.

The wiggles around 45% of the stroke are bad. These are my fast hands away. At the end of the second 3km stretch, I did a little photo shoot. First, the selfies:

Then, the scenery:

And, finally, the rowing kit:

You cannot see the Android phone with the RowP app, because I had taken it out of the RAM mount (on the right, behind the wing rigger) to take the pictures. Also invisible is the RowP pod under the seat. Seat dynamics didn’t reveal any interesting insights, so I didn’t bother adding the pictures to the blog.

Yes, this was a confrontation with the skills of a rower who has spent more than four months on the erg. I am missing the subtlety in the catch. I am not able to dose my power wisely. I get thrown off by little waves. I guess all this will improve in the coming month.

It has to.

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myimage (16)

Apr 7 2018

Wednesday – Fun in the Eight

A Miracle!

Wednesday, April 4, on the very first training day for the CVK Brno Masters Eight, I arrived at the club and we were complete! The eight core rowers of the team were all there, and we even had my son Robin as a coxswain.

The session itself was just a steady state row, to get used to each other. We took the old Empacher eight and set out, starting with only the bow four rowing, then changing that to stroke four, and finally getting all eight together about 2km in.

The row itself was nice, despite the big waves. If I was alone, I wouldn’t have gone out in a single, but in the eight it is doable. We are not quite the shock, awe and terror inciting eight person rowing machine that we were last season (were we?), but it was a good start. If we can keep this up, our competitors should start to worry.

I wanted to start with a OTW “How To” this week, but as I was a bit disorganized, this row was a mess, from the data perspective. As I have no good place to fix the NK SpeedCoach on my place at 2 seat, I decided to take the waterproof Samsung phone and the RAM mount, which is attachable to almost any boat, and run BoatCoach. That was a good idea, but I failed to get it connected to the Wahoo Tickr X heart rate belt that I was wearing.

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Luckily, this heart rate belt has a standalone mode, so I used that.

The other complication was that it was pretty choppy weather. Good that BoatCoach has a “splashguard mode”, preventing splashes to activate the touch screen. Well … except when a drop hits the “back” button, which happened about 200m in on the first 3km leg after the warming up. The waves were fierce, and I was getting a good deal of water sprayed over myself as well.

Rowing is a great sport. You go backwards slowly while ice cold water is thrown at you. What can be more fun?

I was trying to concentrate on rowing sweep, but I do confess that the splashes doing random touch screen presses on the BoatCoach app were a bit of a distraction. This being sweep rowing, I cheekily used my left hand on a few strokes to try to contain the damage. The drops had  managed to get to the window which asks if you really want to shut down the app, and I really didn’t. It requires a bit of timing, but I managed to hit Cancel just before the catch, then exit from some menus.

Then there was another annoyance after the row. I have programmed BoatCoach to offer sending Raw Data per Email before closing the app. This is a great feature. Back at the dock, you exit the app, accept the offer to email the raw data, and send them to workouts@rowsandall.com. Before you start your shower, the workout is on the site.

It doesn’t work like that when you row in an eight. Arriving at the dock, I exited the app, but then we had to get out of the boat in a synchronized way, and carry the boat up to the boat house, all the while with the email window open. By the time I had removed the phone and the mount from the boat, the window and the BoatCoach app had already closed.

It took some time to locate the raw data file on the phone when I was preparing for this blog. I also had to sync the Wahoo Tickr X with the phone to get a TCX file, which I uploaded to rowsandall.com to try and Data Fusion heart rate data into the workout. I also had to run the Rowsandall rowing physics module to get estimated power data. All that to be admired in the resulting plot:

(I think each data channel is slightly time shifted with respect to the other. I didn’t do a particularly good job at aligning them.)

So lots of data talk, but no real data “how-to”. Rather a “what not to do”, I would say.

It was a nice technique row in the eight though, despite the ice cold splashes.

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