training

parovkamix

Jul 30 2015

Tuesday – Thursday

Tuesday

13 km of steady state in the double with Radek. Good steady state.

Wednesday

No rowing.

Thursday

In the mixed quad, but with a substitute for Romana. She’s not feeling well. Minor stomach bug.

We did our patented “special 4x2km” training (see this post, session #2).

It was difficult water. Strong wind. Chop. And lots of swimmers. The temperatures have dropped so the drunk swimmers have disappeared. But we seem to have an invasion of long distance swimmers. Luckily, since a recent incident where a motorboat killed a swimmer, most of them tow a small orange inflatable pillow which makes them much more easy to spot and avoid. Still our bow lady was obviously nervous and checking often and we had a hard time balancing the boat.

Hard work and good technique feedback in the 17spm stretches. A lot to work on, clearly.

parovkamix

I felt slightly weird taking a club boat out with three members of the other club in town.

parovkamix2

The graphs show the 4x2km and the cooling down. Had to reset CrewNerd again after the warming up. It seems I was quite good at hitting the rates, which is great since in the quad the iPhone is at an odd angle and I cannot really look at it without looking down too much at the catch. I used only the audio alerts.

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ctc1

Jul 26 2015

Getting the CTC out of the way

The plan was to go cycling with Romana but the plans changed. Our boys came back from camp yesterday. Unfortunately, their coach broke down and they had to wait 3 hours on a gas station before another one would pick them up.

They seem to have had a great time, but Robin is a bit white and threw up in the night and another time this morning. I think they are just tired and need a day in front of the TV ;-).

So I sat down to do CTC and if the Robin gets a bit better we’ll do a short ride in the afternoon. Just a ride to a nice country pub, have a drink and ride back.

Not sure how to pace. Decided to do the short ones in 1:45 pace and the 2km in 7:30, which seemed reasonable.

But ouch, this erg thing hurts after so many hours in the boat. It is weird. A week ago I held 1:49 pace in the single for almost four minutes. Now I had difficulty getting under that pace for less than 2 minutes.


Workout Summary - Jul 26, 2015
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS|-SPI
--|03500|12:35.4|01:47.9|278.5|28.8|167.8|183.0|09.6|09.7
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-|-SPI|Comments
01|00500|01:45.1|01:45.1|301.3|29.7|154.7|169.0|09.6|10.2|
02|00400|01:24.5|01:45.6|297.4|29.8|162.2|171.0|09.5|10.0|
03|00300|01:02.9|01:44.9|303.2|30.5|160.9|171.0|09.4|09.9|
04|00200|00:41.9|01:44.7|304.8|30.1|159.3|171.0|09.5|10.1|
05|00100|00:21.9|01:49.3|268.0|27.4|149.6|168.0|10.0|09.8|
06|02000|07:19.1|01:49.8|264.5|28.1|175.1|183.0|09.7|09.4|

I did back down a bit on the 100m to make the “rest” a bit longer. The 2km was without issue. I was able to gradually ramp up the pace. Definitely not an all out affair.

ctc2

ctc1

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dubbelzaterdag

Jul 25 2015

Last week: Party Time and Rowing

Monday

No rowing. Lots of stuff to do at work.

Tuesday

Long day at work, then to the rowing club to remove the boats from the trailer and rig them.

We had an unpleasant experience with our Wintech quad on Sunday afternoon. After Romana’s race in it, somebody informed us that some rowers from another club (not necessary to name them here) had bumped into our quad with theirs. Apparently the metal rudder construction on the hull had bumped into our boat.

We checked and discovered a nasty hole, so we went to ask the people involved.

Well, we got shouted at. Apparently it wasn’t “sportive” that we wanted them to take their responsibility for the damage. According to them our boat was in a stupid place (it was on the rack just below their boat), these things happen and it is absolutely normal that people damage other people’s boats at races and walk away without mentioning it.

The lady kept shouting at us, and wanted to give us 300 Kc for the repair “because we were so unpleasant”. We refused the 300 Kc (about 15 USD) and I went to see the race organizer.

The race organizer was very helpful, and suggested ways to resolve this if the club of the lady wouldn’t cooperate. Luckily, when I returned from that discussion, an official from that club had already approached us, apologized for the behaviour of the unpleasant lady, and offered that they pay for the repair.

So on Tuesday we were discussing the next steps. We would have to contact the Wintech rep and ask her how to carry out the repairs, to make sure the repair doesn’t impact the warranty we have on the boat, which is half a year old.

Then we opened the beer tap and fired the barbecue and had a splendid evening, celebrating the many medals our club has won in the past weekend.

Wednesday, Thursday

Alarm clock at 3am for the travel to Toulouse. Meetings in Toulouse on Wednesday and Thursday morning. Nice dinner in the town of Blagnac.

This week is turning into a rowing vacation. Not bad, relaxes the rowing mind. Also, I have a lot of work to do this week, with some deadlines coming up by the end of the month.

Friday

I couldn’t row in the early morning because of work and some car related stuff (needed to get a new battery), so I had to do it in the afternoon after work.

35 degrees C. On Friday afternoon. On such days, our lake turns into a giant swimming pool.

I took the single, and Romana went on a quad with a few ladies. Because of a logistics problem around my water bottle, I had to row without taking water with me. I did a leisurely 10km on the single. Nice rowing. Swimmers to the left, swimmers to the right. Inflatable boats. Pedal boats. Paddle boards. Kayaks. Fun. This time, I didn’t mind too much, made constant use of my mirror as well as turning my head, and slalomed between the other people.

skifvrijdag

Stroke rate around 20spm.

Back at the club, I drank a lot of water, gave my single a wash and then jumped into the lake, waiting for Romana and her quad to come back. The water in the lake was perfect, clear and a nice temperature, like swimming in a lukewarm bath.

The quad ladies arrived and joined me swimming.

Then we all hopped in the car and drove around the lake to the other rowing club. My double partner Radek was throwing a birthday party on his club. It was very nice. One of his friends is a good singer, so first she gave us a concert of two ladies singing slightly jazzy songs, accompanied by a good guitarists. Then she turned into Alanis Morissette (even looks a bit like her) and her band turned into an Alanis Morissette revival band.

In the mean time I had a few beers, some meat from the barbecue, some salad. Nice talking to friends, and looking over the lake from the other side. A nice change of perspective.

We left quite late. There was some (quite stupid) drunk naked swimming going on when we left (I wasn’t involved).

Saturday

Morning row to the castle, in the double with Romana. We saw something floating in the lake but luckily it wasn’t a drowned drunk swimmer.

We did steady state again but made it interesting by
a) rowing to the castle and beyond
b) doing Pete Plan rate ladders

dubbelzaterdag

Tomorrow: July CTC.

I made a plan that starts on Monday and ends on the World Rowing Masters Regatta in Hazewinkel.

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4x250md

Jul 14 2015

Tuesday: Repeat taper training, in quad

Same training as yesterday, but now in a quad. A bit more wind, 4 Bft vs 2 Bft yesterday. Again 4x250m but this time at a decent stroke rate for the quad: 35-37spm. Which would a challenge in the choppy conditions.

We had Tomas Emr coaching us in the launch, which was good. During the warming up we did 10 strokes on / 10 strokes off at increasing stroke rates (30/35/38/38).


|Start|Stop_|Dist_|Time_|Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|max HR|DPS|Remarks
|00000|03159|03159|22:38|03:34.9| 23.0 | 130 | 178 |06.1|warming up (part of)
|03159|03400|00240|00:44|01:31.6| 35.8 | 172 | 179 |09.2|250m, tailwind
|04044|04294|00250|00:45|01:30.0| 36.0 | 176 | 180 |09.3|250m, tailwind
|04763|05014|00251|00:47|01:33.8| 35.3 | 175 | 181 |09.1|250m, headwind
|05555|05800|00245|00:48|01:38.0| 35.8 | 176 | 181 |08.6|250m, strong headwind
|05800|11174|05374|32:13|02:59.9| 19.0 | 148 | 182 |08.8|cooling down

The stroke rates are a bit lower than what I saw on CrewNerd during the row. Perhaps because it takes 3 strokes to get up to the right rate.

Coach said the last interval was the best.

Then we rowed in pairs (bow pair, then stroke pair), then we rowed with exaggerated tap-down and hands very low in the boat. Then we rowed unclipped.

4x250md

4x250mc

Romana printed out the list of participants to coming weekend’s Open Czech Masters National Championships in Trebon.

12 participants in the C category single, so for sure two finals. Last year I had 3 hours of sleep before rowing this and came in fourth place, in a race where I didn’t have that little extra. I moved up one category so I have different opponents. I rowed 3:50. I looked up last year’s results for those that participated:

Mitas – 3:41 (-9 sec). A week later in Munich’s Euromasters I was second, only 2 seconds behind him
Milota – 3:55 (+5 sec)
Gwozdiak – 4:15 (+25 sec)
Novotny – 4:04 (+14 sec)

The rest are unknown.

In the B category quads, there are 8 boats, so again two finals. A year ago we won the A category in 3:18. We have one new guy in the boat. The only competitors we rowed against a year ago was the Trebon/Jindrichuv Hradec composite which we beat in 3:37. The guy who is not in our boat rows a composite with an Austrian club. If we draw against them, we will have to beat them, but that will be very hard.

In the mix Masters category C, there are 10 boats, so again two finals. Our “arch friends” Dekanovska/Dekanovsky remain category B. We rowed 3:44.

The winners of last year, Nevrala/Vecerova, who beat us by 0.5 seconds, are starting again.Then there is the Neratovice boat, which rowed 4:02 (+18 seconds), Smichov who rowed 3:44 (0 seconds) but were already C category last year, but with another woman. The rest is unknown.

The Men’s B 2x will be a surprise. We are not particularly good, but I didn’t row this last year.

Exciting!!

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Jul 13 2015

Only the rowing was cool

Picked up the car from the workshop today. New driving belt. New oil seals. Various other small stuff. Oil change, and repairing the airconditioning. The bill was the equivalent of an average worker’s monthly pay. 🙁

Driving to the rowing club I tested the air conditioning. I normally don’t drive with the airco on, only when it is really hot or on long drives.

It didn’t cool. Not cool. 🙁

When I started the car after the row, this LED came on: lampje

Not cool. 🙁

Maybe I am not the guy to be a car owner. I hate taking it to the shop.

The Row

Enough whining. The row was a short (taper week) training in the double with Romana. 4x250m stuff with 500m rest (I made that 2min30 rest):


|Start|Stop_|Dist_|Time_|Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|max HR|DPS|Remarks
|00000|02153|02153|12:31|02:54.4| 19.6 | 116 | 144 |08.8|warming up (part of)
|02153|02400|00247|00:54|01:49.5| 31.2 | 160 | 171 |08.8|250m, headwind
|02903|03150|00247|00:55|01:51.5| 30.9 | 163 | 173 |08.7|250m, headwind
|03556|03805|00249|00:53|01:46.5| 31.3 | 159 | 170 |09.0|250m, tailwind
|04148|04405|00257|00:54|01:44.9| 32.3 | 154 | 173 |08.8|250m, tailwind
|04405|06892|02487|13:50|02:46.9| 21.2 | 145 | 174 |08.5|cooling down

The first three intervals where from a running start. The final one was a standing start.

Pretty cool stuff. 🙂

Not so cool was that I discovered one of the red clips on the height washers was missing. Did it come off during the row? Did someone borrow it? Not cool.

4x250mb

4x250ma

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750m #2

Jul 10 2015

Friday 2x750m on choppy water: Good learning

Thursday’s training was a late evening session. Friday’s training had to be an early morning session. I don’t like to do it that way, especially two high rate workouts after another, but there was no other way. Friday afternoon to Monday I will be without a car, which despite the perfect public transport in Brno makes everything more complicated, our rowing club being 2km of hiking from the nearest tram stop and my work being on the other side of town (23km from the rowing club).

So I rolled out of bed at 5:30 and drove to the rowing club.

Very cold conditions compared to a few days ago. 10 degrees C and mist on the water. Cross wind and chop. Interesting to see mist and chop and wind at the same time, but it truly happened. Should’ve taken a picture of it. Also interesting about our lake is how light wind from certain directions can create seriously choppy conditions. We only have flat water with zero wind. Anyway, about 15 minutes into the session, the mist disappeared and the wind strengthened.

The plan: 2x750m / 12 min rest (1) 34spm, (2) 37spm.

The real plan: As the training schedule is written with double/quad in mind, I have to lower the stroke rates of the high rates sessions when I do them in the single. So I decided to row at 32spm and 34spm, and row them “as the first 750m of a 1km race”. I also decided to focus on achieving that rate by focusing on technique rather than trying to achieve a certain pace. Rate and technique over pace. With the chop and crosswind, splits wouldn’t be fast anyway.

3km warming up with some high rate bursts and a practice start. Had to reset CrewNerd after 2km because it stopped measuring distance. The reset fixed that, luckily.

First 750m with race start, then settle down to 32spm and count strokes to 80. The first half was slightly calmer than the second half, during which I had a couple of instances where my blade hit a wave and I was slightly off balance. The good old lactate rush was also present at the party. End result was 2:47 (1:51.6 pace) at 31.9spm (38max) according to CrewNerd.

To be honest I didn’t feel much like doing another one.

Detail of first 750m
Detail of first 750m

Twelve minutes of rest and I had to decide. Either I continued down the lake to the finish, turn around and would do the second 750m in even more choppy conditions. The alternative was to turn immediately and row to the narrow north end of the lake and do the higher rate interval in calmer water. Calm, flat water certainly helps to achieve 34psm and is easier when you’re tired (or, said differently, gives more flattering splits), so that was a very attractive option. On the other hand, doing the high rate interval in very choppy water would probably be better in terms of race preparation for next week. Trebon lake has a similar chop-sensivity as ours. So I chose the first option. During the rest I had time to think about a way to survive the second 750m. I played with the thought of reducing it to a 500m and avoid the dreaded lactate rush. Or to row 500m and then just paddle it out.

But all that didn’t feel all right, so I had to really find a way to survive. This is what I came up with:

Race start + ten strokes, then

10 strokes focus on clean tap down in the chop, then

10 strokes focus the high rate recovery (speed but calm on the slide), then

10 strokes focus on a light catch, not too strong on the legs in the first part of the catch, then

10 strokes focus on a good back swing, then back to

10 strokes tap down, 10 strokes rate, 5 strokes light catch, 5 strokes back swing, 5 strokes tap-down, five strokes high rate

I did exactly that and it did wonders. I ignored the stroke rate and pace on CrewNerd and focused on these things. The conditions were much more choppy than in the first interval and I thought I was going slower, but when I finished, I found myself looking at 2:48 (1:52.1 pace), 32.8spm (37 max). Not bad pace in cross-wind and being tired.

Detail of second 750m
Detail of second 750m

The stats:


|Start|Stop_|Dist_|Time_|Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|max HR|DPS|Remarks
|00000|00808|00808|04:58|03:04.4| 19.0 | 141 | 170 |08.6|warming up (part of)
|00808|01057|00249|00:55|01:50.2| 31.3 | 156 | 175 |08.7|250m
|01057|01306|00249|00:55|01:50.4| 31.1 | 177 | 178 |08.7|250m
|01306|01555|00249|00:57|01:54.6| 31.2 | 178 | 179 |08.4|250m
|01555|03852|02297|14:21|03:07.5| 18.5 | 145 | 178 |08.7|rest
|03852|04101|00250|00:52|01:44.2| 33.2 | 160 | 176 |08.7|250m
|04101|04350|00249|00:57|01:54.6| 32.1 | 178 | 179 |08.2|250m
|04350|04600|00251|00:59|01:57.7| 31.3 | 179 | 180 |08.1|250m
|04600|05895|01295|08:37|03:19.6| 18.6 | 141 | 179 |08.1|cooling down

Summary:

dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment
0808_____|_04:58____|_3:04.4|141|19.0|8.6|warmup
1496_____|_05:35____|_1:52.0|172|31.7|8.5|Main set
1295_____|_08:37____|_3:19.6|141|18.6|8.1|Cool down
2297_____|_14:21____|_3:07.5|145|18.5|8.7|rest meters
5895____|_33:31____|_2:50.6|148|20.3|8.6|_Total

Rowed the cooling down in victory mood. This has been a very useful, educational session. I knew the lesson but apparently had to live through it today to reinforce it:

  • Thou shalt focus on thy technique to go faster. Nothing else.
  • In the race, thou shalt not focus on how far the competition is ahead of thee, but thou shalt focus on rowing faster thyself
  • Thou shalt give thyself something to focus on, and the lactate bite will hurt less

It’s the reason we have coxes, right? In uncoxed disciplines, there needs to be a voice in your head reminding you of it.

HR and stroke rate
HR and stroke rate
HR and pace
HR and pace

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3x5x30a

Jul 9 2015

Thursday: Chop = Slow Splits but useful training

5:00 – up and drive to Prague.  Covered the 200km in 2 hours roughly. Good. At km 87 a standing truck in the left lane. Managed to switch lane smoothly but if there would have been a car next to me, I would have had to break hard, and you never know if the guy behind you isn’t making a phone call or texting, or sipping a coffee. Not pleasant.

Meetings in Prague. Left around 3pm. Made it to the rowing club at 7pm. Lots of traffic jams. Tired.

Windy. Chop.

The plan: 3x(5×30″)/8min rest. (1) 30″ 34spm / 30″ rest. (2) 30″ 36spm / 45″ rest. (3) 30″ 38spm / 60″ rest.

Here’s the summary. In the remarks column I put what CrewNerd told me, because at these short intervals it differs slightly from the spreadsheet analysis.

| Dist_ | Pace__ | _SPM | avg HR | max HR | DPS | Remarks
| 01969 | 02:57.7 | 19.0 | 144 | 162 | 08.9 | WU
| 00139 | 01:48.0 | 32.9 | 140 | 169 | 08.5 | 34spm #1 (31.9 / 1:48.5)
| 00108 | 02:23.3 | 21.4 | 170 | 172 | 09.8 | rest
| 00134 | 01:44.3 | 33.1 | 173 | 177 | 08.7 | 34 spm #2 (33.9 / 1:43.8)
| 00110 | 02:21.0 | 21.2 | 177 | 179 | 10.0 | rest
| 00130 | 01:51.4 | 32.7 | 176 | 179 | 08.2 | 34spm #3 (33.9 / 1:47.5)
| 00103 | 02:30.2 | 21.4 | 177 | 180 | 09.3 | rest
| 00130 | 01:55.3 | 33.3 | 175 | 179 | 07.8 | 34spm #4 (33.9 / 1:50.7)
| 00102 | 02:31.8 | 21.3 | 176 | 179 | 09.3 | rest
| 00127 | 01:54.3 | 32.2 | 175 | 178 | 08.1 | 34spm #5 (32.0 / 1:52.9)
| 01363 | 02:56.1 | 18.9 | 144 | 178 | 09.0 | rest 8min
| 00133 | 01:52.9 | 33.7 | 165 | 175 | 07.9 | 36spm #1 (33.9 / 1:52.1)
| 00151 | 02:32.3 | 22.2 | 174 | 178 | 08.9 | rest
| 00126 | 01:54.9 | 34.4 | 175 | 181 | 07.6 | 36spm #2 (33.9 / 1:53.2)
| 00126 | 03:02.1 | 20.7 | 177 | 181 | 08.0 | rest
| 00129 | 01:56.7 | 34.4 | 177 | 180 | 07.5 | 36spm #3 (33.9 / 1:56.4)
| 00134 | 02:47.4 | 20.5 | 177 | 181 | 08.8 | rest
| 00133 | 01:52.5 | 34.7 | 176 | 180 | 07.7 | 36spm #4 (35.9 / 1:52.3)
| 00122 | 03:09.2 | 19.1 | 177 | 182 | 08.3 | rest
| 00125 | 01:55.7 | 35.0 | 176 | 180 | 07.4 | 36spm #5 (33.9 / 1:58.9)
| 01301 | 03:04.0 | 19.4 | 150 | 181 | 08.4 | 8 min rest
| 00149 | 01:44.3 | 35.5 | 169 | 176 | 08.1 | 38spm #1 (35.9 / 1:43.1)
| 00203 | 02:27.5 | 22.0 | 174 | 177 | 09.2 | rest
| 00137 | 01:49.4 | 35.3 | 175 | 179 | 07.8 | 38spm #2 (35.9 / 1:49.4)
| 00185 | 02:42.4 | 20.5 | 174 | 180 | 09.0 | rest
| 00137 | 01:49.8 | 35.3 | 174 | 179 | 07.7 | 38spm #3 (35.9 /1:49.0)
| 00178 | 02:48.1 | 20.3 | 174 | 179 | 08.8 | rest
| 00124 | 02:01.3 | 34.5 | 172 | 178 | 07.2 | 38spm #4 ( (35.9 / 1:49.8)
| 00181 | 02:48.4 | 19.6 | 173 | 179 | 09.1 | rest
| 00131 | 01:50.3 | 36.7 | 173 | 179 | 07.4 | 38spm #5 (37.9 / 1:49.0)
| 00907 | 03:41.7 | 19.4 | 148 | 179 | 07.0 | CD

First set of 5×30″ was done with tailwind and increasing chop. Second set of 5×30″ in headwind and decreasing chop. Final set in tailwind and increasing chop.

What do I mean by that?

The north end of the lake was wind from the north and medium chop. The south end was wind from the same direction, but heavy chop. So in the first set, as the intervals progressed I entered more difficult water to row. I turned with about 2 minutes rest to go, and started doing the 36spm intervals into headwind. Last set was again rowed with tailwind.

Chop doesn’t speed you up. It was good exercise though to row in the rough at high rates. I imagined an end sprint situation at next week’s Masters Nationals, where there can be the same difficult conditions.

Related to my post of yesterday, I have been thinking a bit about effects which could explain why a “pull on the recovery” combined with a prominent and fast catch help the boat speeds. One hypothesis is about drag and boundary layers, combined with the rocking or tilting of the boat … which also could explain slowing down in choppy conditions, as I saw waves going over the deck regularly. Just a hypothesis for now. Perhaps the slowing down in choppy conditions is just due to balance and precision difficulties …

3x5x30b

3x5x30a

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