Month: November 2016

Yesterday’s session of endurance intervals required a boost of energy for the final interval.  That’s because Pete Plan training guidelines for interval sessions are to do all the intervals except the last one at the target pace and then do the final interval “as fast as you can.” Or – at least definitely faster than the target pace.

Therefore, the final interval requires a bit of a boost of energy, to elevate the pace into a higher energy level and attain a resulting higher average pace for all the interval sessions.

Today’s session was what the Pete Plan refers to as a “recovery” session.  A recovery sessioin gives you a day in between hard sessions, to help recover that booster energy you expended in the last interval of the day before.

The session today was 10K done at an easy pace, with the only target being to keep the average rating for the entire session at somewhere between 22-25.  DF 135.  No warmup or warm down.

The recovery sessions are also called “steady distance” but this one wasn’t very steady because I was watching TV and operating the channel switcher and volume control while rowing with one hand each time.

Happy trails to you.

Today’s session was one of the Pete Plan designated “recovery” sessions. The daily sessions in the Pete Plan training schedule alternate between one day of hard rowing and one day of easy, slow rowing which is called “recovery”.

The distance should be at least 8K and I chose to do 10K.

Rating was supposed to be somewhere from at least 22 to a maximum of 25.  According to the RowPro session report, the average rating was 23, so that was perfectly in the ball park.

It was supposed to be done at a constant pace, but I didn’t focus on keeping the pace constant because I spent most of the time watching TV and channel surfing.

DF was 135. If there is anything else you’d like to know about this session, ask a question via comments before it totally fades from my mind.

Happy trails to you.

Today it seemed that I was starting to feel withdrawal symptoms and a little bit of yearning for some more of the Pete Plan training.  So today was the beginning of the 3rd cycle for me of the Pete Plan.

When the title for this post, “A New Beginning,” came to mind, I searched on the internet for an appropriate image among the “free to share and use” choices, which was associated with the phrase.  One of the images that came up in the search was similar to the above, only it included the words “Part 2”.  I liked the image because of the elements of storm, water and its depiction of the big boat Noah built.  So I looked for the website where the picture was hosted and found it at the Torah Family website.  I might listen to one or more of the relevant video presentations later, to find out what it’s about.  I’m trusting that it is something good, so a link to the website is included in the previous sentence.

The first session of each cycle of the Pete Plan is an 8×500 R3:30.  I re-read the Pete Plan looking for any advice relating to whether any adjustments should be made if a person takes time off from doing the Plan and according to Pete’s guidelines, “It’s best not to take extended periods off training if you can help it, but life has to get in the way sometimes. A good method to get back into the plan after time off, for whatever reason, is to back off your targets by 1 second in pace for each week you have had off. So if you have been away on holiday for two weeks, take 2seconds off your pacing targets for this cycle, and build back from there.”

So I could have “backed off” by 1 second in pace, since I took a week off.  But I didn’t TOTALLY stop rowing.  So I decided to NOT back off on the pace and see if it felt ok.  It felt ok.  The target pace for the first 7 intervals, therefore, was 1:54.1, based on the resulting average pace for all 8 intervals of this session in the previous cycle.  The resulting average pace for all 8 today was 1:53.2, which will be used as target pace for all but the last interval the next time this is done in (hopefully) three weeks.

The training session was preceded by a 15 minute warm up and followed by a 15 minute warm down.

Happy trails to you.

The session I checked off in Pete Plan for today is the one that was supposed to follow a day 5 “hard distance”.  So it is being done a day early, ahead of the hard distance.  But I took two unscheduled days off this week, so it is being done a day later than it should have been done per the schedule.

Today’s rowing wasn’t done until late in the day/early evening, though not as late as yesterday’s.  And I didn’t want to do a hard distance late in the day.  So I did the recovery session today.  Which I guess means that I’m already recovered from tomorrow’s hard distance.  If I do it tomorrow.

The recovery session is always supposed to be steady-state (constant pace) and is to be done at an average rating of 22 to 25.  The generally (in the forum) agreed best effort level is about 50% of recent best 2K TT wattage.

Today’s 8K was done at a pace 1/2 second faster than yesterday’s 8K and it resulted in an ending HR of 119, which was 1 BPM lower than yesterday’s ending HR.  Go figure.

On possible factor in today’s lower ending HR might be that last night my heart switched to a lower resting rate of as low as 44 BPM, instead of the recent usual 49 BPM.

Happy trails to you.

Dear Diary, -It’s been a while.  But this isn’t a diary, though it has been a while.

This Pete Plan session was supposed to have been done on Nov 16th.  But it wasn’t done until in the evening of Nov 18th, after sunset.  That’s the explanation for the missing days in the otherwise usually daily blog posts.

This session was done so late in the day on Nov 18th, that there wasn’t time to make a blog entry for it that day.  But, thanks to a none too rare episode of insomnia, there is now time to make the overdue blog entry.

The session was a plain and simple 8K done at an average power level of about 130 watts, which was about 54% of my recent 2K TT.  Straps loose, DF 135.

Happy trails to  you.

Today’s training session was endurance intervals, of a type frequently referred to as a “waterfall”.  The previous instance of this particular session was done at an average pace of 1:59.8 so that was the pace target for the first 2 of today’s 3 intervals.  The last one, a 2K, was done only slightly faster, at a pace of about 1:55 for the first 1,500 meters and then faster for the last 500 meters, by which time I was feeling a bit tired.  The “bit tired” might have been due to the fact that time was at a premium this morning.

I got up more than two hours before dawn and had to do the rowing first thing, before having any breakfast, coffee or even re-hydrating after having slept all night. Did the rowing to get it “out of the way” and then took our car to the mechanic’s shop, to be there when they opened, so they could begin work on replacing it’s worn out clutch. Finally got a first cup of coffee from the coffee machine, at the mechanic’s shop and then I felt like rowing some more but chatted instead since that mechanic’s shop is a typical one and has no erg for waiting customers to use.

The resulting average pace for today’s intervals was 1:58.5, which will be the target pace for the first two intervals of this session in the next cycle of Pete Plan training.

There was no warm up.  DF was 135.  Straps were loose.  15 minute warm down.

Happy trails to you.

Today’s session was another 8K recovery identical to the previous except that the pace target was made 1/2 second faster, at 2:19.5. The result was a slight increase in ending heart rate of 2 BPM higher than the previous recovery session which had been done at a pace target of 2:20.0.  No straps, DF 135.

Happy trails to you.

Today’s Pete Plan training was a set of four intervals, 1,000 meters each, with 5 minutes active rest after each 1K. No warm up.  15 minute warm down.  Strapless.  DF 135.

Happy trails to you.