This is an interesting way to have a boat race in the desert.
Today’s session was supposed to be a steady distance/recovery session of from 8K to 15K or more. So I chose to do a half marathon, with the thought in mind that it would compensate for not rowing at all tomorrow on the Pete Plan rest day. (One of my goals this season is to raise daily average meters to 10K or more).
The distance session was supposed to be done at a rating of from 22 to 25. The resulting average was in the ball park at 24.
For occupying the mind, I alternated between focusing on strokes per minute and watching news on TV.
Today’s half marathon finish screenI remembered to choose a split value that divides into the total distance of the session and results in a whole number quotient, so the results for the last split are not glitchy as they would be otherwise with RowPro 5 for the Mac beta versionDon’t know what caused the three spikes to zero in the heart rate graph. Everything seemed normal while rowing this session.
Today’s Pete Plan session was called “hard distance ~5K+” so I chose 5K. In order to get a total distance of more than 10K today, I did a 3K warm up and then another 3K afterwards.
For the 5K, the pace was a mix. Did the first 1,500 meters at about 1:54 point something and then eased up for the rest of the 5K. It was happily hard enough but not a race or attempt do a SB or anything else.
Today started at about 04:30. The rowing session was to be from 8K to 15K, steady distance/recovery session at rating of 22 to 25 SPM. Distance chosen was 11K.
11K finish screenDisregard what the report shows for the last split. RowPro 5 for the Mac has a problem calculating the last split if the result of dividing the number of splits into the total distance doesn’t give the same result for all splits — in other words, if the result isn’t a whole number. When you divide 11,000 meters by 28, it is not a whole number.Disregard what the chart shows for the last split. RowPro 5 for the Mac has a problem calculating the last split if the result of dividing the number of splits into the total distance is not a whole number.
This rower looks elegant and dignified. I wonder how the picture would change if she would do four 2K sprints with 5 minutes rest after each one. She is glowing now, so I’m guessing she would be absolutely beaming after 4x2K R5:00.
Today was the day for 4x2K in the Pete Plan. 4x2K R5:00, to be more specific.
The previous time this session was done, 3 weeks ago, the average pace for all 4 intervals was 1:57.5 and so that was the target pace for all but the last of today’s four 2K intervals. The final interval was done a little faster and the overall average for today’s set of 4 was 1:57.2 which will be the target pace for all but the last interval when this is done again, three weeks from now.
I’ve done it both ways and to be early and get the rowing done first thing in the morning is always better. Coffee even tastes better afterwards.
another thing I like about rowing early is that I get a head start toward my daily goal of completing the rings on the Apple Watch activity app
Today’s session was Pete Plan designated as steady distance / recovery. Not much to recover from yesterday though. The distance chosen today was 11K. DF 120. Average rating 24. HR took a little while to climb up into zone 1 which is the lowest aerobic zone for me with boundaries of 133-142 but it got up into that area after about 8K and stayed there until the finish.
This is an artist’s conception of what it looks like when you are rowing a speed pyramid…
Today’s session was a Pete Plan speed pyramid, like the one done on December 4th a few weeks ago in the previous training cycle. Only this time I didn’t scratch it and it went like it was supposed to. If you look at the result of this session on Dec 4th, the target rate for the first three intervals was the same as today’s target rate: 1:50.6 but the overall average for 7 intervals that time was 2:03.9 because there were problems and I backed off very early in the session.
This time, everything felt normal and so the first three intervals were done at the target pace of 1:50.6 and the last 4 were each done at a faster pace: The first and longest of the last 4, the 1,000 meters, was done at 1:49.8, the next one (750 meters) was done at 1:49.7, followed by the 500 meters at 1:48.7 and finally the 250 meters at 1:46.0.
The overall average for all 7 intervals of the speed pyramid was 1:49.7 and so that will be the target pace for the first 3 intervals of this seven-interval set when it is done again three weeks from now in the next training cycle.
The intervals were preceded by a mild warmup of 10 minutes duration.
Today’s training session was supposed to be a steady distance “recovery session” of from at least 8K to 15K. Or more. The session was supposed to be done with a rating of from 22 to 25 SPM. Because tomorrow is a rest day and I will probably do no rowing tomorrow, I chose the distance of “or more” and rowed a half marathon. Average rating was 24, which was within the 22-25 SPM boundaries. As for the “steady” part, I mostly ignored the pace and just aimed to keep HR at a little higher than twice RHR. So in other words, I sort of aimed for a steady heart rate. That seemed to work well, because though I didn’t work up a sweat, it was enough effort to feel a bit of a glow afterwards. You might say it was heartwarming.
When there were a few hundred meters to go and I noticed that the average pace at that time was 2:18.4, I felt the urge to pick up the pace a bit so as to bring the average pace down to less than 2:18.Though the session report shows an average pace of 2:18, that is a glitch with RowPro 5 for the Mac (beta version), which rounds off the numbers in that column to the nearest whole number. The actual average pace was 2:17.8.charts for today’s session.
This picture is an example of a little bit of enthusiasm.
Today’s session on the schedule was to be a “hard distance” of 5K or more. I chose 5K and no more but actually did a little more if you count the warm up.
But the warm up was not hard.
Actually, no part of the rowing today was hard, because what might have been hard ran out of accompanying enthusiasm after about 1,000 meters. I started out with a target pace of 1:55.1 and it felt easy but that is always the case at the beginning, no matter WHAT the pace. Row as hard as you possibly can – and it ALWAYS feels easy at the start. It only feels hard later. But to keep rowing at any pace which would later begin to feel hard, you need a sufficient measure of enthusiasm.
The laddie in the photo above has more enthusiasm about his ice cream (or whatever it was which is showing remnants on his face) than I had about rowing hard today.
I just felt, somehow, “out of synch” with my body.
But … soon after I slowed down from the first few meters of the might’ve-been-hard 5K, Diane came into the room and reminded me that we were going to go out to eat.
I asked her, “When do you want to go?”
She replied, “Whenever you are finished.”
So I picked up the pace a little bit.
And then a bit more.
And then a little bit more… so as to not keep the lady in waiting too long. But for the last few hundred meters, I slowed way, way down, so that could serve as a little bit of a warm-down. Don’t want to be all sweaty, when you go out to eat…
Rowing reports and finish screen views below, beginning with the warm-up first:
warm up finish screenwarm up reportwarm up charts5K finish screen5K report5K charts
This early bird waited until after rowing to have his coffee today.
Today’s rowing session started and finished before dawn. Today is the day of the year that the sun rises latest (and sets the earliest, too) but still… it was quite a bit earlier than typical.
Today’s rowing intervals were nothing fancy and not particularly musical like the above pictured music intervals. But the rowing intervals left a nice afterglow, similar in some respects to what a person might feel after listening to a beautiful symphony.
Today’s session was a set of five intervals of 1500 meters each with a five minute active rest after each. 5×1500 R5:00. Nothing musical about them but there was music playing while doing them.
The target pace for all but the very last interval was 1:58.4/500.
The very last interval was done with a deliberately restrained target of being a just slightly faster pace.
The overall average pace of all five was 1:58.2 and that will be the target pace for the first four intervals of this set of five when it is done again in three weeks.
There was a warmup of about 5 minutes before the set of intervals.
