Month: January 2017

Relax And Don’t Work At It

relax-and-don't-work-at-it
The desert is beautiful but if you want to row in the desert, the easiest way is to get a rowing machine instead of trying to find water for a boat.

The title of today’s post is from part of the description for today’s RowPro training plan session.

The session was 3×500 R750 and was a total of 8,000 meters including warm up, warm down and the final active rest after the third 500 meter sprint, which was quite a bit longer than 750 meters.

AS-Jan-31st-3x500-details
Descriptive details of today’s training session
AS-Jan-31st-3x500-finish
Finish screen for today’s session
AS-Jan-31st-3x500-rpt
Today’s session report
AS-Jan-31st-3x500-gph
Today’s session graphs

After the 8K training session, I rowed an additional 2K at an easy pace, to help maintain a daily 10K+ average.

There is a small bug in the most current update of RowPro 5 for the Mac which causes an error message to be displayed when clicking to open each day’s training session (Screen shot of error message below).  I wrote to Digital Rowing about it and they promptly answered and said that it’s a glitch that they are already aware of and it is on the list of things to fix in the next release.  It is barely even as much as a nuisance, however, because it does not interfere with the training program or software working correctly after the error message window is closed.

todaysErrorMsgScreen-Shot-2017-01-31-at-85246-AM
This error message is merely a nuisance and the software works okay after the OK button is clicked.

Happy trails to you.

 

Ethereal Training

ethereal-training

Today was the first day of the first time of trying a training plan generated by RowPro 5 for the Mac.  All went well.

available-training-plans
Above shows the selection of  raining plans available in RowPro 5 for the Mac
John-5-and-6K-12-week-plan-summary
After the plan was generated, what you see above was the description.
John-5-&-6K-12-week-plan
Above is the detailed listing of the plan’s daily sessions for 12 weeks.
day-1-of-12-weeks
Above is the description of today’s training plan session.
ARr-Jan-30th-6K-finish
Above is the finish screen after completion of today’s training plan session
ARr-Jan-30th-6K-rpt
Above is the report of today’s training session
ARr-Jan-30th-6K-chrt
Today’s session graphs.

Happy trails to you.

Warmer Today, Training Tomorrow

warmer-today-training-tomorrow

Today’s session was just a little bit warmer than yesterday’s because it was a little bit faster. Tomorrow is planned to be the first day of a 12 week RowPro generated training plan.  Looking forward to the day-by-day of following a plan.

So the main session today was a 10K.  It was followed by  a 100 meter online test of the latest update of RowPro 5 for the Mac and GOOD NEWS!  The update not only added the feature of a working version of the training plan generator, but the sound works now!  So when whoever is the starter clicks the START button, there is now the announcement “PREPARE TO START!” from the speakers.  And after the countdown finishes, I can also hear the announcement, “ROW!”  That’s good, because I seem to get off the starting line more promptly with the audible announcements.

After the 10K and the 100 meter online test, I went into the online chat room, where there appeared to be 3 other people who were logged in, not counting the one who was already rowing online.  I typed the question, “anybody like some company in an online row?” and waited a couple minutes for a response.  But there was no response, so I guess their computers were online but they were otherwise occupied and not sitting at the monitors.

AR-Jan-29th-10K-finish
Today’s 10K finish screen
AR-Jan-29th-10K-rpt
10K session report.
AR-Jan-29th-10K-chrt
10K charts
AR-Jan-29th-100m-test-finish
100 meter test finish screen
AR-Jan-29th-100m-test-rpt
100 meter test report
AR-Jan-29th-100m-test-chrt
100 meter test chart
AR-Jan-29th-general-question
Nobody responded to my question, so I logged off a couple minutes later.

Happy trails to you.

A Little Ramping Up

a-little-ramping-up
The baby ducks are doing a little ramping up in a more literal meaning of the phrase.

Today’s session was done at a slightly more constant and faster pace than the recent few sessions.  That’s because I’m thinking about trying one of RowPro’s training plans.

Today there was an update to the update on RowPro 5 for the Mac and it cured the previous problem which prevented access to the program. So I’m using the Mac version again and liking it even more.  It has a few more features added, including the capability of generating a training program for either weight-loss, maintenance, fitness (2 levels of fitness) or racing.

I’m thinking about trying a training plan for racing the 5K-6K distance.

The pace of today’s 10K was only slightly faster than yesterday’s.  By slightly faster, I mean that it only burned 12 more calories than yesterday’s 10K.

So it was a little bit of a ramping up of effort.

ramp up

VERB

  1. to cause the level or intensity of something to increase sharply, or increase in this way
  2. to begin work on a project, especially a large commercial one
AQq-Jan-28th-10K-finish
Finish screen for today’s 10K. You might notice that there’s another boat on the screen. The other one is the computerized pace boat, which was set for a pace of 2:20/500m
AQq-Jan-28th-10K-rpt
Today’s session report
AQq-Jan-28th-10K-chrt
During the 10K I watched part of a movie and didn’t give full attention to rowing pace. Every time I noticed that the pace boat had pulled ahead of me, I would increase pace to catch up and pass it.

Happy trails to you.

A Bit Of Exercise

a-bit-of-exercise

The words that came to mind when I sat to write another blog post as fast as possible were “a bit of exercise” and the above image is from among the search results using those terms for creative commons licensed images. Of all the images that I glanced at, that one seemed the most ethereal.

Today’s time on the erg was another 10K.  It was done with a bit more energy than yesterday’s.  23 calories more in the same distance, to be exact.

Yesterday and today I’ve had to go back to using the older version of RowPro for Windows instead of RowPro 5 for the Mac.  That’s because when I tried to update RowPro 5 for the Mac two days ago, it resulted in an error message (see the screen shot immediately below) and would not allow me to use it.  Am still waiting to hear from Digital Rowing, as to how to remedy that problem.

rowpro-problem-Screen-Shot-2017-01-26-at-3.46.13-PM
The above image is what happened when I tried to use the updated version of RowPro 5 for the Mac two days ago. Because it could not be used, I had to boot up a Windows 7 virtual machine and resort to using the older version of RowPro for Windows.
AQ-Jan-27th-10K-finish
a view of today’s finish screen
AQ-Jan-27th-10K--rpt
Today’s session report
AQ-Jan-27th-10K--chrt
Today’s session graph. Not exactly a constant pace, while watching a movie. It wasn’t a very good movie. Didn’t finish it and don’t think I will.

Happy trails to you.

Talking Indoor Rowing

wikipedia-article
The above photo is one of the better results of a search for creative commons licensed images with the search terms “talking indoor rowing”

Today’s rowing session was done a little too late in the day, in Diane’s opinion.  Because today was our day to go out to eat and I made her wait about 20 minutes or more, in order to finish the 10K that I got a late start on.

We sat at a table with another couple because the little restaurant was so crowded this evening that there was a shortage of tables. We had a pleasant conversation with them, which included a little bit (very little) talk about indoor rowing.  But – just as a little exercise is better than none – a little bit of talk about indoor rowing is better than none (in my opinion) (which opinion is not necessarily always shared by Diane) (on the topic of rowing).

Before I write any more, I’m going to pause and admire the little train of parentheses in the preceding sentence.  Nice!

So … when I sat to write this blog post, talking was on my mind.  And also rowing.  Thus the search terms, “talking indoor rowing”

Sometimes, talking about rowing leads to more inspiration for rowing.  We shall see if I feel more inspired to row tomorrow, if and when I recall the brief conversation in the restaurant.

The above photo is from a Wikipedia article on the topic of indoor rowing.

Now for the data relating to today’s rowing.  It was offline and correspondingly uninspired.  I watched parts of two movies and operated the remote control many times while rowing.  So the rowing wasn’t especially energetic etc.

APp-Jan-26th-10K-finish APp-Jan-26th-10K-rpt+chrt

Happy trails to you.

 

A 10 Kilometer Day

he-walked-10-kilometers-for-this

When I plugged the title of today’s post into a search engine and looked at the resulting selection of creative commons licensed images, this image was among the multitude.  According to its associated description, it is a “10 km day walk from Southease to Seaford,” wherever those two places are located on earth.

My 10 km was not quite so picturesque as the 10 km traversed for the above photo and it was done without any canine or bovine company. But it was healthy and invigorating even at the leisurely pace of a stroll at which it was made.

AOo-Jan-24th-10K-finish AOo-Jan-24th-10K-rpt

AOo-Jan-24th-10K-chrt

Happy trails to you.