Today’s recovery session was another 8K. But it was done at a very slightly higher pace, 1/2 second per 500 meters faster than the 8K recovery session done two days ago.
I increased the pace just slightly, because I thought that I’d try to raise the effort and the resulting average HR just a little because I thought that I’d been rowing just a little too easy on the previous recovery session. The reason I thought so was due to some discussions that happened in a rowing forum.
But rowing 1/2 second per 500m faster for 8K only added a total of one single calorie to the entire rowing session. It reduced the total time of the 8K by 7.5 seconds. It increased the power level by 12.5 watts, according to a comparison of the two session reports. But ending HR was 2 BPM lower, instead of being the same or higher. Interesting, that it made no difference to HR. Maybe next time, I’ll increase pace by another half second and so on from one recovery session to the next, to see where the “tipping point” is, to increase HR. Of course, it might depend on other factors, since life is so very complicated.
Today is the day I’ve been looking forward to for the past seven days. It was another chance to aim for improvement in the 10K, on the Pete Plan “Hard Distance” day.
The session was scheduled online and three others joined in. One of them was in the US, another was in Germany and the third was in England. The guy in the US wanted to help encourage me by pacing alongside.
It was a very easy pace for him though it was a nice hard pace for me at that distance. The other two could have rowed the 10K a lot faster also, but they decided to have an easy day also and they too rowed right alongside for the whole distance. It was a mental boost, to have them there and another reason to keep going, so they wouldn’t be disappointed to see a HD.
I knew I’d have company so I went with the most conservative plan that I could think of for the 10K. The goal was to finish with an average pace faster than 1:59.3, so the plan was: Row the first 9,500 meters at a constant average pace of 1:59.3 and then go faster during the final 500 meters. And – if I felt okay when the remaining distance counted down to 1,000 meters, to slightly pick up the pace, from 1:59.3, to about 1:59 with 1,000 meters to go.
The plan worked well and I was breathing easy until the last 500 meters when I had to start breathing faster. There was still enough energy left that I was able to sprint the very last 100 meters, to finish breathing very hard during the last 5 or 10 strokes.
Immediately afterwards, I had to get off the rower and use the bathroom, due to the influence of having drank perhaps a little too much coffee before the 10K. So I typed, “be right back” instead of joining in the afterwards chat right away. When I returned, I saw that they were speculating if I left to “make a bathroom check” so I typed, “Yes, I had to make a bathroom check.” One of them then typed, “I hope you didn’t have to vomit.” To which I replied, “No, I had to deal with an excess of coffee. 🙂 ”
To repeat myself: It was really nice, to have their company.
Before the 10K there was a 15 minute warmup and a 10 minute warm down afterwards. Straps were loose for most of the session but near the end of the 10K I reached down and pulled each of the footstraps to cinch them up snug for the final sprint. DF was 135.
warm up finish screenwarm up reportwarm up charts10K session report. There was no screen shot made of the final screen view.10K chartswarm down finish screenwarm down reportwarm down charts
Today’s session was one of the fun times: 4x2K R5:00. The pace target for the first three intervals was 1:59.5, which had been the overall average for this session in the previous cycle. The final interval was done at a pace of 1:55 for the first 1,500 meters and then faster for the last 500. Overall resulting average pace was 1:58.1/500m and that will be the target pace for the first three intervals next cycle.
There was no warmup, DF was 135, straps were loose and there was a 10 minute warm down.
Yesterday (Nov 5) was the training plan rest day and there was neither rowing done nor a blog post made yesterday.
Today’s training plan session is probably the weirdest of all the Pete Plan sessions, the “Speed Pyramid.” It is a set of seven intervals done in this order: 250, 500, 750, 1000, 750, 500 and 250. The rest in between each interval is supposed to be a time equal to 90 seconds for each 250 meters of the preceding interval. So the rest after the first 250 meters was 1:30. After the second interval of 500 meters, the rest time was 3:00. Etc. The rest periods were active rest with slow rowing.
The first 3 intervals were each to be done at a pace equal to the average pace of all the intervals of the previous instance of this particular session in the previous cycle.
So the target pace for today’s first three intervals was 1:54.6. The 1,000 meter interval and the three intervals following it are supposed to be done at a “faster pace, if possible.” So I set target paces for each of them, with a target pace of 1:50 or better for the 1K, 1:49 or better for the 750m, 1:45 or better for the 500m and 1:40 or better for the final 250m.
The targets chosen for the last four intervals were based on what I thought was reasonable based on past experience.
Target pace was achieved for each of the last 4 intervals, with the exception of the 1K, due to an interruption at the beginning of the 1K which delayed starting it promptly.
The resulting average pace for all 7 intervals was 1:50.1 and that will be the target pace for the first three intervals of this session in the next cycle.
Today’s Plan session was designated as recovery, steady distance of from 8K to 15K. I chose 8K, with pace the highest priority target. The pace target was 2:20.5, which was the midway point of UT2 (relative to my most recent 2K TT). Second priority was HR less than 75% HRmax. Last priority was rating 22-25.
By making pace the first priority, it was most certain that the desired recovery level of effort would not be exceeded.
Second priority of HR never exceeded 60% HRmax. Last priority of rating was rather sloppy but all in all I was happy with the session.
I was trying to keep today’s recovery session in the UT2 zone, as mentioned in the first paragraph. If the first part of the definition (see the Rowing Lingo page/tab on the home page of this site) of UT2 which is a percentage of power relative to a person’s recent 2K TT is used, I succeeded. But if the second and less commonly interpreted part of the definition for UT2 is used (65% to 70% of the number arrived at by adding a person’s HRR+RHR) then I was rowing too hard. I consider the first and more commonly used definition of UT2 to be the valid one. At least, it felt “right” in that I wasn’t working hard enough to sweat but wasn’t working so ultra easy that it was extremely boring. If I’d rowed at an effort level that would have kept my HR at 65-70% HRR+RHR, that would have been in the range of 97 to 104, which would have been a much more boring effort level, to my experience.
8K finish screen8K session report8K charts. I operated the tv remote control a few times after the session started and that was probably the biggest reason for large variations in pace.
RowPro 5 for the Mac (beta) note: I had a difficulty getting the custom session programmed to be subdivided into 20 splits, so that the distance would be equal for all splits including the final split and the glitch earlier noted could be avoided. (If the last split distance is not the same as all the previous split distances, the displayed pace for the last split is wrong, because RowPro 5 for the Mac uses the previous split distance value to calculate the pace for the last split). I finally managed to force it to be 20 splits by editing the previous 8K which had been automatically subdivided into 27 splits and instead of choosing to “save” it, I clicked the button to start rowing it immediately.
The Pete Plan assignment for today was to do a hard distance of at least 5K. I chose 10K. For a hard pace, I chose 2:01.7, which was my previous season best for 10K. There was a warmup and warm down of 1,100 meters each, but I won’t bother to include reports etc for the w/u & w/d. Straps were loose as usual and DF was 135.
The session went well and there was plenty of energy left for a nice push during the last 500 meters.
Today’s training plan session was supposed to be a “steady distance recovery”, from 8K to 15K, at rating of from 22 to 25. I chose 8K at r22. DF was 135. No warmup or warm down. Straps were loose as usual.
There were three targets: HR, rating and pace. Highest priority was to keep HR anywhere below 75% HRmax and that required little effort. (Pun intended.)
Second highest priority was to keep rating as near as possible to 22 and it is what got most of the portion of attention given to rowing.
Lowest priority was pace. The pace target was to average about 2:18, but most of the time I paid no attention to it, while my mind wandered in various directions and visited parallel universes. Toward the end of the session I noticed that pace was quite a bit faster than 2:18 and seemed to want to stay in that area, so I brought the average pace down by using legs only and not quite letting my legs straighten 100% with each drive. You can see on the chart that it brought the pace down quite a bit, to do that.
8K finish screen8K report. Disregard pace figure for the last split (see the RowPro 5 for the Mac note near the end of this post)8K chart
RowPro 5 for the Mac (beta version) note: disregard the pace of 1:39 displayed in the session report for the last split. That is incorrect because the algorithm seems to be using 300 meters instead of the correct value of 200 meters for that last split.
Apple watch note: As I said in an earlier post regarding the apple watch workout app when it is in rower mode, the data isn’t really useful for serious rowers because there is virtually no data except elapsed time from the time you start it until you stop it on the workout app. It also gives an estimate of calories burned, based on an algorithm using HR, body weight and I don’t know what else. The calories burned are usually in the ball park and might be useful for someone who needs that figure for purposes of dieting. It also continuously records HR until the workout is stopped, instead of only sampling it once every 10 minutes when the HR app is not being accessed.
Don’t get me wrong – I like the app and very much appreciate that a rower category is included among choices of workout types. The reason I use it, is so that the “activity” app on the watch will give me credit for doing some kind of a workout and say nice things to me about it. Anyway – – the note regarding it today is that I did use it to record the workout activity but forgot to start it until I’d been rowing for a while. When I remembered, I didn’t have to totally stop rowing, to initiate the logging of a rowing workout. All I had to do was take one hand off the C2 handle and keep rowing while holding the watch near my mouth and say “Hey Siri, start a rowing workout.” Three seconds later (there’s a ready-set-go type of 3 second countdown when it starts recording a workout) it was recording the rowing workout and continuously displaying HR.
After the 8K I forgot to stop the rowing workout on the watch. About 15 minutes later I stopped its recording and it had registered 325 Calories and an elapsed time of 49 minutes. That calorie figure looks about right, for the portion of rowing and then the non-rowing afterwards which included standing, sitting, walking and changing clothes.
Today’s training session was endurance intervals, 5×1500 R5:00. There was a 2500m warmup and warmdown. DF was 135. Straps were loose. Target pace for all but the last interval was 2:00.3, which was the average pace for all 5 intervals in this same session of the first cycle.
The resulting average pace for all 5 intervals this session was 1:59.5. That will be the target pace for all but the last interval, three weeks from now when this is repeated in Cycle 3.
warmup finish screenwarmup reportwarmup chartsscreen view after last 1500m interval and at beginning of last active rest period. If you noticed that the blue pace graph on the bottom left doesn’t match the red HR graph to its right, you are observant. RowPro 5 for the Mac (beta version) got hung up at the end of the first and 3rd intervals with regard to graphing pace and continued plotting the same pace throughout the rest portion following. But the graphs accompanying the session report, and the report itself, are correct.session report for 5×1500chart for 5×1500warmdown reportwarmdown finish screenwarmdown charts
