The title of today’s post is the note that I wrote to myself on the notepad which is on a nightstand next to my side of the bed. It was intended to remind me, first thing in the morning, to put off anything and everything else and just row, first thing early in the morning.
It worked.
Today’s “any distance” turned out to be 10K. I set up RowPro so that it would display an easy pace zone with boundaries of 2:25 and 2:15 /500 meters and aimed for about 2:20. (All versions of RowPro allow you to designate and display optional target target zones for pace, heart rate and/or rating).
Heart rate was irregular for about the first 1,000 meters and then smoothed out.
Today was a late morning start so the distance rowed was only 3K. It was done at randomly varying paces.
I perhaps got a little carried away with some of the faster, sprinting bits… because I hadn’t warmed up and, perhaps due to that, the finicky heart rate started to climb near the end when it should have been slowing down if it was acting normally. But it wasn’t being normal, it was being tachy , as in tachycardia.
During the last 1,000 meters I did a tiny little bit of sprinting and heart rate climbed up to 145 BPM when there was about 500 meters remaining. At the 500 meters-to-go point, I slowed and rowed easy for a warm-down to the finish. Heart rate went from 145 to 139, 138, 137, 135, 134… acting normal for a warm down after a little sprint and it slowed all the way to around 121 while I was rowing easy during the last 500 meters.
But then, even though I continued to row easily, heart rate climbed to 129, 131, 146, 147 … all the way up to 150 as I continued to row very easy near the end and when I reached the finish line it was beating at 148.
It remained high for a little while after rowing stopped, even though I hadn’t worked up a sweat and wasn’t breathing hard at all – totally normal breathing, as if I’d been being a couch potato instead of rowing, but heart rate was in the tachycardia zone for a bit.
After a few minutes it dropped below 100, which is the technical boundary for tachycardia.
The tacky heart behavior was rather annoying. But perhaps I caused it? By annoying the heart? By rowing later in the morning instead of first thing, before 7 a.m.? It might be my imagination, but the heart and everything it’s connected to seems to prefer an earlier rowing session.
In addition to the tachycardia-ish behavior near the end, the heart rate went noticeably irregular a couple times during the session. I felt it each time, and the heart rate display briefly went blank at those times. You can see them on the graphs below, where the graph of heart rate spikes down to zero around the middle and near the end.
Today’s rowing was done with a target pace of 2:20/500 meters average for the entire distance. I started out slow and took a couple of brief breaks during the first half, so the second half was a bit faster paced than the first half, in order to achieve the target average pace.
The guy who scheduled today’s half marathon may have been doing a lot of them recently (?) because he named it “Another_HM”. Everybody except the starter started rowing at the beginning. The starter himself didn’t row a single stroke and three of the others rowed only part way before they either had technical problems or decided they’d had enough… so only three rowers finished.
Today’s session is categorized as both fun and also boring. It was fun, because it’s always fun to row in the company of others and it is fulfilling to finish what was started. What was started for today’s session was an online half marathon.
But it was also boring, because the others were a lot faster than me, so there wasn’t any element of competition, which is always a happy possibility when rowing online with others.
I was also bothered by a little bit of irregular heartbeat but it didn’t persist.
The guy who scheduled it was there at the start. But about a minute before the start he announced that he’d had a change of plans and would be going for a hike instead of rowing the half marathon. So … since he was there and he was the designated starter, he clicked the start sequence but he didn’t do any rowing. I guess the weather where he was and also the company he had where he was, was just a lot more appealing to him than rowing an indoor half marathon today.
This is a screenshot of the starting line a fraction of a second after the session started. I thought it was interesting that Canadian rower whose initials are EG managed to pull his very first stroke at a pace of 2:03 and he moved two meters before anyone else got off the starting line. He’s got quick reflexes. He also has a lot of power and he showed it for the entire distance.
Finish screen for today’s half marathon. By the time I reached the finish line, everyone else had already left and gone on to their warm downs, showers, etc.RowPro graphs for today’s half marathon.Report for today’s half marathonConcept 2 online logbook chart for today’s half marathon. My heart acted up a bit during the first 20 minutes but then it smoothed out and behaved for the remainder of the time.
Today’s main indoor rowing was 10K done online with two other guys. One of them was in England and he was the one who scheduled the session. He named the session “Hillbilly_10K”. I asked him about the hillbilly part and he said that’s his nickname because he makes home brew.
I know that making home brew of various sorts is a hobby for some people and that you can even buy kits, to get started. But that’s another topic.
Oarbits summary for today’s online 10K.
The description he gave for today’s online 10K included the question, “are you tuff enough?” which seemed to add to the enjoyment of the whole thing by defining the completion of the 10K as an accomplishment worthy of some kind of recognition.
We all started out at about 2:04. After a bit, “Hillbilly” slowed a bit and gradually dropped further and further behind. Joe Vanischak and I kept that pace of 2:04 point something until about halfway then I slowed down.
I continued to row at a slower pace until “Hillbilly” caught up, then I picked up my pace to stay even with him. When the distance counted down to less than 200 meters, Joe started a sprint, then Hillbilly started sprinting. When the remaining distance was less than 100 meters, I did a little sprinting also and we all finished very close to each other. It was fun.
There wasn’t much time to spare for rowing this morning, so little rowing was done. But the amount of rowing done this morning was about 19% more than was done yesterday, so that was an improvement.
For four days, I did no rowing. I don’t know why, except that there was some deep-seated subconscious reluctance. My better half remarked, yesterday, that she was worried about me, because I hadn’t done any rowing for four days.
When I do row every day, she leans toward considering it obsessive. But when I don’t, she starts to worry… because she knows I feel better and am much more inclined to be in a better mood, if I do some daily rowing.
Today, the reluctance was still present and unidentified/undiagnosed. So I compromised with it and suggested that I row just 1,000 meters. The subconscious regions immediately agreed, with no argument.
Today’s session was three. First there was a very easy, very low-rating 5K, followed by an easy but more normally paced 5K at a normal stroke rating and finally there was a warm down. (Screen shots of the warm down session are not being posted here but it is part of the YouTube video/screen recording.)
RowPro 5 for the Mac acted up a bit during the first 5K because for some glitchy reason it showed some of the stroke rate readouts to be exceedingly high, at the impossible rate of in the 60s or 70s when they were all actually exceedingly low, mostly between 10 and 20 spm for that particular 5K.
Report for the first of today’s two 5Ks.RowPro graphs of the first of today’s two 5KsConcept 2 online logbook chart the first of today’s two 5KsFinish screen for the second of today’s two 5KsReport for the second of today’s two 5KsRowPro graphs for the second of today’s two 5KsConcept 2 online logbook chart for the second of today’s two 5Ks. RowPro had no glitches in measuring stroke rate for this 5K.
