When I took a few days off from using the ergs, I thought it had only been three or four days. I was surprised, to discover that six days had passed, when workouts resumed. How did time get so slippery?
So now I’m counting the days-in-a-row of doing daily workouts. Today makes a three day streak of workouts on rowing machine and SkiErg.
Today’s rowing was another 10K, the 4th in a series of seven at a constant pace of 2:15/500 meters. The workout on the SkiErg was 173 Calories at an average pace of 2:29/500 meters.
Today is the second day back after six days off and everything worked out okay again, though heart rate was a little higher than yesterday. The rowing workout was 10,000 meters at a constant pace of 2:15. It is the third of seven in a series of rowing 10Ks at 2:15, then the pace will be increased for the next seven. The SkiErg workout today was 1 Calorie more than yesterday’s at 172 Calories and 1 second per 500 meters faster, at a pace of 2:30/500 meters.
Monitor on the left is screen recording showing finish screen of the July 2nd 10K. Monitor on the right is the finish screen for today’s 10K. Heart rate was lower, each and every second of the way through today’s 10K, than it was on July 2nd. Don’t ask me what it means because I don’t know.
“Look on the bright side of things,” says my mind to itself. After being on the not so bright side of things and doing no workouts for 6 days, today’s workout showed a net performance increase. Perhaps that’s because I was so very well rested. Over-rested.
Today’s rowing workout was a 10K done at the same constant average pace as the 10K done on July 2nd. In fact, the screen recording of the July 2nd 10K was playing on a separate monitor and we both started at the same time (see photo at the top of this blog entry).
There was also a SkiErg workout done today: 171 Calories at a constant average pace of 2:31/500 meters.
Finish screen for today’s 10K rowing.
Report for today’s 10K rowing.
RowPro graphs for today’s 10K rowing.
Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 10K rowing.
Comparison analysis result for for today’s 10K rowing vs July 2nd 10K rowing.
Chart and data for today’s 171 Calorie SkiErg session.
Chart and data for today’s first workout, the 170 Calorie SkiErg session. The area of the heart rate graph circled in green is where heart rate suddenly went too high and remained there, even though I was maintaining a constant easy pace the entire time.
The one percent speed in today’s workouts was a 30 second sprint done for the quarterly “SkiErg Performance Challenge”. The rest of today’s workouts consisted of about an hour of constant pace sessions.
Today’s workouts began with a SkiErg session preset to continue until I’d worked 170 Calories, at an easy constant pace of 2:32/500 meters, which was a power level of about 100 Watts. Heart rate acted strange during the SkiErg workout by suddenly shifting and remaining too high, after about 4 minutes of the 15 minute session. I finished that session, maintaining the constant easy pace until the end, then took an aspirin with a lot of water and waited a few hours before doing the second part of today’s workouts.
The second part was a 10K rowing session, the first of seven that I plan to do at a constant pace of 2:15/500 meters. That’s a power level of about 142 Watts. Heart rate was normal by the time the rowing session began and it remained normal throughout the 10,000 meters.
The last bit of today’s workouts was the most fun, the “1% speed” part. It was 30 seconds of keeping the SkiErg at as high a pace as I could manage. It was done at an average power level of 343 Watts, but if you look at the screenshot of that 30 second sprint, you can see that my pace started out higher and faded a bit as each second ticked off.
Finish screen for today’s 10K rowing session
Report for today’s 10K rowing session.
RowPro graphs for today’s 10K rowing session.
Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 10K rowing session.
Chart and data for today’s one percent of speed – the 30 second SkiErg sprint.
The title of today’s post might be better arranged as Reluctant and Impatient. Reluctant is how I felt before starting each workout and impatient is how I felt while doing each of them. I wanted to go faster, to get them over with… but I’m continuing to exercise restraint with pacing and avoiding intervals, in the hope that by doing so it will iron out the wrinkles and smooth out heart rate behavior.
Today’s first workout was on SkiErg.
The first workout today was 169 Calories on SkiErg at 2:34 average pace. The second workout was 10K rowing at 2:16 average pace.
Finish screen view for today’s 10K rowing.
Report for today’s 10K rowing.
RowPro graphs for today’s 10K rowing.
Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 10K rowing.
Chart and data for today’s 96 Watt SkiErg workout. Heart rate (red graph line circled in green) was much too high for the low effort level.
There was a long break between today’s two main workouts. The first of the two workouts was 168 Calories on the SkiErg, at a constant pace averaging 2:34/500 meters, which was a mere 96 Watts average power. But though it was low power, heart rate immediately catapulted too high for the effort by quite a bit. So I took a break afterwards, waiting for the heart strangeness to subside before doing today’s rowing. A few hours passed and it persisted, so I took an aspirin (325 grams), drank a lot of water with it, then ran a couple of errands to nearby stores.
Within a short time of perhaps about 30 minutes after taking aspirin, HR returned to normal. I finished the errands and then did the rowing. The break time between the two workouts was about five hours.
The 10K rowing workout was sixth in a series of seven, each with the goal of constant pace averaging 2:16/500 meters, which pace is an effort of about 139 Watts. Though the 139 Watt rowing work was about 45% harder and lasted about three times longer than the 96 Watt session on the SkiErg, heart rate was a whole lot lower and normal through the rowing session, compared to how it had acted during the easier SkiErg session.
Today’s first workout was this 167 Calorie SkiErg session.
Today’s workouts were once again free from heart strangeness. The first workout was a constant paced single calorie target session on the SkiErg: 167 Calories at 2:35 pace. That was followed by 10K rowing at 2:16 pace.
Today the SkiErg workout was done first. Chart and data for today’s time on SkiErg.
Since I’ve been refraining from doing intervals, heart strangeness (episodes of atrial fibrillation, etc) seem to have greatly decreased and almost disappeared. Is is a coincidence or had I been overdoing it with the intervals?
I will give this approach a bit more time, before indulging in intervals again. The current approach is of aiming for a constant workout pace and gradually notching up pace and effort from one workout to the next.
Today’s first workout was on the SkiErg. It was followed by 10K rowing. The rowing workout was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording and is available at this link: Indoor Rowing 10K ASMR at 216 pace 06282019
Finish screen for today’s 10K rowing session.
Report for today’s 10K rowing session.
RowPro graphs for today’s 10K rowing session.
Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 10K rowing session.
Today’s workouts were spread out from morning to evening. The first workout was 10K rowing in the morning. There was no time for anything else after the rowing session, but a SkiErg session was done in early evening.
Report for today’s 10K rowing session.
RowPro graphs for today’s 10K rowing session.
Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 10K rowing session.
Though I haven’t mentioned insomnia / sleep problems lately, it was sleep issues that factored the most into missing three days of rowing recently. And skipping rowing led to more sleep issues. But yesterday I managed to get in some rowing and also the SkiErg – but just barely managed to do those workouts, before dinner yesterday evening. But they were done! And they were probably the main reason I slept very well last night.
As a result, I managed to wake earlier today, a little after seven a.m. Today’s workouts were adjusted for earlier and finished in the morning.
The first workout today was 10K rowing with the goal of rowing as constant a pace as possible, targeting an average pace of 2:16/500 meters at a target stroke rate of 28 spm. After the rowing, a SkiErg session of 164 Calories was done.
