For today’s rowing, I joined an online session named Training which was a distance of 7,600 meters. There were two other guys in the session. They did intervals of some sort. I used the first 600 meters to warm up, then rowed the next 5K or so at about 2:00, which kept HR in what would by some people be called “UT1” and “UT2”. Probably more like UT2 for most of it.
The last couple K, I eased off to begin warming down. Afterwards, there was a 2,500m warm down, mostly for the purpose of bringing daily meters to over 10K.
7600 m finish screen7600 m report7600 m chartswarm down finishwarm down reportwarm down charts
Today’s rowing session was an online 10K in the company of three others who were in Denmark, England and France.
Things were back to normal for me today and therefore the rowing pace was what was desired as optimal for nourishing the aerobic base. That pace resulted in beginning the 10K at a 60-65% HR and reaching a HR of about 80% by the end of the session. (HR percentages were calculated by the Karvonen method for calculating target HR)
Here are the screens, reports and charts:
I had to stop rowing, in order to access the keyboard and take this screen shot before the session ended. Notice the instantaneous pace of Sam B. (England) in lane 4. He maintained that pace the entire 10K while rowing a rating of 18 SPM!10K finish screen10K report10K chartswarm down finishwarm down reportwarm down charts
Today’s rowing session was 30 minutes scheduled online. There was nobody else who wanted to row at that time so I did the piece alone.
The original plan was to row at a steady state pace of about 2:05. But things weren’t acting right, so I lowered the pace, the shifted it back up, looking for equilibrium. The end result was to do a total of about 10K, including warmdown, at a rather slow pace.
30 minute finish30 minute report30 minute chartswarm down finishwarm down reportwarm down charts
Today’s session is supposed to be a 30r20. But it hasn’t been done yet. If/when it is completed, I’ll update this post with the pertinent information. UPDATE: session was done… see further below for details.
Today’s rowing was supplanted by communication from one of my children, that she wanted to interview me. For a graduate studies class assignment. So instead of the usual morning activities including rowing, I chatted with her for a couple of hours. And in response to her questions, thought about things which I hadn’t thought about for quite a while. It was a pleasant, somewhat rare experience of communication.
Thus… today’s poem which is written in the sky of today’s early morning photograph at the start of this day’s entry…
Until later today…. or tomorrow…
LATER TODAY: A 30r20 was scheduled over one hour in advance but there were no others who joined so I did it alone.
It has been a week since the most recent previous 30r20. One difference between today’s and the one of a week ago is that today’s was done at a slightly higher pace. Also, the very last minute of today’s didn’t seem to drag out, with time slowing down, like the very last minute of the 30r20 a week ago.
Go figure, because I don’t know why there would be the difference.
Here is the info on today’s session and the warm down that followed it:
One of the things I’m currently reading is a forum thread focused on the Pete Plan. And, I’m reading about the Pete Plan on the website of its author, Coach Pete. Though I haven’t yet tried the Pete Plan, I thought that today I would try one of Pete’s recommendations, which is to have one rest day every week.
But just as speed is relative and what is fast for one may be slow for another, so is rest. Pete didn’t specify any details about what constitutes rest in the passage where I saw his recommendation of resting 1 day per week, so I reasoned that rest is relative and decided to get the best of both resting and also adding some daily meters to the Fall Team Challenge, by rowing very slow.
So today’s rowing session was a resting session. It was scheduled online and named Rest Is Relative and it had the duration of 60 minutes.
One other guy joined, Sergio, in Italy. He rowed at a pace of about 1:57/500m and that may have been work but it also may have been rest for him, depending on what he considers a fast or slow for himself in 60 minutes. Speed is relative and likewise is rest.
Today’s rowing session was 30 minutes online. There was one other rower, Jesper T., in Denmark, who joined it and Jesper was energetically inspirational as usual.
The plan for today’s 30 minutes was simply to maintain a constant pace at any speed that felt comfortable and which was faster than the pace of 2:01.6, my season best 30 min pace up until today.
The reason I wanted a 30 minute piece faster than 2:01.6 was because yesterday’s 10K was done comfortably at 2:01.7 which is virtually the same pace as 2:01.6 and I thought those two paces were too close to each other.
So I rowed the 30 minute session at a pace of 2:00-2:01 until the last couple minutes and then sprinted a bit to pull the average pace to below 2:00. It was a comfortable enough pace, that I might try another 30 minute session someday soon this season and see how comfortable it would be to shave another second or more off the average pace.
After that, there was a 4K warm down, to return things to equilibrium.
Today’s session was the third 10K in three days and the second attempt in two days to make a season best time. It was scheduled and rowed online with a fast rower in Denmark who out paced me by almost 10 seconds per 500 meters and was part of the inspiration to keep on keeping on.
Afterwards, there was a 10 minute warm down in the company of a guy in the US.
Finish screen -season best time in 10Kreport -season best 10KCharts – season best 10KWarm down finishwarm down reportwarm down charts
Today’s rowing was a 10K session scheduled online. It was joined by 7 other guys. Two were in Great Britain, two in Italy, one in Poland, one in New Zealand and one in the US.
My plan for the 10K was simply to row at a constant pace which would be a little faster than 2:03.8/500m, so as to have a new season best time. Everybody rowed with a lot of energy and the session went well but when there were about 2,500 meters remaining, I had to get off the machine and tend to a minor emergency.
The interruption took several minutes and so when I returned to the C2 a personal best was no longer possible and I used the remaining time as warm down.
The 10K is one of my favorite distances, so I don’t mind having reason to do another one soon.
Today’s resultsToday’s finish screen. By the time I arrived at the finish line, everybody else had already checked out of the session to do warm downs etc.Today’s reportToday’s charts
Today’s sunrise was accompanied by light rain, which is always welcome in the desert.
My recent venture into the Concept2.com forum has been very worthwhile and in the short time since first posting a question there, I already feel that I have some new friends who are fanatics in a healthy way about indoor rowing.
But when one of the guys posed the question, “What is your training plan?” I drew my usual blank on that topic because I’ve never had one, for either the decades of running nor since beginning indoor rowing in 2004. One of them pointed me to an ongoing training thread where he and several others are sharing their daily experiences and it looks like very good reading. Another mentioned several different plan approaches, including but not limited to the Pete Plan and Wolverine plan.
So I’m getting the idea that regular rowing and some kind of structured plan are well worth considering. There is one plan, “the high volume aerobic pace system” which Bob S. suggested might be a good name for what I’m currently doing and it sounds like a good description of how I’ve been replacing long daily runs with rowing.
Today, with no training plan except perhaps the one that Bob suggested (the high volume aerobic pace system), I decided to schedule an online 10K a couple hours in advance and see if there were any others interested.
One other guy, Jesper T in Denmark, joined the 10K. Jesper is a very fast rower who can do a 10K at a pace faster than I recently did a 2K, so I decided to just row mellow and slow. But during the first couple of splits, I noticed that whatever my instantaneous pace was, Jesper’s seemed to be about 10 seconds or a little more than 10 seconds faster per 500 meters. So I decided to pick up my pace a bit, to keep the difference to less than 10 seconds per 500m. And Jesper picked up his pace and I continued to try to keep the difference to less than 10 seconds/500m and it resulted in me rowing a lot faster than “mellow and slow”.
Jesper reached the 10K finish line about 725 meters ahead of me, with a final sprint which I more or less matched by a speed less than 10 seconds/500m slower than his sprint.
After he finished, I thought “that was fun!” and slowed way down for a few hundred meters, as a warm down.
After reaching the finish line, I noticed that I was very close to a season best 10K time and would have made a new SB if only I had kept up the pace and waited to do all warming down until after the 10K.
So that foray into the 10K today makes me want to do another 10K tomorrow and get a season best time. Tune in tomorrow for the exciting results.
Here’s today’s data from RowPro:
10K finish screen10K report10K chartswarm down finish screenwarm down reportwarm down charts
Believe it or not, this is what sunrise looked like today. There was a sprinkling of rain beginning to fall and the rainfall increased significantly a few minutes later.
When I woke and rose before dawn today there was no doubt that I would row this morning. I had the intention of scheduling a 30 minute online session and experimenting with the still unanswered question of what is free rate pace for 30 minutes.
But when I tried to confirm the session, the Oarbits app repeatedly gave the response, “No internet connection” even though there was a perfectly good internet connection for everything else.
So I set aside scheduling the session for a bit and posted the question in a Facebook rowing area, “What is free rate pace?” The only answer I got there was a definition of rating and pace. Which didn’t address what I’d encountered yesterday during the chats before and after yesterday’s 30r20.
Next, I went to the Concept2 forum and posted the same question in a more detailed manner because there seems to be a very definite answer to what a person’s pace should be for 30 minutes if that person is rowing at his “free rate” SPM. I want to know if that pace would be the fastest pace the person could muster, the most leisurely or something in between those two extremes.
Waiting for an answer from someone who is more knowledgeable than me.
After posting that question in two different places, I tried once again to use the Oarbits app to schedule an online session, with the same result that the app said it didn’t have an internet connection.
So I thought that maybe, just maybe all this is a sign that I shouldn’t row today and in the meantime, the decision hasn’t yet been made as to whether … or not.
As it stands, today will be a day of rowing abstention. If it proves to be otherwise before the day is over, this post will be edited and this paragraph will be replaced with a summary of whatever rowing was done.
*The decision to row was made after taking a long nap and then finding the answer to the question, What is free rate pace? The answer was supplied by two forum contributors who each contributed their own version of the answer and then proceeded to have further discussion. One of them said that there is even a formula relating to free rate pace at any given stroke rate and what a person’s pace should be for 30r20. I found it very interesting.
Interesting enough, anyway, that it helped me decide to do a little rowing today. The rowing consisted of a 30 minute piece and a 10 minute warmdown. They were online but solo because I didn’t give enough advance notice for anyone else to join them.
