training

Sep 3 2016

Friday: A little longer commute

I was looking forward to this. The plan was to leave work early and take a long cycling route around the city. I tried to plan it as flat as possible, but in Brno this is difficult. The climb up to Líšeň was much longer than I expected. The climb to Vranov was as expected.

To make this a recovery workout, I slowed down really a lot on the climbs. I also rode in a light gear and tried to have my cadence high during the entire ride.

It was a beautiful ride. I tried to take a few pictures but they didn’t really capture how beautiful it was.

https://www.strava.com/activities/698073243

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: bike, commute, ride, training

Sep 1 2016

Sprintervals with long rest – OTW

Finally an OTW day again. Couldn’t do the row in the morning, as it is the First Day of School after the vacation, and I didn’t want to miss the breakfast with the kids this morning.

Arrived at the lake around 5pm. It was warm, around 28 degrees, and the lake was calm. There were fewer swimmers and paddlers and other recreational vessels than during the vacation, but there was still enough for me to be nervous and wear the mirrors.

The problem is always the same. Nobody estimates the rowing boat’s speed correctly. There is a very simple way to determine if you will pass in front of or behind a vessel, or are on collision course. If the other boat is moving forward relative to a fixed point on the shore (horizon), you will pass behind it. If it is moving backwards relative to the shore, you will pass in front of it. If the horizon doesn’t move with respect to the other boat, you are on a collision course. Assuming none of the vessels changes course or speeds up/slows down.

I was still struggling with the SpeedCoach workout menu. I wanted to do 20×30″/60″ rest. Being lazy, I thought I could program that as 10x(30″/60″/30″/60″), so the rest periods would also be captured. However, I forgot to change the rest between the series. I discovered that after the first two 30 second speed bursts, when the SpeedCoach went to a “break” of 10 minutes. I stopped and reprogrammed, reducing the rest between “sets” to the minimum of 30″. I guess the right way to program this workout is to do 30/60/30/60/30/60/… etc, at least if you want the rest period to be recorded. Here are the plots for the 18 intervals I did after reprogramming:

download (1) — Power estimated through the algorithms on rowsandall.com

Workout data for the first 2 intervals:
Work Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|00129| 00:30 | 1:56.2| 32.0| 145 | 170 | 8.1 02|00193| 01:00 | 2:35.4| 21.0| 166 | 172 | 9.2 03|00129| 00:30 | 1:56.2| 32.0| 164 | 164 | 8.1 04|00190| 01:00 | 2:37.8| 20.0| 167 | 170 | 9.5 Workout Summary --|00641| 03:00 | 2:20.4| 24.3| 161 | 172 | 8.8

and for the 18 intervals (removed the 60″ rest intervals):
Work Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|00131| 00:30 | 1:54.5| 34.0| 150 | 157 | 7.7 - headwind 03|00129| 00:30 | 1:56.2| 32.0| 166 | 176 | 8.1 05|00135| 00:30 | 1:51.1| 34.0| 165 | 169 | 7.9 - tailwind 07|00134| 00:30 | 1:51.9| 34.0| 173 | 182 | 7.9 09|00135| 00:30 | 1:51.1| 34.0| 174 | 176 | 7.9 11|00139| 00:30 | 1:47.9| 32.0| 172 | 179 | 8.7 13|00105| 00:30 | 2:22.8| 22.0| 151 | 154 | 9.5 - forgot to sprint 15|00138| 00:30 | 1:48.6| 34.0| 163 | 173 | 8.1 17|00135| 00:30 | 1:51.1| 32.0| 163 | 169 | 8.4 19|00138| 00:30 | 1:48.6| 32.0| 171 | 174 | 8.6 21|00137| 00:30 | 1:49.4| 32.0| 167 | 173 | 8.6 23|00123| 00:30 | 2:01.9| 32.0| 160 | 162 | 7.7 - headwind 25|00127| 00:30 | 1:58.1| 32.0| 162 | 165 | 7.9 27|00129| 00:30 | 1:56.2| 32.0| 169 | 173 | 8.1 29|00127| 00:30 | 1:58.1| 32.0| 150 | 153 | 7.9 31|00124| 00:30 | 2:00.9| 32.0| 168 | 170 | 7.8 33|00125| 00:30 | 1:59.9| 30.0| 164 | 169 | 8.3 35|00129| 00:30 | 1:56.2| 30.0| 159 | 159 | 8.6 Workout Summary --|05500| 27:00 | 2:27.2| 23.1| 166 | 186 | 8.8
The setup of the SpeedCoach confused me in such a way that I forgot to sprint during one of the 30″ intervals.

I didn’t go all out on the sprints but tried to reach a good boat speed by technique, especially trying to accelerate slightly in the last part of the recovery. I think I am seeing a boat speed improvement doing this, but it is too early to proclaim victory.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: lake, OTW, rowing, single, sprintervals, training

Aug 31 2016

4x2km with difficulty

I am in the first week of a 6 week block with a focus on “Aerobic Power” (or AT/VO2 training zone). Today the AEP training was the good old Pete Plan 4x2km, at 5 minutes rest. Here are the training zones I am referring to:

The Pete Plan way of doing this is to take a target power (or pace) and try to hold it, then go all out in the final interval. The session average is the new target pace.

A year ago I read books on rowing training (for Masters rowers) and a book on swimming training (Olbrecht). This year I am reading “Watt-Messung im Radsport und Triathlon” (English original “Training and Racing with a Power Meter”) by Allen and Coggan, the guys behind TrainingPeaks.com. The book is focusing on cycling training. They have a different philosophy on intervals and recommend to continue doing the intervals until you are not able to do it at a minimum percentage (of Power) of the third interval. Yes, the third interval. Not the first or the second, but the third. The idea is that in the first two intervals you are searching for the “right” power and in the third one you have found it. Then you continue until you cannot hold

95%-97% of that power for 20 minute intervals
94%-96% for 10 minute intervals
93%-95% for 5 minute intervals
91%-92% for 3 minute intervals
88%-90% for 1 and 2 minute intervals
85%-88% for 30 second intervals

For rowing on the Concept2 erg, where you can keep your Watts in a very narrow band from stroke to stroke, it is easier to find the “right” power already in the first interval, but I decided to stick to the book’s “third interval” rule. In cycling, the power meter swings much more than in OTE rowing, so I guessed that I needed to row with less constant feedback. To simulate that I covered part of the PM5 so I would only see heart rate and meters left, then checking the average power during the break.

So a 5% drop signals the last interval. When executing the workout I didn’t reread the relevant section of the book and I wrongly remembered a 10% drop. Here is the result:

So in Watts, this is

244W – 104%
242W – 103%
234W – 100%
219W – 93%

It was a very hard workout. I wanted to stop after 2 intervals.

A few pictures have emerged from last weekend’s regatta:

My opponent (the guy I had to catch up with) in the mM 1x race

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: 4x2km, concept2, erg, OTE, rowing, training

Aug 31 2016

Tuesday – Bike & Lactate step test

Morning

Commute to work on the bicycle.

https://www.strava.com/activities/693940250/analysis

Average heart rate 132 bpm so definitely a regeneration workout. Although, at one point, at the beginning of what Strava calls the “Olomoucká I” segment, a 500m long climb of 27 meters elevation difference (5% average grade, 10% max grade), another cyclist was just behind me, and I had to push a bit harder to avoid him taking over. That pushed my heart rate up to 176 bpm.

Evening

The post summer vacation / pre winter season lactate step test on the Concept2 erg. I did 6 intervals of 10 minutes at increasing power, taking a finger prick lactate measure after every step.

Workout Summary - media/20160830-194351-sled_2016-08-30T20-14-40ZGMT+2.strokes.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|14906|70:04.0|02:21.0|21.6|153.4|176.0|09.9

Workout Details
#-|SDist|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-|Lactate|Power
00|02494|21.1|138.0|153.0|09.9| 1.7 | 170
01|02540|21.4|148.9|162.0|09.9| 1.6 | 180
02|02520|21.6|156.5|165.0|09.7| 1.7 | 190
03|02552|21.9|160.9|172.0|09.7| 2.0 | 200
04|02554|22.5|166.7|176.0|11.2| 4.6 | 210
05|02246|21.0|149.1|159.0|08.9| 3.1 | 160

I started at 170 W and increased with 10W after each interval. After reaching 4.6 mmol/L at 210W and feeling like you feel at 4.6 mmol/L, I didn’t continue to 220W but took the last interval as a cooling down.

The goal is to determine the threshold, under which lactate is flat. For me, this seems to be just under 200W, but I will confirm this next week by rowing 6x10min at a constant power of 195W, taking a lactate measurement every 10 minutes.

Here is the graph:

The “Model” line is a line that I “fitted” through last year’s data. For comparison, here is the graph that I compiled in November 2015.

So in comparison with November 2015, my steady state lactate level is higher, the step is more pronounced and seems to be shifted to the left. I guess that corresponds to being in a worse shape, fitness wise. Vacation effect, I think.

We’ll see if this is confirmed next week, but it looks like my steady state should not go above 195W.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: concept2, lactate, OTE, rowing, test, testing, training

Aug 29 2016

Sunday: Training & Racing

Sunday breakfast in the beautiful garden of our friends’ house in Břeclav. Their garden is really a miracle. I am afraid we will never even approach this level of perfection. I am too sloppy and not really interested in gardening, and Romana doesn’t have enough time. Still, my doubles partner Radek, who is a garden architect, has redesigned our garden and we will implement the new design. But having breakfast looking at this garden in Břeclav, with nice people, was a treat.

My first race was in the afternoon, and I decided to do a light steady state session in the morning. There is a canal branching off the river, so I figured I could do the training there without hindering the ongoing races.

Of course I managed to mess up this plan a bit. Instead of doing a steady state as a “just row”, I decided to try out the 4x(4/3/2/1m)/3m rest that I had programmed into the SpeedCoach. That was OK but on the first interval I found out that the canal is a dead end, shorter than 10 minutes. So I had a turn in the first interval, and the second interval brought me back on the river for three minutes.

Luckily they were doing 500m races at that point in time, so I had the river for myself.

The third and fourth interval were on a quite narrow and windy part of the river, and paces were all over the place, mainly because I had to steer a lot. Also, wind and current varied a lot. I tried to do some estimates of the current on rowsandall.com, but I am not sure if I got it right. Still I can say that I rowed between 150W and 220W, and that is also how it felt, 3 on a 10 point Borg scale of Rate of Perceived Exertion. Or is it Perceived Rate of Exertion? Or Perceived Exertion?

The “Training with a power meter” book says that you should use the Borg scale at the beginning of the earlier intervals, so I guess that means that you have to estimate how hard it feels, not how tired you are.

I managed to sneak back to the rowing club just before the 1500m races would start. Got a friendly reprimand from one of the umpires for rowing on a course that was closed for training. He was right of course, but I just wanted to do some steady state.
Work Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|00817| 04:00 | 2:26.8| 18.5| 140 | 150 | 11.0 02|00649| 03:00 | 2:18.6| 20.7| 153 | 159 | 10.5 03|00368| 02:00 | 2:43.0| 20.5| 153 | 161 | 9.0 04|00231| 01:00 | 2:9.8| 23.0| 160 | 165 | 10.0 05|00828| 04:00 | 2:24.9| 18.8| 144 | 152 | 11.0 06|00646| 03:00 | 2:19.3| 20.7| 158 | 162 | 10.4 07|00423| 02:00 | 2:21.8| 22.0| 162 | 165 | 9.6 08|00218| 01:00 | 2:17.6| 23.0| 166 | 168 | 9.5 09|00779| 04:00 | 2:34.0| 19.0| 145 | 153 | 10.2 10|00596| 03:00 | 2:31.0| 20.7| 153 | 157 | 9.6 11|00400| 02:00 | 2:30.0| 22.5| 159 | 162 | 8.9 12|00206| 01:00 | 2:25.6| 23.0| 162 | 165 | 9.0 13|00815| 04:00 | 2:27.2| 19.0| 139 | 148 | 10.7 14|00635| 03:00 | 2:21.7| 20.0| 152 | 156 | 10.6 15|00421| 02:00 | 2:22.5| 22.0| 157 | 161 | 9.6 16|00222| 01:00 | 2:15.1| 23.0| 164 | 168 | 9.7 Workout Summary --|08254| 40:00 | 2:25.3| 20.3| 151 | 168 | 10.2

In the afternoon I rowed two races in the eight. I rowed the mixed Masters eight, where we had the pleasure of rowing in Břeclav’s new Empacher and won. At the end of the afternoon I was drafted for a 300m sprint in a Men’s eight. We were up against the locals (with seats 7 and 8 taken by the Czech Pair who came 7th in Rio) in their new boat, and our boat was a mix of Juniors and Masters from various clubs, in the heavy 1987 Hudecek. Of course we came second (they beat us by a length over 300m), but we got a few nice bottles of wine for giving the Břeclav men competition.

In other races, daughter Lenka rowed two finals. They came third in the girls quad Final in a race that was re-started when they were leading after 500m and the two other boats clashed (umpire being the trainer of one of the quads in the clash). They also came third in the doubles Final.

My son Dominik enlarged his medal collection by steering a winning boys quad and winning a boys double final.

That was the end of a nice small regatta. While I was out sprinting in the eight, the kids had loaded the trailer, and apart from a small Sunday afternoon traffic jam into Brno the trip home was uneventful.

Dinner on our terrace, still 30 degrees at 7pm.

Břeclav rowing club. Finish "tower" and final straight part of the course — Břeclav rowing club. Finish “tower” and final straight part of the course

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 3 • Tags: eight, OTW, race, river, rowing, single, steady state, training

Aug 25 2016

OTW session reduced to 30 minutes and some more Power Based Training considerations

I couldn’t row in the morning, and I couldn’t leave work early.

So I arrived at the rowing club around 5:30pm. It was a very hot day and the lake looked gorgeous. Colorful sails from a sailing race that was ongoing, and many many paddle boards and pedal boats and swimmers and … The paddle boarders are multiplying rapidly. I admit that I quite appreciate seeing paddleboardettes in bikinis. It is a nice sight, and I am always friendly to them.

I was also friendly to the woman who swam in front of my single when I turned, and didn’t move. She was doing a back stroke but just didn’t move anywhere. To be honest, she looked like she had smoked something, or perhaps took her medicine at the wrong time or in the wrong dose. Completely off the world. Smiling to herself, and when I asked her if she was intending to go or not, she giggled, answered:

“My psychiater has a wet rucksack!” Then she burst out in laughter and almost disappeared under the water surface.

I looked at the paddleboardettes and made the cuckoo sign. They smiled.

But why only a thirty minute row? One reason is that the lake was full with boats and I couldn’t do a decent workout. The other reason was that I had lost precious time because

The wrong boats were loaded on my trailer so I had to move one single to the big trailer to make room for my single.
The lock of hanger nr 4 (“IIII”) was stuck, so I had to go to the back of the hangar through some bushes, crawl through a slightly open window, avoid falling on the scull rack and then open the hangar from inside. I put some vaseline on the lock, which hopefully helps.
Daughter Lenka had used the single earlier that day and forgotten to move the footboard back. As the bottom nut is not a wing nut but a normal one, I had to go to my car to get the tool to move the footstretcher
I needed some time after the session to load my single on the trailer

Well, it’s freewheeling week anyway, so I just did a 6km row.

Earlier today I fixed the “2:11 pace” bug on rowsandall.com. Using the Rowing Physics module on rowsandall.com, it’s premium users can calculate equivalent erg pace from the workout data. This worked fine for faster pieces, but all the slower segments seemed to get stuck to a 2:11 equivalent erg pace. I was looking for errors in the Rowing Physics module but couldn’t find any. At the end of the day, it turned out to be an embarrassing mistake in the Rowing Data module, which called the Rowing Physics module with a stroke rate of 30spm, instead of changing that to the real stroke rate.

I fixed the bug and now I can make a power estimate of my row on rowsandall.com before I export it to Strava or SportTracks.mobi. Here is the row:

Here is the power plot:

The corrected pace is the pace in absence of wind. There was a slight east wind today that was slowing me down for most of the row.

Here is the row on Strava, exported after doing the Power magic on rowsandall.com:

https://www.strava.com/activities/688834586/analysis

And here is one of the plots on SportTracks.mobi:

ST2 — I don’t think this plot is exactly right but I need to dig deeper into Power Based Training to understand what the insight is from this plot

Oh, and in the Desktop version of SportTracks, I could do this plot.

Power Distribution. Not sure about the insight

I personally think it is a pretty cool thing to have Power estimates from OTW data. I will try to do some further descriptions of what I am doing and what rowsandall.com can do in subsequent posts.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: lake, rowing, rowsandall.com, single, steady state, training

Illustration from The Poohsticks Handbook: A Poohstickopedia by Mark Evans (Egmont Publishing). Illustrations by Mark Burgess after E H Shephard. Copyright 2015 Disney Enterprises Inc. Based on the Winnie-the-Pooh works by A.A. Milne and E.H. Shephard.

Aug 25 2016

About Data Management and Training Insights for Masters Rowers

I have been rowing races (and training for them) for a large part of my life. I started rowing in 1984, and when I was 15 I moved on to race rowing. That also meant my first encounter with a structured training plan. The plan was of course entirely done by my coach, who got professional assistance through the rowing association (KNRB and ARB in my case, this being in The Netherlands). I just executed the trainings.

This continued like that until I was 23. That was the first time I stopped rowing. I stopped entirely.

However, I was bitten by the sports bug, and I continued exercising on my own. Basically without structure. I went running, cycling, swimming, and every session was a fartlek session. Also, the number of times per week varied between zero and “a few times”. I participated in half marathon runs.

When I was 24, I became a member of a rowing club again. I regularly took a single, double or quad for an outing. No structured training plan. From there, though, the situation has gradually changed. First, there was participation in a few races. Then there was more regular training. Then there was following a Plan (Pete plan, to start). Then my training diary started to evolve, from written notes to a spreadsheet, to where I am today. So here is what I use:

Planning Training

Pen and paper and a spreadsheet. Today I do my own training plan, based on my (limited) understanding from reading training handbooks, scientific literature and books on sports physiology. I do not use any online available ready plans or hire coaching support. I have tried Rojabo in the past but wasn’t convinced it was helping me in the long run. Also, I am genuinely interested in the science behind optimizing training.

The spreadsheet has become pretty elaborate, including tabs with favorite workouts and a classification. I use sessions from all the training plans I have used in the past.

The weekly detailed training planning takes about 30 minutes every Sunday evening. Sometimes I remember to write the sessions on my Google Calendar, from where they automatically show up on my smartphone. I tried to use the planning plugin in SportTracks, but was too cumbersome, and the sync with Google Calendar didn’t work.

Data Capturing

I strive to capture Heart Rate, pace and cadence (stroke rate) and weather information for each session, whether it is running, cycling, indoor or outdoor rowing. I use a heart rate belt and various devices:

NK SpeedCoach GPS 2 for OTW rowing. I recently switched from CrewNerd and have used RiM as well. Garmin Forerunner for redundancy.
Painsled, ErgData or RowPro for rowing OTE.
Strava app on the phone for cycling
Garmin Forerunner for running and hotel gym sessions
Wahoo Fitness app for strength sessions at home

Getting all the data in one place

I have a paid subscription to Sporttracks.mobi and have paid for the SportTracks desktop app. I use the free versions of Strava (mainly for the social aspects and for the “segments”), Garmin Connect (sync with my Garmin devices) and TrainingPeaks (syncs with CrewNerd). I have set up Tapiriik to sync between Strava, Garmin Connect, TrainingPeaks, and SportTracks.mobi. SportTracks.mobi syncs with the desktop version automatically.

Through my own site rowsandall.com, I am able to sync my rowing (OTE and OTW) between the Concept2 logbook, Strava, and SportTracks. I can upload SpeedCoach files to that site and send a copy of the data to Strava, SportTracks and the C2 logbook. Same process for Painsled files. With ErgData, I get the data in the C2 logbook. I use the site to pull the data from there and send copies to Strava and SportTracks.

My ideal would be a workflow that does not involve storing FIT, CSV or TCX files on my desktop in any way. Instead, data capturing apps should do online syncing to the mentioned websites directly from the app. Unfortunately, the NK SpeedCoach and Painsled are not there yet, but I think they are working on that.

Data and Training analysis

Being a data geek and very interested in training science, I love plotting my training sessions in different ways, and making graphs of progress (or lack of progress) of various metrics over time. SportTracks Training Load plugin calculates my Training Stress Balance (numbers representing my “fitness” and “freshness”) as well as many other metrics, some more valuable than others. I also like to use excel (and increasingly Python programs) to plot seasonal bests, lactate scores, and I have added most of the standard plots to my rowsandall.com site.

Recently, I have become more interested in “Power based training” and I have considered a few more ways to get insights:

Golden Cheetah. Fantastic program, but geared very much towards triathletes. If you do any sport that is not cycling, running or swimming, you’re out of luck. Still interested in learning how others have tweaked Golden Cheetah for rowing.
Premium version of TrainingPeaks
1. This would mean dumping SportTracks and go to TrainingPeaks. Their metrics look interesting but their price tag is very steep ($20 / month)
2. For now, I have only used TrainingPeaks as an intermediate station for my data. When I started to seriously look into the possibilities of TrainingPeaks, I quickly discovered that it was syncing with Garmin Connect. Because I was using Tapiriik as well for syncing, I had duplicates of most of my sessions. Seriously, I expect a training data website to detect duplicates. I mean, sessions with the same start time, duration, and session name should be flagged and removed. I tried to remove some of the data but it takes three clicks per duplicate session, and my training database has more than 1500 entries.
3. I also figured out that I should first read a bit more about power based training and try to assess what it would bring to me. I suspect it is just an interest for now, and I have no idea if it would have added value on top of what I am doing in terms of planning, executing, and reviewing using the tools I have at my disposal today. In other words, the $20 / month investment probably wouldn’t make me any faster.

So in the end I decided to order a book on Power Based Training and read that first. If I get enthusiastic, I will implement the useful training metrics in Python, and may make them available to a wider public through rowsandall.com. What I am really interested in is a rowing specific interpretation of such a training paradigm, which is extremely interesting given that power meters for rowing are around the corner (with the NK Empower oarlock and other products coming on the market soon).

Hopefully this summary of where I am in terms of training planning, execution and getting insights is helpful for others as well. The triathlon community seems to be miles ahead of the rowing community in this sense, but I believe there a lot of self-coached or otherwise interested rowers who would like to get training insights and improve the way they train.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 7 • Tags: metrics, planning, power based training, rowing, training

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