training

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Aug 17 2018

Back OTW – short and intensive

After two weeks of vacation, spent doing nothing apart from walking around in nice Italian cities, and swimming, I was back on the water this morning.

I had told myself that actually swimming in the Mediterranean had kept my fitness sort of OK, but when I paddled away from the dock in my single, I had to check if I hadn’t caught some weeds around the fin. It felt … hard.

Apart from that everything was fine. I was geared up fully. My usual basic electronics set was expanded by a Scosche Rhythm 24 on my right upper arm (with the Polar OH1 on my left arm). The Scosche was connected to my iPhone in a waterproof bag and logging HRV. I am doing a little mini project trying to figure out the good, bad and ugly of HRV measurements for myself, so I needed to log the basic HRV measurements. More about this project later.

This would also be one of my few opportunities to do a full, semi-hard 2k on the Brno 2k course, for a virtual regatta that we have set up. So the outing was simple. A 3k warming up. A 2k “full out”. And then a 3k cooling down. Full out, after the vacation, meant stroking around head race pace to get to a semi decent time. There was no way I was going to be able to hold my usual numbers right now.

It got quite hard in the second 1000m of the 2k, when my heart rate entered the red zone and the lake became a little choppier. Here are the stats for the interesting bits of this workout.


Workout Summary - media/20180817-0630250o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|08309|45:11.0|02:43.1|138.7|21.3|145.1|182.0|08.6
W-|02404|10:10.0|02:06.9|224.9|26.7|165.8|182.0|08.8
R-|05912|35:01.0|02:57.7|113.7|19.8|139.1|182.0|09.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00110|00:31.0|02:21.3|205.3|23.2|114.5|118.0|09.1
02|00096|00:25.0|02:10.1|257.5|27.9|118.2|124.0|08.3
03|00111|00:28.6|02:09.1|249.1|27.4|147.0|164.0|08.5
04|00108|00:27.2|02:05.3|219.7|24.5|141.0|148.0|09.8
05|01979|08:18.6|02:06.0|223.4|27.0|173.8|182.0|08.8

The empower metrics were in the usual ranges, so that may mean that I haven’t unlearned rowing entirely.

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2A10938A-B41F-446A-8046-48CA49557106

Jul 30 2018

Final week before EuroMasters

This was a 10 day interval between the Czech Open Masters and the Euromasters Regatta in Munich.

On Monday, July 16th, we washed boats, rigged them and put them in the racks. No training.

On Tuesday, I did a 50 minute weights session.

On Wednesday morning, I went out to the castle on a Steady State row with Eduard.

Nice rowing.

On Friday, July 20, Romana and I did a 2x(6×45″/45″)/5min row in the double.

If I remember well, this was a nice row. I failed to make any notes for this workout.

On Saturday, we rowed “mini sprints” alongside another Masters Mix 2x. These were 7-10 strokes full pressure and high rate, alternated with two minutes rest. High rate is coming together really well now.

On Monday, July 23, we did another session in the double. We should not have done it. It was windy and there was a nasty chop. We just did a few practice starts and short race pace intervals, but the boat was “dead”.

After that, we loaded the small trailer which would go to Hodonin on Tuesday, where our boats were put on the big trailer together with the boats of Hodonin and Uherske Hradiste. It’s more economical to tow one big trailer with boats for three clubs than to arrive in Munich with three half empty trailers.

On Wednesday, we drove to Munich in five and a half hours, checked in to the hotel, and waited for the Hodonin trailer to arrive. It came at 4:15pm, and by then the boat area was already chock full of boats. We found a quiet place in the shade behind the accreditation building:

On Thursday morning, Kazi and I did a quick row in the double, to make sure all was set for our first race on the regatta, the Masters Men 2x in the C category.

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Jul 17 2018

Taper?

Wow, it’s been a long time since my last post! The reason for the radio silence is that there was just a huge amount of things going on.

On Sunday, July 8th, I did a nice workout in the single, rowing alongside a mixed quad. The mixed quad is one of our irons in the fire for the Czech Masters. We did 15 strokes on / 15 off series.

Of course, they were a bit faster than I, so I had to catch up a bit during the 15 off. In the second series I took a bit of a head start and we finished nicely rowing next to each other. I think the workout helped both of us getting sharp for the racing. Here they are collecting their bronze medal from the Czech Masters Open:

You notice that they are not rowing in our club unis. This quad has been training regularly since winter, and they have their own pink unis, hand made by Darina (bow seat). (There is also a rumor that they call each other “girls” when on the water, but they are not confirming that.)

Here are my data for the workout:

And that, dear readers, was the last training before a long hiatus. On Monday morning, at 3am, I departed to the airport, flying to Brussels for meetings. On Monday evening, I flew from Brussels to Toulouse, arriving in my Toulouse hotel room at 20 past midnight.

I intended to do a workout on Tuesday morning, and selected a hotel with a C2 erg so I could do some (indoor) rowing, but I woke up with just enough time to have breakfast and go to the office. In the evening, I had a business dinner, combined with watching the Belgium – France football (soccer) game. I was rooting for Belgium, but surrounded by French fans.

On Wednesday morning, I headed to the airport at 5am, so again no time for training. Spent most of the day in meetings in Madrid, Spain. At the end of the day, I headed home. The exercise was a sprint from the last D gate to the last C gate to catch my connecting flight at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. I was in bed in Brno at 1am, Thursday morning.

On Thursday, I had a full day of meetings.

On Friday, I worked from home in the morning, and then Romana and I drove to Trebon, the place where the Czech Open Masters Championships are held. I did a pre-race workout in the single. The core of the workout was a 4x250m/250m at race pace. I am aiming at 300W of power. The challenge is to not go too far above that in the beginning of the race, because I know it will hit me back in the second half. I didn’t wear a heart rate monitor.

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86B0F3D3-57F5-4B20-878D-D1537A7C1E08

Jul 7 2018

Last Week

Monday

We did a workout in the quad. The quad was a ad hoc crew that we combined such that no rowers would stay on the shore. We rowed 4x2k, divided in various intervals. It wasn’t bad for an ad hoc crew.

Tuesday

A weights session of one hour.

Wednesday

The plan called for steady state but Romana and I were in the double and had a chance to do starts and short intervals against our Masters Men B 2x. It wasn’t bad at all. We were faster in the start compared to the young guys, and in the 20 and 30 Stroke pieces we managed to row next to them. We rated a lot higher than the guys, but I am not sure if they were able to rate up. It takes some time rowing together to rate up effectively.

I forgot to put on the heart rate sensor and the power is estimated values. Nice workout.

Thursday & Friday

We spent a day and a half in Prague. View on the city from the Strahov monastery.

On Friday we arrived around 2pm and I did go to the lake, but there was too much wind and I felt tired, so I skipped the session.

Saturday

In the double again with Romana. A week from now, we will be starting at the Masters Nationals (Czech Masters Open) in the mixed double. Unfortunately, I will be traveling for work early next week, so this is our final workout before the race. We did a 3km warming up, then a 750m at race pace, 3km steady and then 2x250m with 250m paddling.

This time I did wear the Heart Rate sensor but I don’t believe the values at all. Here is a comparison of the 750m and the 250m pieces:

The 250s were a bit more aggressive. All pieces rowed with a cross tailwind and unpleasant chop.

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aanleggen

Jul 1 2018

Saturday – Fartlek in the single

On Tuesday, I did a weights workout.

On Wednesday morning, I got a couple of vaccinations for my August business trip to India. The vaccine came with the instruction to refrain from exercise and alcohol for three days.

I was planning to disobey and do a light workout on Friday, but got stuck at work.

On Saturday morning I headed to the rowing club to do a 4x2km workout, but I changed the plan. It was pretty windy, so I had to get to the gorge for some flat water. There it is pretty twisty. I decided to do fartlek.

In the low battery electronics section, my oarlock was fine this time, but my heart rate sensor was low.

For the fartlek pieces, I chose a power level and stroke rate that I wanted to hold and then rowed until I did three strokes in sequence under the target level. Three strikes and you’re out, basically.

I rowed with the GoPro camera this time. On the row out, I had the camera pointing sternwards. I wanted to show how beautiful the rowing is in Brno, without disturbing the scenery with my ugly face.

Half way, I found a little pontoon where I could land and turn around the GoPro:

My plan B was to find a shallow part of the river, hop out of the boat, and do a “wet” GoPro change. The dry version was better, although the pontoon was pretty gross (duck poo and other dirty stuff):

Here are some of the Fartlek pieces on the way back:

No romantic video soundtrack this time. I want my readers to hear the wind and my grunts. As you can see, I am still digging deep and that causes general slowness and exhaustion.

I have mixed feelings about this workout. I knew I was tired after a long week, the vaccinations, as well as a short night sleep from Friday to Saturday. I also know that I still have to get used to the new power values (after the Empower bug fix), but I am disappointed by how long I could hold certain power values.

In the afternoon, I took my youngest son Dominik to a couple of exhibitions on the Brno Exhibition Center. First, we visited an ensemble of historic trains used by Czechoslovak Presidents. The Czechoslovak republic was established in 1918, so there are many exhibitions celebrating 100 years of Czechoslovakia.

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Then we visited an exhibition on Space exploration, with nice exhibits from both NASA and Russian space missions. This was a very nice exhibit, starting at the missiles from WW II and before, and ending with the Mars Rover.

Finally, we went to the exhibit of Alfons Mucha’s ‘The Slav Epic‘. The paintings are big and impressive. But I somehow like Mucha’s posters for Nestle products or Sarah Bernhardt plays better

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Jul 1 2018

Monday – Sprintervals in the single

A great workout in the single. I did, however, copy the instructions from the training plan with a tiny error. Instead of

6x(20″/40″)/5min + 6x(30″/30″)/5min + 6x(40″/20″)

I did:

6x(20″/40″)/5min + 6x(30″/30″)/5min + 6x(20″/40″)

Two thirds of the workout is the same, but I know those 40″/20″ are a beast. Now, it was nice tempo training:

The Empower Oarlock failed miserably. It was just an empty battery. I tried to reconnect through resetting, but that didn’t work. So I have no idea about force, power, work per stroke and stroke length, unfortunately. These were exactly the metrics that I wanted to look at. I was rowing nicely, rating up easily, and I think I was hitting the sweet spot pretty well.

We’ll never know.

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mapka

Jun 24 2018

The rest of the week

After Tuesday’s 3x6min session I packed my travel bag and hopped on a train to Vienna. It was nice to watch the Neue Donau regatta course when crossing the railway bridge. A few days before, Romana and I had had a few great races there.

I took a plane to Brussels and arrived late, tired, and sweaty. I knew I was really exhausted after a long weekend of racing and not taking any rest after it.

I was supposed to do a weights session on Wednesday morning, but I just stayed longer in my hotel bed instead. Actually, I did get up and put on my workout clothes, but then I returned to bed. My body just didn’t feel like it.

A long day of meetings in Brussels, then a flight back to Vienna, where a driver picked me up for the final 2 hour stretch home. I wanted to sleep in the car, but the little chat with the driver turned into a 2 hour long conversation about football (soccer for my US readers), building permits and other important things in life. It was nice.

On Thursday, I had a meeting I was moderating, starting at 8am. That was hard. At the end of the day, I had time for my weights session. Sixty minutes of various weight lifting exercises. Boring, but useful.

Rowing outside, at the end of the day, would have been very hard anyway. It was 35 degrees C.

Friday

Overnight, the temperature dropped by 20 degrees, from 35 to a cold 15 C when I launched my single on Friday morning.

It was very choppy so I rowed up the gorge to the castle, and a little beyond.

All that green is forest. When I go rowing in the morning and go in the gorge, I always feel very lucky to be out enjoying the nature. In the NW most stretch, after I turn and start rowing south again, I see a few higher hills from the Czech Moravian Highlands in the distance, and otherwise I am just surrounded by forest. The city seems very far away.

My Empower oarlock disconnected and wouldn’t reconnect with 3km to go. Only switching off and on the SpeedCoach did the trick. Luckily, I have means to glue together the data from two “workout” files, like I did in the chart above.

I wanted to work on technique but got carried away by the views and it ended up as just rowing for pleasure. Not a bad thing, I guess.

Saturday

The wind had gotten even stronger overnight and we were looking at white caps. Not good weather to do the intensive session that we had planned. Eventually we decided to do it on ergs. We put three ergs on coupled sliders, so I was stroking a 3 person “boat”, with Radka and Romana behind me. The session was a 1km/1km + 500m/500m + 1km, but we changed it to a 4min/4min + 2min/2min + 4min erg session so we could all row in sync.

As this was an unexpected erg session, I didn’t have the connector cable with me. I did record heart rate and the data show that I have been up to 186bpm, which tells you how hard work this session was. 65 minutes of rowing in total, because we did long warming up and cooling down.

This session came from our club head coach and I like it. The final 4 minute was really tough, after only 2 minutes of rest after the 2 minute work interval. Pretty good race preparation.

Sunday

It seemed to be less windy this morning, so at breakfast Romana and I said to each other that we should go rowing, in case Monday turns out to be windy again. Arriving at the lake, it was actually much choppier than we had estimated at home. We really do need that web cam at the rowing club.

We took the double up into the gorge again and I made a conscious effort to stroke at low rate today. It was a great session, although the steering did slow us down a bit. Not a very long session, because we had to be back in time to do some groceries and to be ready for our visitors this afternoon.

We took our visitors to a place to eat and drink a bit, and the guest on the neighboring table was one of the country’s most notorious criminals, who served 23 years of his life sentence for two contract killings in the 1990s (which he has denied being guilty of) before receiving a presidential pardon a year ago, after which he achieved cult status.

I guess it gave some couleur locale to our visitors from out of town.

In other news, my son Dominik stroked a 4+ to a bronze medal at the Czech Championships in the boys 13/14 category:

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