dad – Page 10 – Ethereal Rowing

Strangely Unpeculiar

After yesterday’s heart misbehavior of wacky rhythm and either excessively fast or unbelievably slow rates, I didn’t expect anything close to normal today.

The workouts started with a 5,000 meter rowing session at a mostly constant and completely easy pace from start to finish. Heart rate was virtually regular and completely within its normal range for the effort level. I was surprised but very okay with that.

After the rowing session, I wondered if I should try to do another SkiErg workout to practice for the SkiErg World Sprints or just give up that idea. I decided to give it a try by starting with a SkiErg warmup to test the waters. The SkiErg warmup consisted of 7 minutes of easy effort that included three bursts of ten hard strokes at the beginning of each of three of the last minutes of the warmup. I figured that if the heart was going to get crazy, it would show signs of doing so during those three bursts of hard strokes. But heart behaved like it should with each burst of 10 hard strokes during the warmup.

So I decided to try to do the last remaining training workout prior to the upcoming SkiErg World Sprints, in the hope that the heart will cooperate on one of the days from November 7th to 10th and I can do a 1,000 meter time trial/race session for the SkiErg World Sprints event on one of those days.

The training workout consisted of 5x250m r 15 seconds. To those of you who aren’t familiar with interval workouts, that means 5 intervals of 250 meters each, with 15 seconds of rest after each interval. The target pace for each of the 5 intervals was supposed to be 1:57.5/500 meters or faster.

I did the first three intervals each at the target pace or faster but during the 4th interval I felt too tired to maintain that pace so I slowed way down, to about 2:05/500 meters during the 4th interval. The easy-paced 4th interval made a big difference and I was well able to go faster during the 5th and final interval, with an average pace of 1:52.8/500m.

Heart rate and rhythm behaved well during and recovered normally after each 250 meter interval.

After the SkiErg training session I did 1,000 meters rowing as a warm down and heart rate & rhythm continued to be on good behavior.

Finish screen for 5,000 meter rowing session.

RowPro graphs for 5,000 meter rowing session.

Concept 2 online logbook chart for 5,000 meter rowing session.

SkiErg training session data. The chart shows only interval 1 of 5 intervals.

Chart for SkiErg training interval 2 of 5.

Chart for SkiErg training interval 3 of 5.

Chart for SkiErg training interval 4 of 5. You can see that heart rate decreased from start to finish because the pace of about 2:05 was relatively restful compared to the pace of about 1:57 for each of the three previous intervals.

Chart for SkiErg training interval 5 of 5.

Finish screen for the 1,000 meter rowing warm down.

Report for the 1,000 meter rowing warm down.

RowPro graphs for the 1,000 meter rowing warm down.

Happy rowing to you!

Be Careful What You Wish For

After I got my wish for heart rate to slow down during the SkiErg session, I regretted making that imprecise wish and decided that I didn’t really want to have any of the systems in my body depend on me for their multitude of adjustments and compensations. The body and all its systems is far more complicated than the above photo of a mess of wiring and way too complex for the conscious part of the human mind to control.

Today’s workout time was divided among five sessions. The most enjoyable was a 30 minute online session scheduled for 0900 local time this morning. It was done in the company of several other guys.

All of today’s workouts were bothered by atrial fibrillation and excessively high heart rate. After the first three rowing sessions, I decided to do an easy-paced 200 Calorie SkiErg session.

I was hoping that heart rate would slow down on the SkiErg and I got my wish and then some.

Heart rate continued to be irregular throughout the SkiErg session but definitely slowed down several times, to BPM rates in the 30s and 40s. I’ve never seen that happen before.

After the SkiErg session there was no warmdown needed but I did one anyway which consisted of 1,000 meters rowing. Heart rate was irregular and too high through that 1K rowing session.

I could write a lot about today’s workout experience but I’m not going to. The pictures in the screenshots below will tell enough of the story with their “1,000 words” per picture.

Summary list of today’s workout sessions. Screenshots of the sessions are below.

Finish screen view for the first of today’s sessions. Though it was done at an easy average and almost constant pace of 2:17, heart rate was way too high and finished at 194 BPM.

Report for the first of today’s five workout sessions.

RowPro graph for the first of today’s five workout sessions.

During today’s first workout session, heart rate ranged as high as 209 BPM.

Report for the second session, 30 minutes online.

RowPro graph for today’s 30 minute online session. I did four intervals of from 30 seconds to one minute each.

During the online 30 minute session, heart rate ranged higher than I’ve ever seen it go, reaching as high as 225 beats per minute.

Chart and data for today’s 200 Calorie SkiErg session.

The heart “cooperated” with my pre-session wish for lower heart rate by going ultro-low several times during the SkiErg session. When it did that, I wondered if I should stop the workout. But I was extremely annoyed with the heart’s misbehavior and decided to finish the entire 200 Calories.

The last of today’s five sessions was this 1,000 meter warm down.

RowPro graphs for the final 1,000 meter warm down.

Happy rowing to you!

November 3rd, 2019

Continuing with the abbreviated approach started on September 28, 2019 and unless it’s a day when I feel otherwise inclined there is only a summary of the day’s workout activity.

Comments and questions are welcome. If you comment or ask a question, you might be the muse for or bearer of inspiration who will influence me to write something more.

If you’d like to see additional detail of any of the workouts listed in the day’s summary here’s how to do it: You must have a free logbook account at the Concept 2 website. If you have a logbook account there, log in to the Concept 2 online logbook, find me, click to view my profile and you can see all the detail of any workout I’ve done by clicking to view my log and selecting the particular workout.

If you are one of my Concept 2 logbook training partners, you just click the training partner tab in your logbook and navigate from there.

Happy rowing to you!

November 2nd, 2019

Resuming with the abbreviated approach started on September 28, 2019 and unless it’s a day when I feel otherwise inclined there is only a summary of the day’s workout activity.

Comments and questions are welcome. If you comment or ask a question, you might be the muse for or bearer of inspiration who will influence me to write something more.

If you are one of my Concept 2 logbook training partners, you just click the training partner tab in your logbook and navigate from there.

Happy rowing to you!

Eleven Days Away Makes One Weak

Most of the 11 days away from rowing was spent in beautiful surroundings as pictured above but the most vigorous activity was walking, which wasn’t recognized by the heart as any sort of a workout.

Eleven days without a workout was too long but at least most of that time was spent in a beautiful place with good company.

Today’s workouts were low-intensity effort level but were plagued from start to finish with atrial fibrillation and excessively high heart rate. Hopefully those symptoms will go away day by day, as I return to doing daily rowing and SkiErg workouts.

Finish screen for the first of today’s 3 sessions, which was 5,000 meters rowing.

Report for today’s first of three workout sessions.

RowPro graphs today’s first of three workout sessions.

Heart rate was a bit too high, reaching 208 BPM during today’s first of 3 workout sessions.

Finish screen for the second of today’s three workout sessions, another 5K rowing.

Report for the second of today’s 3 workout sessions.

RowPro graphs for the second of today’s 3 workout sessions.

Heart rate remained irregular and a bit higher during the second of today’s three workout sessions.

The third workout today was going to be a training session for a 1K SkiErg race but heart rate was too high during this SkiErg warmup so I skipped the training session for the day.

Happy rowing to you!