The above illustrative photo was found on the website of a high school in England. It is called Middlewich High School and is located in Cheshire.
If you look carefully at the photo above, you can see that the person sitting in position to row on the Concept 2 rowing machine is sitting on a seat which is riding on a rail. The photo below this paragraph gives a less obstructed view of that rail, from the viewpoint of a person sitting on the seat, with the seat all the way back to the end of the rail.
So now you know, in case you didn’t already, what is being referenced in the title with the word, “rail”.
Today’s rowing on the rail session was a half marathon done in the company of a rower in Denmark and a Rower in Netherlands or perhaps Spain. (He has rowed from both locations and I didn’t ask him which country he was in today).
The last split (the 27th) of the report has incorrect data in the columns for Avg Pace and Avg Watts because that little problem with RowPro 5 for the Mac has not yet been debugged.
The motto on some of the shirts gives a good message: Just Row and let the benefits flow.
Today’s activity was an hour rowed online in the company of a rower who was in Germany.
My target pace was to just row easy but I was inspired by the pace of the other guy and so I picked up the rating and pace in the second half of the hour and then went a little faster in addition to that, during the last 5 – 10 minutes.
I took a short break to fiddle with the activity tracker on my watch and that break is why the pace is so slow during the 15th and 16th splitsThere was a short interruption in the middle of the hour after I noticed that I hadn’t told my watch to log the rowing session for activity credit.
One of the ways to do indoor rowing in the company of other people is to sign up for an indoor race, like these people.
The number of calories burned while rowing today wasn’t anything unusual. You can burn a lot more than that in an hour, if you want to work hard while rowing. As for me, I took it easy most of the time today.
In the hopes of rowing with someone else via the connection over the internet, I scheduled today’s main session online. I only scheduled it about 38 minutes in advance, so apparently that wasn’t enough time for anyone to notice it. I went ahead and rowed online anyway, so my online friends could see that I was there today for 10K.
Another way to do indoor rowing in the company of other people is to do your rowing at a fitness club, such as where these people are doing their rowing. They are not racing each other but their instructor says things to motivate them. One of the things exclaimed at by at least one of the people interviewed in the CNN video (link to video is in the paragraph below this image) … is the fact that rowing burns a LOT of calories in a relatively small amount of time.
The above screenshot is from a CNN video on youtube about a fitness center that specializes in indoor rowing. It is called Rowbot Fitness. It is located in Georgia.
Since no one else joined the 10K with me, I rowed to the beat of a slow drummer and maintained a pace somewhere between 2:20 and 2:17 until near the end, where I picked up the pace enough to justify a warm down session afterwards.
Before doing the 10K online, I did a 5 minute warmup, then the 10K online and finished with a 1,500 meter warm down.
5 minute warmup finish screen10K finish screen1500 meter warm down finish screen
An over-the-shoulder view of someone (not me) using higher tech with RowPro to race. He is not actually racing online though. He is using RowPro and racing offline against either computer-generated pace boats or rowfiles supplied by other rowers. That youtube video can be found at THIS LINK. If you watch the video, play it all the way to the end so you can appreciate the guy’s effort when you hear how hard he is breathing after the finish. That is quite normal, if a person gives maximum effort to do a 2K.
Today’s rowing consisted of two pieces. The first was the higher tech session, because it was done online. Doing a rowing session online is actually easy, but I consider it “higher tech,” because it not only involved the Concept 2 rowing machine and its own computer which is called the PM, but also it involves another computer which runs the RowPro software. That computer running RowPro connects to both the PM and to the internet. Via the internet, a connection is made to the Digital Rowing/Oarbits server in Houston. And other people who are rowing with RowPro, all over the world, can also connect to that same server in Houston at the same time as you, so you can row with them via the internet.
The first session was 30 minutes, with one other person who was located in England. It was not a race and we rowed within a few meters of each other’s boats, from start to finish.
I forgot to take a screen shot of the finish of today’s 30 minute online rowing session, but you can see the results in the yellow area of the Oarbits results screenshot.What I did different than usual in today’s online 30 minute session was to row at a very low rating. It felt good to be rowing at a very sedate pace. It was enough effort, even at the slow pace, to slowly but surely elevate HR.
The screenshot below shows some people who are all racing each other using higher tech of RowPro while their machines are all connected to one server. You can see that video at THIS LINK. That video is less than two minutes (it was a very short race) and everyone in the room who was not rowing applauds, when the race is finished.
So… it is possible for people to race each other using RowPro while they are all in the same room, but it can also be done with each rower and his/her machine in different rooms anywhere in the world.
The second session today was the Lower Tech of the two, because it only involved using the rowing machine and its PM. For the second session, the PM was set for a custom 3-interval session which consisted of 500 meters with 30 seconds rest, 1,000 meters with 30 seconds rest and 500 meters as the last interval. The second session was done for this month’s challenge on the C2CTC website. The goal was to row the first 500m interval at a rating of 22, the second 1K interval at 26 and the last 500m interval at 30.
This is somebody (not me) who is rowing the “lower tech” way, using only the Concept 2 rowing machine and its PM.A photo of the PM screen showing the results of my C2CTC challenge attempt today. I focused exclusively on rating (strokes per minute) because there was a penalty for doing even 1 SPM more or less than the specified rating for each interval. As a result, the ratings were perfect and the speed was kinda slow.
There was also a strength training session today. If you want to see the results, they are going to be posted, along with the strength-training plan, in the page of this blog that can be found via the tab named “Current Plan”.
When I searched for images related to today’s inspirational video of the Turin Silver Skiffs 2012, this image showing literal silver skiffs was among the results. It is jewelry from a British website site called Fay Page. The photo is found on a page showing solid silver rowing boats which are made in Scilly, which is a place in England, NOT in Italy (where Turin is located). You would have to ask the people who design the search engine’s artificial “intelligence” why this jewelry is logically related to the Turin Silver Skiffs sculling race.
The inspiration for today’s workout was a youtube video which I’ve resorted to a few times before but which I’ve not gotten tired of yet. It is called Turin silver skiffs 2012 and the actual rowing in the video is around 10K. The guy who is wearing the GoPro camera and doing the actual rowing is a young British rower.
Before starting the video and rowing along with it, I chose a custom RowPro session of 11K distance. Then I started the video. The actual race doesn’t start until a couple minutes into the video, but I started about 40 seconds ahead of the actual race start, since I would be rowing about 1,000 meters further. The guy who is rowing has to row against the current and much slower than me for the first half of the race course. Then he turns around and rows with the current and has a pace much faster than mine for the second half. I chose paces which resulted in me finishing the 11K at about the same time as he finished 10K.
When people race together online using RowPro and the digitalrowing.com Oarbits server, they usually follow the race with a 9 minute warm down but 4 minutes seemed more than enough to warm down after today’s 11K which was done at less than a race pace.
A minor software glitch showed up when RowPro generated the main session report. It’s visible on the line for the 16th split.
Though today would have normally been a day for strength-training, I skipped it today and will try to make a spreadsheet for the results of the new strength-training program, before doing the next session, so they can be displayed in this blog.
A screenshot from the video called The Rowing Life, which was 4 minutes 24 seconds long.
The grammar of the title of this post leaves something to be desired but it works. Today’s exercise activity was rowing only. And while I was rowing, I went to youtube and found a short video titled The Rowing Life and watched it. When it was over, youtube automatically started another one which its algorithms decided to be similar and so I watched one after the other, all rowing videos. The last one that was playing when the 11K finished was titled Full Day of Eating + Training | Student Rower, by a guy who seems to have posted quite a few videos on the topic of being a student rower.
The 11,000 meters was mostly easy with a little sprinting near the end. It was followed by a 4 minute piece, as additional warm down.
Today’s rowing was preceded by a new approach to pushups/strength-training. More about that later or in a following post, because there isn’t much time before dinner to write today’s post.
After pushups, I started to row 11K but there were interruptions so it wasn’t finished. An interesting video I watched on youtube is the one above, called Rowing HR and POV which has some interesting real-time readouts displayed on the screen. It shows the heart rate of one of the rowers (second from top right corner of the screen) simultaneous with the instantaneous speed of the boat in mph (bottom left of screen). It also shows accumulated distance (top left). Top right of screen is a heart rate graph. Bottom right of screen is a representation of the boat’s position on the course they row.
Believe it or not, when I used the search terms “take a nap and then go rowing” to look for images, the above image was one of the top results. It doesn’t show napping or rowing. It shows a yoga pose. Mysterious.
I really expected results which were less non sequitur than the above image. But it’s interesting, so it won the contest today. It’s from a Pinterest assortment of images related to yoga, most of which were more eye-appealing than the few images among the results which actually showed rowing. I’d rather row, so I did my usual of rowing instead of my never-ever tried of yoga.
They each have their unique photogenic aspects.
Today’s rowing was 11K done very easy. It was done so very easy that it burned 58 calories less than the same easy 11K done yesterday. But today is Sunday, which is considered to be an apt day for rest by many people.
The title for today’s post is in reference to the fact that I only got about 1/2 a normal night’s sleep last night and then was wide awake before dawn. I tried to go back to sleep but just got warmer and more awake. Since I still haven’t found the master control for my body’s metabolism, I got up, had coffee and breakfast and than a few hours later took a long nap. Then I went rowing on my Concept 2 model D.
Neither of these ladies is named Ness but they are both happy after rowing and so is NED (their country, Netherlands). They are Ilse Paulis and Maiike Head and they are mentioned in an article at THIS LINK.
After rowing, Ness was happy. But even if your name is not Ness, there is happiness for you after rowing because aerobic exercise that is sufficiently vigorous significantly elevates the happy mixture your body is capable of manufacturing and spreading throughout your body. Which includes your brain. Which is somehow connected to your mind.
The above photo addresses another subject related to happiness: a person’s relationship to God. I found this photo while looking for rowing photos, even though it doesn’t show any rowing. It is located on a blog relating to its pictured theme, at THIS LINK.
Today’s rowing consisted of 11K while watching two DVDs about the next strength-training/pushups program I’m going to do. Here’s a hint: It won’t be a continuation of the “7 Days To 100 Pushups” program. It will be something different and in my opinion better, but it will still focus on pushups as its general exercise specialty.
The DVD-watching of the two instructional videos seemed to help enhance being focused while rowing. The only break I took while rowing was for the purpose of swapping DVDs. The session was done at a mostly constant, easy pace with the exception of the aforementioned break and a moderate sprint during the second-to-last of the 20 splits into which this session was divided by RowPro software.
Yes, my happiness level was enhanced afterwards.
Below is a view of today’s session from its information screen in my Concept2.com online logbook:
This screenshot shows you the title of the video which I used for inspiration today.
I kept my eyes open… but the champion rower who was in the stroke position in the race video pictured above rowed with her eyes closed.
Today was a double-duty day which started with a little rowing to warmup and then a strength-training/pushups session, with rowing to occupy the rest times between pushups sets. After that, I chose a POV video of the coxswain’s view of the winners of the 2012 HOCR W8+. I chose a video of the women, because I had a better chance of keeping up with them, than with a crew of young men. It was quite a workout, nonetheless especially considering that I also let myself have a little head start of some gentle rowing after starting the video and before the race actually started.
For a large part of the race, the stroke rower seemed to be making up for the lack of sunglasses by keeping her eyes closed. The coxswain maintained a constant, stroke-by-stroke stream of instructions and encouragement, so she the rower could do just fine with her eyes closed … and she did, because they won the race in their category!
This is a screenshot from the concept2.com online logbook which shows data from the rowing done during pushups/strength-training.RowPro software finish screen of my 3 mile row-along session with the HOCR 2012 Champs videoData and graphs for the 3 mile session. This is the report view from the concept2.com logbook instead of from RowPro.
Nothing to brag about but here’s the results of the last session of the 10th week of pushups/strength-training (on the bottom line labeled F for Friday of week 10):
