training

Apr 7 2016

Taper Race Day minus Two

The workout

My plan for today was to do a 50 minute row, and have one “lake” of 30 sec / 60 sec rest at race pace.

Arrived at the club. Had a nice chat with the head coach. He saw the Holland Acht (Dutch 8+) training in Gavirate, and expects them to be very good at the Olympics. Nice. I casually asked him what his guys were doing today. “One lake at 22spm, then one lake 30″/60″ rest”, he answered.

Typical.

So it must be a good training to do two days before the race.

Workout Summary - C:Downloads2016-04-07-1545.CSV --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|04020|18:08.0|02:13.9|28.7|162.9|173.4|09.2 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|03008| 13:38 |02:16.1|22.5|160.0|171.0|09.8 | 3km 02|00124| 00:30 |02:00.7|28.0|150.0|165.0|08.9 03|00000| 00:30 |0000:00|30.0|165.0|173.0|00.0 | GPS failure 04|00125| 00:30 |02:00.1|30.0|156.0|171.0|08.3 05|00124| 00:30 |02:01.3|28.0|163.0|174.0|08.9 06|00125| 00:30 |02:00.2|28.0|166.0|175.0|08.9 07|00127| 00:30 |01:58.3|28.1|166.0|174.0|09.1 08|00128| 00:30 |01:57.5|30.0|166.0|175.0|08.5 09|00128| 00:30 |01:57.3|30.0|165.0|176.0|08.5 10|00131| 00:30 |01:54.9|32.0|172.0|180.0|08.2

The lake was super flat. One would think there was no wind. I thought so. I thought so during the warming up, and during the first 3km stretch at 22spm. I was really excited to see my average split drop below 2:20 for that part. (By the way, I rowed this as a CrewNerd set course, with start and finish lines that you can define in Google Earth and then upload to CrewNerd. Nice feature.)

But when I turned, I quickly realized that there had been a very light breeze pushing me.

On to the 30 second intervals. My GPS device stopped during the second interval and I had to reset it. That causes the peaks in the graph and the absence of data in interval #3.

Otherwise, it was nice. I know what to focus on to row my best head race stroke, so I tried to focus on that, and I think it works. Keywords: Length. Reach. The Distance-per-Stroke (DPS) parameter is what I monitor.

Programming fun

Just for fun, I wrote to Concept2 for the API to the Concept2 logbook. I got an answer today with a link to a description and a form to fill out and get an API key. So, in principle it is possible to change my Python code so it uploads much more row data to the Concept2 logbook, including splits, so the logbook can create the nice graphs that you get with ErgData.

I am very unexperienced with HTTPS requests (in any programming language), so I am probably not going to do this.

What it tells me is that C2 logbook integration is doable. Painsled, CrewNerd, NK, others: You can do it! I would love to see this integration, as well as direct upload to Garmin, Strava, SportTracks, and of course CSV and TCX downloads. That would be very cool.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: head race, lake, OTW, rowing, single, taper, training

Apr 6 2016

Playing with the PM5 and data tools

No time for an OTW row today. The taper plan called for a quiet 40 minutes row. I decided to play a bit with the PM5 and the different tools. Here’s what I did:

Row a 2km Warming Up on RowPro. Export data. Process with my python tool.
Row a 6km Main Row on painsled, export data. Process with my python tool
Row a 2km Cooling Down on ErgData. Export data to Concept2 logbook

It all worked like a charm.

Warming Up (RowPro):
Workout Summary - D:tijdelijk2km_rowpro.csv_o.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|01998|08:35.0|02:09.0|21.9|140.3|156.0|10.6

Main Row (Painsled):

The 6km Main Row, data captured in painsled, plotted from the CSV export

Workout Summary - sled_2016-04-06T07-44-35ZGMT+2.strokes.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|06000|25:06.0|02:05.6|22.7|155.5|168.0|10.5 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 00|01204|04:58.1|02:03.8|23.0|142.6|159.0|10.5 01|01204|04:59.2|02:04.2|22.5|158.0|165.0|10.7 02|01200|05:03.3|02:06.4|22.8|158.0|168.0|10.4 03|01200|05:02.8|02:06.2|22.5|157.6|164.0|10.6 04|01193|05:02.1|02:06.6|22.6|161.2|165.0|10.5

Cooling Down (ErgData):

What you see is a screenshot from my Concept2 logbook. I don’t have a parser for the ErgData CSV file in my plotting tool yet. Should not be too difficult. Yesterday, I literally had the SpeedCoach parser written, working and tested in 10 minutes.

Edit

It took me 15 minutes to add a ErgData parser to my tool. Had to calculate the Power in Watts by hand. It’s a pity that they don’t include Drive Length, Drive Speed, Drag Factor, Peak Force and Average Force in the CSV download.

Now, the only problem is that I will have to manually put the ErgData row in SportTracks. I don’t want to write a CSV to TCX converter. This, to me, is the downside of ErgData. Lack of export to SportTracks, Garmin Connect, Strava, and other fitness sites … I understand that Concept2 may want to build out their own logbook. I want my data to be free, however, and I want to see my rows (OTW and OTE) next to my runs and bike rides.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 4 • Tags: concept2, erg, OTE, pm5, rowing, rowing data, taper, training

Apr 5 2016

Taper intervals

With all the python stuff I forgot to spend some time on Sunday to plan this week’s training plan in detail.

So in the morning I drove to the club with only a vague notion. I wanted to test a bit at race pace, but have a short training. One, it’s taper week. Two, I was late and needed to be at work in time. I contemplated 500m intervals at race pace.

At the club I met the head coach, and I asked him what he was planning for his team (the men). They were doing

5x(5min)/R4 at 22/24/26/28/30 spm

That was an interesting session. Good training at race pace, but it starts slower, so you can focus on technique and build up to the race pace. I was sold, but I made it slightly lighter:

4x(4min)/R4 at 22/24/26/28. Last minute in last interval to be at 30spm

Here is how I executed it:

4x4min. Third interval in headwind. Massive wake a few meters into the last interval

Workout Summary - C:Downloads2016-04-05-0730.CSV --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|03727|16:00.0|02:08.8|24.9|165.5|172.2|09.4 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|00912| 04:00 |02:11.6|21.5|156.0|161.0|10.6| 22spm, tailwind 02|00950| 04:00 |02:06.3|24.2|166.0|172.0|09.8| 24spm, tailwind 03|00884| 04:00 |02:15.7|25.7|171.0|177.0|08.6| 26spm, headwind 04|00981| 04:00 |02:02.3|28.0|169.0|179.0|08.8| 28spm, tailwind

Actually, the 26spm and 28spm felt more comfortable than the 22spm and the 24spm. I guess that is good. I also used stroke counting on those sessions, so maybe it is just a psychological thing. The 4 minutes seem to pass faster when you count to 100.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: lake, OTW, rowing, single, taper, training

Apr 4 2016

New toy – and more python

Got my PM5 today.

The row was a warming up, a 3x20min at 190W and a 2km cooling down.

I also captured the row with painsled and exported both CSV and TCX files. The TCX files read fine into SportTracks. In contrast to CSV files that I have from other people who run painsled, my files don’t have HR data 🙁

EDIT – I reported this to the painsled developer (Rick) and he fixed it within 12 hours. See the plots in all their glory:

It’s already the third monitor for my Concept2 Model C. Here are the first two:

More Python

My python software ran great on my PC. Turns out the command-line scripts didn’t work too well on other people’s computers. Over the weekend, I did some testing, using my son’s Windows10 computer with a clean Python (Anaconda) install, and on my old Linux netbook. Greg also helped greatly by running subsequent updates on his macintosh.

Turns out Python packaging is quite confusing. In the end I got it all working. Now it should install easily for people who have Python and easy_install. Just installing Anaconda and then easy_install rowingdata should do the job. You get command-line scripts that should work on every platform.

It’s all documented on: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/rowingdata and http://pythonhosted.org/rowingdata/

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 3 • Tags: concept2, erg, OTE, pm5, rowing, steady state, training

Apr 2 2016

A 6km with competition

Today we planned to row a 6k. On our lake, this has to be a 6k with a turn in the middle. When we arrived to the lake, there was mirror flat water. Even when we pushed off, the water was flat. During the warming up, the wind started to blow and within ten minutes there was a nasty chop, which, as the 6k progressed, turned into a very nasty chop. I had a sweater in the bottom of the cockpit, which was completely soaked after the row.

A measured 6k. Three boats. A youth 15/16 single, a youth 15/16 pair, and me. We started with 1 minute intervals, first the young single, then the young pair, and finally me. I argued a bit with the youth trainer about the location of the start of the 6k. He has been timing 6k all his life with a starting point at a certain cliff. I have measured out the 6k with a GPS and I told him we had to start at the red buoy, which is about 150 m earlier. In the end I gave in and started from the “traditional” starting point, but when I passed the finish line, CrewNerd told me I still had 300m to go, so I kept going to complete the 6k.

Final result according to the trainer, who subtracted 30 seconds for the turning:

Youth single in 25:02
Me in 25:05
Youth paid in 25:10

Not sure about the absolute times, but I believe the order is ok. I tried to row towards the pair but couldn’t get closer to them. I guess they tried to row away from me and couldn’t increase the distance.

The row was slow and nasty. I should have put my oarlocks a bit higher. I was slamming into the chop. In the first half, the head wind slowed me down significantly at times. In the second half, with tailwind, I didn’t manage to rate up as much as I wanted. It started fine with paces around 2:02 – 2:05, and I had hope that I would get the average pace down to 2:13. I didn’t.

I have been a minute faster on this course, but that was with flat water.

Workout Summary - 2016-04-02-1008.CSV --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|06000|27:22.0|02:17.0|26.6|175.0|180.0|08.2 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|06000| 27:22 |02:16.8|26.6|175.0|180.0|08.2

Overall summary:
Workout Summary - 2016-04-02-1008_data.CSV --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|10465|65:23.0|03:07.4|21.6|157.4|180.0|07.4

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

Apr 1 2016

Long Reach (not Long Beach)

Again a quick row between meetings. Raced to the lake. Rowed. Raced home to dial in to the first call of the afternoon.

The session was again a 10 strokes on/10 strokes off, but I changed it and dialed up an old workout: 3x(5x30sec)/8min with 30 seconds of rest in the first set, 45 seconds in the second set and one minute in the final set. I didn’t go above 30 spm and tried to reach long. I noticed that this has a big influence on my boat speed so I want to ingrain this habit firmly.

It was a choppy business on the lake, so I first rowed up to the castle on the river, to seek quiet water. Did the first two intervals there and the final one on the lake with tailwind and stronger and stronger chop, the closer I got to the bottom of the lake. You can see the “lap” points on this little map:

Here are the pretty plots. I am starting to miss having to mess with excel. Now I have the python command line tool it has become a very quick process. The only hassle is having to email the files to myself to get them off the iphone:

Tomorrow, I will row a “sharp” 6k against some of the junior pairs. Race is in 8 days …

Here are the stats for the intervals:Workout Summary - 2016-04-01-1301.CSV --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|01895|07:30.0|01:58.7|29.5|163.5|170.7|08.6 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|00117| 00:30 |02:07.9|28.0|144.0|161.0|08.4 - 30 sec rest & headwind 02|00114| 00:30 |02:11.1|28.0|164.0|169.0|08.1 03|00120| 00:30 |02:04.6|28.1|164.0|170.0|08.6 04|00123| 00:30 |02:02.6|27.9|166.0|172.0|08.8 05|00121| 00:30 |02:03.6|28.1|168.0|173.0|08.6 06|00128| 00:30 |01:57.4|29.9|157.0|167.0|08.5 - 45 sec rest & tailwind 07|00128| 00:30 |01:56.6|30.0|163.0|170.0|08.5 08|00130| 00:30 |01:55.1|30.0|168.0|175.0|08.7 09|00122| 00:30 |02:02.6|30.0|167.0|171.0|08.1 10|00130| 00:30 |01:55.9|29.9|167.0|174.0|08.7 11|00132| 00:30 |01:53.8|29.9|158.0|167.0|08.8 - 60 sec rest, tailwind 12|00133| 00:30 |01:52.9|30.0|166.0|172.0|08.9 13|00132| 00:30 |01:53.6|30.1|164.0|170.0|08.8 - increasing chop from here 14|00133| 00:30 |01:52.3|32.1|167.0|174.0|08.3 15|00132| 00:30 |01:54.0|30.0|169.0|175.0|08.8

Overall summary:

Workout Summary - 2016-04-01-1301_data.CSV --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|11943|64:34.0|02:42.2|20.0|150.7|176.0|09.2

In the mean time, my PM5 is now unstuck from customs, where it was stuck over the long Easter weekend. The parcel is now traveling to my local post office. Knowing the Czech Post, they will try to deliver on Monday or Tuesday. However, I will not be at home, so they will just drop me a note and then I will pick up the parcel at the post office on Tuesday or Wednesday. I need to be patient.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: intervals, lake, OTW, river, rowing, single, training

Mar 30 2016

Data obsession

Sometimes I get sucked into a coding obsession. I am not even a programmer. But when creating data processing routines I can get into a flow. Improve. Debug. Improve. Debug. The end result is

Lack of sleep
Spent more time coding than I will ever save using the code
Spending a lot of time daydreaming about code improvements

The remedies are to either completely abandon the project or to tolerate it for a while. The enthusiasm ebbs once a certain level of usability is achieved but other people fail to agree what a great thing I have produced … 🙂

So last week I spent a few hours getting Greg’s great python routines to work with TCX files. Did that, and tweaked the plots a bit to my taste. I could have stopped there. In the mean time, I have

Added parsers for the CSV files produced by RowPro and the desktop version of painsled
Added a routine to make “pretty” summary strings, one-line-per-interval pretty strings for painsled CSV files and CrewNerd summary CSV files
Packed everything into a python package and uploaded it to pypi.python.org when people can download and install it
Pedantry alert: Rewrote one of Greg’s for-loops using Python pandas selection tools

The final big thing I want to do is add a concept2 logbook uploader. Then I may even start uploading my OTW rows to the logbook.Painsled is great, but you have to use the Concept2 utility to upload your rows to the logbook. The C2 utility is fine, but only works if you have your PM3/4/5 with logcard connected to the computer. With my utility, you should at least get the basic data (total time, total distance, date, weight category into the logbook.

Anyway, for the adventurous: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/rowingdata

There will probably not be more than three people in the world who may find this useful. I wonder who number three is.

Anyway, here is today’s row in all it’s glory:

Workout Summary - D:tijdelijkcrewnerd-2016-03-30.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|09908|53:13.0|02:41.1|19.5|142.8|174.0|09.5

No intervals summary, because I did this row as one big “Just Row” in CrewNerd.

I was a little time pressed, doing this row between work meetings, so it was shorter than I wanted. I did the 10 strokes on/10 strokes off again, experimenting a lot with stroke length and rate.

Coming Saturday I will row a test 6km trial against the 15/16 year olds in pairs. Not sure who should theoretically be faster. I hope I will win.

Here are two other highlights:

This session was imported from a RowPro file (my recent 10k PB)

The session of March 25th as intervals (jimported from CrewNerd):
Workout Summary - 2016-03-25-0758.CSV --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|03394|13:30.0|01:59.3|30.5|164.0|173.4|08.2 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|00179| 00:45 |02:05.9|30.6|138.0|162.0|07.8 02|00189| 00:45 |01:59.2|30.6|162.0|171.0|08.2 03|00189| 00:45 |01:58.8|30.7|163.0|173.0|08.2 04|00189| 00:45 |01:59.2|30.7|164.0|173.0|08.2 05|00190| 00:45 |01:58.0|30.7|167.0|174.0|08.3 06|00188| 00:45 |01:59.3|30.7|165.0|172.0|08.2 07|00187| 00:45 |02:00.3|32.0|158.0|171.0|07.8 08|00193| 00:45 |01:56.4|30.6|166.0|175.0|08.4 09|00191| 00:45 |01:57.8|29.3|167.0|174.0|08.7 10|00192| 00:45 |01:57.2|29.4|168.0|175.0|08.7 11|00193| 00:45 |01:56.7|30.7|169.0|176.0|08.4 12|00181| 00:45 |02:04.0|28.0|165.0|174.0|08.6 13|00187| 00:45 |02:00.4|32.0|156.0|172.0|07.8 14|00187| 00:45 |02:00.1|30.7|168.0|175.0|08.1 15|00187| 00:45 |02:00.5|29.3|166.0|173.0|08.5 16|00191| 00:45 |01:57.7|32.0|168.0|175.0|08.0 17|00194| 00:45 |01:56.2|32.0|172.0|179.0|08.1 18|00187| 00:45 |02:00.5|29.4|170.0|178.0|08.5

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: ANP, graph tool, OTW, rowing, single, training

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training

Taper Race Day minus Two

Playing with the PM5 and data tools

Taper intervals

New toy – and more python

A 6km with competition

Long Reach (not Long Beach)

Data obsession

Calendar

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