Month: August 2018

Short But Sweet

Today’s rowing session was short due to time constraints.  The pace was easy/just right for how I felt, so I call it “sweet”.  The calories associated with sweetness of a rowing session are non-fattening.  In fact, they are de-fattening.

A screen recording of the short session is available for row-along at this link: INDOOR ROWING 102 CALORIES 08282018

Happy rowing to you.

Rowing A Bit Faster For Baseball

Today’s rowing session was started a few minutes after the baseball game game I wanted to watch started.  It was a game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Seattle Mariners and the Diamondbacks needed to win the game in order to remain in first place in their division.  There’s no TV in the room with the rowing machine, so I rowed a bit faster than I would have otherwise, in order to get the rowing over with and go watch the game.

My better half was in the other room, watching the game and she said that the Diamondbacks “needed you” because they didn’t start scoring until I finished rowing and was able to start watching.  Ha ha.  But anyway … they did manage to win though it was a “nail biter” in the bottom of the ninth inning.

This rowing session was recorded and the link for the row-along screen-recording is: Indoor Rowing about 25 minutes 08262018

Happy rowing to you.

Improvement And A Five-Second Hiccup

For today, I signed up to row 10,000 meters online at 14:00 (2:00 p.m.) GMT which is 07:00 local time.  But I had a bit of trouble sleeping and was awake for a couple hours in the middle of the night. I went back to bed at about 03:40 and when I woke the next time, for a call of nature, it was from a very, VERY deep at at 05:15.  Nature has a way of waking a person from the deepest sleep.  I decided I’d rather get more sleep than get up with the alarm at 06:00, so I grabbed my cellphone, opened the myRowPro app and signed out/withdrew from the online session. Then I disabled the wake-up alarms and went back to bed.

The next time I woke it was almost 08:00 after a total of about 6 hours sleep and I felt normally rested.

So I did 10,000 meters solo, offline.  Before setting up the 10K, I checked to see if I’d ranked a 10K yet this season and yes, I had.  The one I’d entered into the Concept 2 10,000 meter Indoor Rower Rankings had been at an easy pace, so I decided to try to beat it by just a little bit, with another easy-paced 10K.  Today’s session was a success in that respect and moved me up one ranking, from 24th out of 53 all the way up to 23rd place, out of 53 results ranked at that point in time. Whoopee! 🙂

The “hiccup” mentioned in today’s title refers to a single episode of heart strangeness: irregular heartbeat that lasted about 5 seconds, beginning after about 3,077 meters (when the remaining distance had counted down to about 6,923).  Heartbeat rhythm wavered just that one time but then settled down and returned to normal about 20 meters later when remaining distance had counted down to about 6,923 meters.

The session was screen recorded, for those of you who’d like to row-along with it.  It is available on YouTube at this link: Indoor Rowing 589 Calories 08252018

RowPro 5 for the Mac has the ability to compare two similar rowing sessions and calculate if there is any improvement or other difference since a previous rowing session of the same type.  I compared today’s 10K with the one I’d previously done and ranked on July 17th and RowPro said there was a “net performance increase” compared to July 17th.  I’m no statistician though, so I don’t know if the difference between today’s 10K and that of July 17 is “statistically significant”.

Graphs comparing today’s 10K and heart rate performance to that of July 17th.
Computer analysis results for comparing today’s 10K and heart rate performance to the session done on July 17th.

The session was recorded and uploaded to YouTube for those who would like to row-along.  Its link is: Indoor Rowing 589 Calories 08252018

Happy rowing to you.

Scheduled And Rescheduled Online

Today’s session was scheduled online but nobody showed.  So I rescheduled it a little later.  Still, nobody saw it and joined.  I finally scheduled it a third time, about 30 minutes later with the same results. So I rowed it alone.

Heart rhythm acted up in the last half of the session, so though I categorized today’s rowing as “Fun Workout,” it was only fun for half the time.  During the last half, heart rhythm was irregular and heart rate was too high for the low effort level.  I felt fine, otherwise, so I just slowed down a bit, with the unfulfilled hope that it would go back to normal before the finish line.  Which it did not do.  But it is okay  now.

A screen-recording for those who want to row along with it is at this link: Indoor Rowing 10K online (but alone) 08232018

Happy rowing to you.

Procrastination Likes No Schedule

Today there was no scheduled rowing session and also no wake-up alarm.  Procrastination cozied up to me as I slept in this morning and I didn’t get around to rowing until after 10 in the morning.

The preset distance was 7,640 meters and it was posted to YouTube as a row-alongable screen recording at: Indoor Rowing 453 Calories 08222018

Happy rowing to you.

Avoiding Procrastination Again By Rowing Online

Finish screen for warm up session.

Scheduling an online rowing session with other people isn’t guaranteed to conquer any tendency to procrastinate about doing some daily rowing.  Everybody knows that the “hardest thing about running” is “putting on your shoes and going out the door” or whatever is your equivalent “ON switch” that gets you started.  Its hard, because you can always find something else to do first, before going out the door to run.

Same with rowing.  There are always plenty of other little things that can be done first.

Yesterday, I scheduled an online rowing session for 7 a.m., set my wake-up alarm for 5 a.m. and set a second reminder alarm for 6 a.m.

The alarm woke me at 6 a.m. and when I looked to see why the 5 a.m. alarm hadn’t done its job, I discovered that it was also set for 6 a.m.  Hmm.  I can’t explain that.

My heart was being irregular again so I tried doing a 10 minute sort of warm up rowing session which helped it settle down a bit.  The warm up session was recorded and can be rowed-along with at this link: Indoor Rowing 10 Mins 08212018

10 min warm up report
Heart rate was so extremely irregular that it wouldn’t even register with the heart strap for the first 5 or 6 minutes. Then it seemed to settle down, though it was beating too fast for the easy effort level.
Concept 2 online logbook chart for the 10 minute warmup.

Heart rate was still a bit flip-floppy irregular when the scheduled session started, but I took it easy so as not to get the heart over-excited and it settled down into a well-behaved semblance of normalcy.

The scheduled session was also recorded, though I forgot to start recording it until just after the session started.  The YouTube link for the scheduled session of 30 minutes is located here: Indoor Rowing About 30 minutes online 08212018

Finish screen for today’s online session.
Report for today’s online session.
RowPro graphs for today’s online session
Concept 2 logbook chart for today’s online session

Happy rowing to you.

7K Online

Today’s rowing session was scheduled a day in advance as an online session.  The main reason I did that was because it is strong incentive to avoid procrastinating about rowing, if I’ve made a commitment to row online with others.

I was totally free of atrial fibrillation during the session, so that alone made it a good session.  But the best thing about rowing online is having the virtual company of one or more other actual people rowing with you.

The session was a distance of 7,000 meters.  It is available for rowing-along-with, at the following link: Indoor Rowing 7K online 08202018

Happy rowing to you.