Apr 26 2015
Barefoot 2000m erg season’s best & OTW 2km row
I chickened out of the 2km attempt yesterday. I wanted to do it at home, but hay fever and other excuses got in the way.
So I had to do it today. I chose to row it on an erg at the rowing club, before my row with Romana. I asked her to cheer.
I was lucky. There were a few other Masters rowers in the weights room.
Too bad I forgot to bring my training shoes. I should permanently store an old pair in my locker at the rowing club. Why not?
Well, I would row this one barefoot, then. I did a 2km warming up with a few bursts, then dialed up a 2km, took a deep breath and I was off.
Romana was chatting with the 2 guys in the weights room. What, she was supposed to cheer!
The plan was to go at 1:44-1:45 pace and see where it ends up. First 500m was without any problems, in 1:44.
Second 500m went by and I was still seeing the 6:55 predicted end time on the monitor.
The problems started in the third one. Luckily, that was about the time when Romana finally came over to stand behind me and cheer. I even saw a few 1:43s when she started to cheer me.
But it was very painful. After 750 to go I had to close my eyes.
At 500m to go I had three people cheering me. Luckily. I was very close to handing down.
Come on, 350 to go!
I was rowing with eyes closed and listening to the instructions, which were telling me to quit the 1:47s and bring back the 1:45s.
Come on, the last minute!
I started counting strokes. Lost count.
250m to go! I started counting again.
Lost count.
Last ten strokes!
Five strokes!
Collapse.
I was delighted to see a sub 7 time, but a bit disappointed after the hope giving 6:56 that I saw during the first km.
Well, as a Season’s Best I will take it! Also just above 900 nonathlon points, which was my target. Still have to do a 500m and a 1km before the end of the month.
Then we had a delightful 8km steady state in the double.
I took the picture from my home erg, transferring the result to it using the log card.
Apr 27 2015
Finding Length in a Black Hole
This morning’s workout was scheduled for 6:15 AM (defined as time we push off the dock). Lately it is no problem for me to get up this early. I find that after about 7 hours of sleep I wake up with upper back pain. I have no problems whatsoever during the day or during workouts. Only in bed. Perhaps time to buy new mattresses.
This morning had a 20x1min/R1min on the menu. Last week, Boris suggested a 30″/30″ which I mistakenly remembered as “30 strokes on / 30 strokes off”, which is awfully close to 20x1min/1min which is a popular workout at my rowing club.
Tried to talk the Masters double into doing it with me but they had 4x5min or something like that.
The warming up was a bit shorter than normal because I didn’t want to row into a field of debris that was floating around the nude beach area.
I was a bit scared by this workout, and was afraid I would bail out early. Didn’t happen, actually.
It was 6 intervals from the nude beach to Sirka. Then 6 intervals headwind back to the nude beach. After these 12 intervals I was determined to finish the set. Six more intervals with tailwind, then two times one minute into headwind and I would be ready for the day. Somehow I got motivated by trying to better the number of meters for each interval.
It took me 16 intervals to figure out that I could lengthen the stroke a bit at the catch, row 29.5spm instead of 30spm and find quite a lot of boat speed in this way. Of course you have to have the fitness to sustain these long strokes. It doesn’t really show from the numbers but interval 17 was going to the wrong side of 2:00 pace until I slightly lengthened the stroke, which in 3 strokes brought the pace to 1:56. It may of course have been the GPS inaccuracy fooling me.
The weather was OK but the lake was again playing tricks, adding some breeze that created some waves when we started our workout. When we finished, the lake went to calm and flat again.
Here’s the “rollercoaster” picture (HR, speed and position in one Google Maps):
I had to change my spreadsheet to allow for so many intervals. Numbers 7, 13 and 19 were problematic because there I had literally one minute to drink a bit, turn the boat and row out of (or into) the 2k course:
| Dist_ | Time_ | _Pace__ | _SPM___ | avg HR | max HR | DPS | Remarks
| 01934 | 11:44 | 03:02.0 | 18.6 | 123 | 150 | 08.9 | warming up
| 00250 | 00:59 | 01:57.9 | 29.2 | 140 | 155 | 08.7 | #1 tailwind
| 00256 | 01:00 | 01:57.3 | 30.1 | 148 | 151 | 08.5 | #2
| 00264 | 01:01 | 01:55.6 | 29.3 | 150 | 153 | 08.8 | #3
| 00256 | 01:00 | 01:57.0 | 29.0 | 150 | 163 | 08.8 | #4
| 00249 | 00:59 | 01:58.7 | 30.1 | 153 | 154 | 08.4 | #5
| 00247 | 01:00 | 02:01.6 | 28.3 | 156 | 164 | 08.7 | #6
| 00241 | 01:01 | 02:06.4 | 29.2 | 152 | 164 | 08.1 | #7 headwind
| 00241 | 01:00 | 02:04.7 | 29.2 | 158 | 168 | 08.2 | #8
| 00234 | 00:59 | 02:05.9 | 28.7 | 160 | 168 | 08.3 | #9
| 00238 | 01:00 | 02:05.9 | 28.7 | 163 | 171 | 08.3 | #10
| 00238 | 01:01 | 02:08.4 | 28.9 | 161 | 169 | 08.1 | #11
| 00234 | 01:01 | 02:10.4 | 27.7 | 160 | 167 | 08.3 | #12
| 00249 | 00:59 | 01:58.4 | 29.2 | 157 | 166 | 08.7 | #13 tailwind
| 00250 | 01:00 | 01:59.8 | 29.1 | 160 | 168 | 08.6 | #14
| 00255 | 01:00 | 01:57.6 | 29.2 | 163 | 171 | 08.7 | #15
| 00260 | 01:01 | 01:57.5 | 29.3 | 158 | 169 | 08.7 | #16
| 00251 | 00:59 | 01:57.6 | 28.9 | 162 | 171 | 08.8 | #17 found stroke length
| 00255 | 01:00 | 01:57.6 | 29.4 | 163 | 173 | 08.7 | #18
| 00232 | 01:00 | 02:09.1 | 28.5 | 159 | 167 | 08.2 | #19 headwind & turn
| 00250 | 01:01 | 02:02.2 | 30.7 | 168 | 176 | 08.0 | #20
| 02143 | 12:35 | 02:56.2 | 18.8 | 142 | 176 | 09.1 | cooldown
Short summary:
dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment
1934_____|_11:44____|_3:02.0|123|18.6|8.9|warmup
4950_____|_20:01____|_2:01.3|157|29.1|8.5|Main set
2143_____|_12:35____|_2:56.2|142|18.8|9.1|Cool down
3046_____|_18:59____|_3:07.0|159|19.1|8.4|rest meters
12073____|_03:19____|_2:37.3|149|21.1|9.0|_Total
According to Greg’s equation this is a Black Hole workout. I disagree. My legs strongly disagree, and my stroke length is very happy I did this workout.
Pretty graphs:
Pretty graph with pace
Pretty graph with SPM
By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: intervals, L1, lake, rowing, single, training