Today’s Plan session was designated as recovery, steady distance of from 8K to 15K. I chose 8K, with pace the highest priority target. The pace target was 2:20.5, which was the midway point of UT2 (relative to my most recent 2K TT). Second priority was HR less than 75% HRmax. Last priority was rating 22-25.
By making pace the first priority, it was most certain that the desired recovery level of effort would not be exceeded.
Second priority of HR never exceeded 60% HRmax. Last priority of rating was rather sloppy but all in all I was happy with the session.
I was trying to keep today’s recovery session in the UT2 zone, as mentioned in the first paragraph. If the first part of the definition (see the Rowing Lingo page/tab on the home page of this site) of UT2 which is a percentage of power relative to a person’s recent 2K TT is used, I succeeded. But if the second and less commonly interpreted part of the definition for UT2 is used (65% to 70% of the number arrived at by adding a person’s HRR+RHR) then I was rowing too hard. I consider the first and more commonly used definition of UT2 to be the valid one. At least, it felt “right” in that I wasn’t working hard enough to sweat but wasn’t working so ultra easy that it was extremely boring. If I’d rowed at an effort level that would have kept my HR at 65-70% HRR+RHR, that would have been in the range of 97 to 104, which would have been a much more boring effort level, to my experience.
8K finish screen8K session report8K charts. I operated the tv remote control a few times after the session started and that was probably the biggest reason for large variations in pace.
RowPro 5 for the Mac (beta) note: I had a difficulty getting the custom session programmed to be subdivided into 20 splits, so that the distance would be equal for all splits including the final split and the glitch earlier noted could be avoided. (If the last split distance is not the same as all the previous split distances, the displayed pace for the last split is wrong, because RowPro 5 for the Mac uses the previous split distance value to calculate the pace for the last split). I finally managed to force it to be 20 splits by editing the previous 8K which had been automatically subdivided into 27 splits and instead of choosing to “save” it, I clicked the button to start rowing it immediately.
The Pete Plan assignment for today was to do a hard distance of at least 5K. I chose 10K. For a hard pace, I chose 2:01.7, which was my previous season best for 10K. There was a warmup and warm down of 1,100 meters each, but I won’t bother to include reports etc for the w/u & w/d. Straps were loose as usual and DF was 135.
The session went well and there was plenty of energy left for a nice push during the last 500 meters.
Today’s training plan session was supposed to be a “steady distance recovery”, from 8K to 15K, at rating of from 22 to 25. I chose 8K at r22. DF was 135. No warmup or warm down. Straps were loose as usual.
There were three targets: HR, rating and pace. Highest priority was to keep HR anywhere below 75% HRmax and that required little effort. (Pun intended.)
Second highest priority was to keep rating as near as possible to 22 and it is what got most of the portion of attention given to rowing.
Lowest priority was pace. The pace target was to average about 2:18, but most of the time I paid no attention to it, while my mind wandered in various directions and visited parallel universes. Toward the end of the session I noticed that pace was quite a bit faster than 2:18 and seemed to want to stay in that area, so I brought the average pace down by using legs only and not quite letting my legs straighten 100% with each drive. You can see on the chart that it brought the pace down quite a bit, to do that.
8K finish screen8K report. Disregard pace figure for the last split (see the RowPro 5 for the Mac note near the end of this post)8K chart
RowPro 5 for the Mac (beta version) note: disregard the pace of 1:39 displayed in the session report for the last split. That is incorrect because the algorithm seems to be using 300 meters instead of the correct value of 200 meters for that last split.
Apple watch note: As I said in an earlier post regarding the apple watch workout app when it is in rower mode, the data isn’t really useful for serious rowers because there is virtually no data except elapsed time from the time you start it until you stop it on the workout app. It also gives an estimate of calories burned, based on an algorithm using HR, body weight and I don’t know what else. The calories burned are usually in the ball park and might be useful for someone who needs that figure for purposes of dieting. It also continuously records HR until the workout is stopped, instead of only sampling it once every 10 minutes when the HR app is not being accessed.
Don’t get me wrong – I like the app and very much appreciate that a rower category is included among choices of workout types. The reason I use it, is so that the “activity” app on the watch will give me credit for doing some kind of a workout and say nice things to me about it. Anyway – – the note regarding it today is that I did use it to record the workout activity but forgot to start it until I’d been rowing for a while. When I remembered, I didn’t have to totally stop rowing, to initiate the logging of a rowing workout. All I had to do was take one hand off the C2 handle and keep rowing while holding the watch near my mouth and say “Hey Siri, start a rowing workout.” Three seconds later (there’s a ready-set-go type of 3 second countdown when it starts recording a workout) it was recording the rowing workout and continuously displaying HR.
After the 8K I forgot to stop the rowing workout on the watch. About 15 minutes later I stopped its recording and it had registered 325 Calories and an elapsed time of 49 minutes. That calorie figure looks about right, for the portion of rowing and then the non-rowing afterwards which included standing, sitting, walking and changing clothes.
Today’s training session was endurance intervals, 5×1500 R5:00. There was a 2500m warmup and warmdown. DF was 135. Straps were loose. Target pace for all but the last interval was 2:00.3, which was the average pace for all 5 intervals in this same session of the first cycle.
The resulting average pace for all 5 intervals this session was 1:59.5. That will be the target pace for all but the last interval, three weeks from now when this is repeated in Cycle 3.
warmup finish screenwarmup reportwarmup chartsscreen view after last 1500m interval and at beginning of last active rest period. If you noticed that the blue pace graph on the bottom left doesn’t match the red HR graph to its right, you are observant. RowPro 5 for the Mac (beta version) got hung up at the end of the first and 3rd intervals with regard to graphing pace and continued plotting the same pace throughout the rest portion following. But the graphs accompanying the session report, and the report itself, are correct.session report for 5×1500chart for 5×1500warmdown reportwarmdown finish screenwarmdown charts
Today’s Pete Plan session was a designated steady distance recovery row of from 8K to 15K. I chose 10K and followed it with a 2500m warm down.
The only goals for the 10K today were to keep rating between 22 and 25. I guess you could say another goal was to keep HR under 75% max, but at the pace I rowed, I knew it wouldn’t get close to 75% max. The highest HR was about 63% HRmax. DF was 125. Pace averaged out to about 2:19, which was perfect.
Today’s episode of Pete Plan was the first day of cycle 2, my second time through the 3 week plan. The session was 8×500 R3:30. I set up the intervals on RowPro, with only 3:20 of rest and when each 3:20 of rest ended, I sat motionless for another 10 seconds to allow the flywheel to come to a rest before starting the next 500m interval.
Before and after the 8×500 there was a warm up and warm down of 1,250 meters. The target pace for the first 7 intervals was 1:55.6, which had been the overall average pace for the previous instance of the 8×500 in the first cycle. DF was 125.
I put the Apple watch into workout mode/rowing before starting the warm up, intervals and warm down and then ended its recording of the workout after the warm down.
The Apple watch doesn’t provide any data that is of interest to rowers but at least it does give me “credit” for meeting the daily exercise portion of what is set as a daily activity goal.
The 634 total calories credited by the Apple watch is in the ballpark for 643 total calories measured on the rowing machine if calories are totaled for warmup, main rowing session and warmdown.
Here are the finish screens, reports and charts for the warm up, 8×50 R3:30 and warm down:
warm up finish screenwarm up session reportwarm up chartNotice the charting problem circled in green for pace and heart rate on the RowPro 5 for the Mac finish screen. That was during the 6th split, and the graphs appeared to move back in time when starting to graph data for the 6th split. It is a software bug in the Beta version of RowPro 5 for the Mac. The session report is okay, though.8×500 R3:30 session report. Note that the active rest times were 3:20 in RowPro. I added another 10 seconds passive rest to each of them, to allow 10 seconds of inactivity on my part so that the C2 flywheel could stop spinning before I began each 500m sprint.8×500 R3:30 chartwarm down finish screenwarm down reportwarm down chart
Today’s scheduled Pete Plan activity was to do no rowing. So I took Pete’s recommendation seriously and didn’t do any serious rowing. But I did try something which involved the rowing machine.
To test an Apple watch’s accuracy in measuring calories burned while rowing, I told it I was going to row and rowed slowly until the watch indicated that I’d burned 125 calories.
The results from the watch were vaguely similar to the precisely calibrated results from the Concept 2’s ergometer readout. Very vaguely. But, that’s to be expected, since the watch could only base its calculations on 1. elapsed time, 2. The fact that I was using a workout designation corresponding to one of its labeled algorithms (Rowing ) and 3. My heart rate, which was slightly elevated.
The watch’s results showed Duration=20m 5.76s, Total Active energy of 132.37 kcal (1 kcal is the physics term for one food Calorie. So it was what most people would call 132.37 Calories) and Total Resting Energy of 35.3 kcal (35.3 Calories).
I don’t know if the “resting energy” is a portion of the “Active energy” or if they are separate, but I think they are separate because from the time I pressed “go” on the watch and it started measuring time, heart rate and calories, until the time I actually started rowing, was the elapsed time it took for me to put on my socks and shoes. It was the first time I’d used that app and so I didn’t realize I was making it start until… it started its countdown.
I gave the workout app a target goal of 125 Calories. When “active calories” on its display reached 125, it vibrated to let me know the goal had been met. The “total calories” on the display were higher and were probably the sum of “active” and “resting,” but I didn’t jot that number down.
If I ever do that again and write about it in this blog, I’ll include a screenshot of the results. But I didn’t know how to take a screenshot on the watch, when the rowing was done.
Below is a screenshot of the pertinent results as they were recorded in the watch app, after the rowing “workout” results were saved and below that is a view of the session results summary from the RowPro report.
This is what the Apple watch app shows for the brief time rowing.Finish screen for today’s experiment with rowing while Apple watch measured the workout.session report for the above. The session report doesn’t have any split details or graphs because it was done in the “just row” mode.
Today’s Pete Plan scheduled session was specified to be a distance of from 8K to 15K at a rating of from 22 to 25 and at a recovery pace. I chose 8K as the distance. DF was 125. No warmup or warmdown. Straps were loose, as usual.
Finish screen after completing the 8K8K report. Disregard the reported pace for the last split in the RowPro session report. I’m using a beta version of RowPro 5 for the Mac and it is calculating the pace for the last split by using the elapsed time for the last split, but the distance for the previous splits, which are longer than the last split.Charts for the 8K. Disregard the reported pace for the last split in the RowPro chart. I’m using a beta version of RowPro 5 for the Mac and it is calculating the pace for the last split by using the elapsed time for the last split, but the distance for the previous splits, which are longer than the last split.
Today’s scheduled training session was to be a “hard distance” of anywhere from 5K up. I chose to do a 30 minute timed session with a goal of making a new season best result which would be well over 7K.
I also thought it would be nice, if the session could be used to get a new measure of LTHR. It’s possible to get a very accurate LTHR reading if a 30 minute session is raced and then the average heart rate is calculated for the last 10 minutes. That didn’t work out, because I didn’t do the 30 minutes hard enough. (I haven’t raced much lately and so I didn’t know how fast I could go for 30 minutes. It turned out that I had a lot of energy left so this 30 minutes would give a very low and inaccurate reading for LTHR. At any rate it felt good and was refreshing.
I did a 1250 meter warmup and a 1250 meter warm down. Straps were loose. DF was 140.
The session for today’s portion of the Pete Plan was designated a steady distance, recovery session. It was supposed to be anywhere from 8K to 15K and was supposed to be done at a recovery pace, with a rating of from 22 to 25. I chose the 8K distance. No warm up was needed or done. The targets in order of priority for compliance were: First: heart rate was to be no higher than 75% max. For that purpose, a HR target zone of was painted on the RowPro screen. The only part of the target zone that I cared about was the top of the zone, which was not to be exceeded. It never came close to the top so that target was met.
Second priority target was to keep the average rating near 22 and that worked out well. The session report shows average rating of 22.
Third and last priority target was pace, which was targeted as 2:18. That came out to be an average pace of 2:17.8, which was close enough. The session report shows an average pace of “2:18,” but that’s because the RowPro 5 for the Mac software for some reason rounds off every figure in the pace column, including the overall average pace, to the nearest whole number of seconds instead of displaying to the nearest tenth.
NOTE: IGNORE the report data for the last split – there’s something wrong with that line of data! I rowed the 8K as near to targets as I could throughout every split and DID NOT row the last split at a pace of 1:32! The total time is correct and the more precise pace average was 2:17.8 but RowPro 5 for the Mac rounds all pace values to the nearest second.
(The software version of RowPro I’m using on a Mac is a Beta version with a few bugs left in it. I use a Windows version of RowPro for any Pete Plan variable interval sessions, because this Beta version for the Mac won’t do variable intervals… but for everything else, including this session today, I use this Beta version of RowPro 5 for the Mac, which usually works perfectly.)
After the Pete Plan 8K steady distance recovery session was done, I decided to watch a movie and do another 10K for the sake of the current concept2.com challenge. But first, here’s the stuff for the Pete Plan 8K:
8K finish screen8K report8K charts
The additional 10K “ocean rowing” was done with an effort level which is the equivalent (as near as I can calculate with the information I have) of the average level of effort with which Sami Inkinen rowed for 18 hours every day, for 45 days while rowing 2,750 miles across the Pacific Ocean from California to Hawaii.
One of the interviews I viewed which featured Sami Inkinen answering questions about that voyage included answers to questions about what he ate every day during those 45 days, how many calories consumed daily, how many hours he slept daily and how much weight he lost during the 45 days of rowing 18 hours daily.
With the above information, I calculated what was his average rowing effort and translated that to a pace at which someone would have to row a Concept 2 rowing machine, if rowing 18 hours a day for 45 days and be rowing the same daily calories burned.
Sami said that he ate 7,000 calories per day. He also said that he lost 26 pounds during those 45 days. And he said he slept for 6 hours each 24 hour period. So I disregarded any consideration for calories he burned while awake and not rowing during the 18 awake hours per day and used the Concept 2 rowing machine monitor to translate calories per hour to pace.
The data used, in addition to his report of eating 7,000 calories per 24 hours, is: He slept 6 hours and the human body reportedly burns about .42 calories per hour per pound of body weight. So I assumed that he weighed an average of about 180 pounds during the voyage and that 6 hours of sleep amounts to 450 calories he burned while sleeping. Also, he lost 26 pounds of weight. But when the voyage started, he was a very fit, world-class triathlete so that 26 pounds was NOT very much in the way of fat. He said that the muscles atrophied – the muscles he wasn’t able to use enough while in the boat and only rowing for 45 days. So the calorie figure I used for the 26 pounds of his lean body which was consumed during the 45 days was the calorie figure for what is reported for “lean beef,” which is 897 calories per pound. Multiply 897 calories by 26 pounds and the number of calories his body consumed relating to his loss of weight was 897 x 26 = 23,322 calories total. Divide that 23,322 calories by 45 days and you get 518 calories average per day from weight loss.
The total figure for calories he spent to do the rowing is:
7,000 calories eaten minus 450 calories for sleeping plus 518 calories per day from his body consuming itself with weight loss = 7,068 calories remaining per 18 hours for rowing. Divide 7,068 calories by 18 and you get about 393 calories for his average hourly rowing effort.
I sat on a Concept 2 rowing machine and set the C2 PM3 to display calories per hour while the RowPro monitor was simultaneously set to display reading of pace in minutes:seconds/500 meters. After doing that I had RowPro show the simultaneous value for the 393 calories per hour in Watts, for the sake of curiosity.
393 calories per hour = pace of about 3:56/500 meters = power level of about 31 Watts.
Whatever the exact, precise numbers were, it doesn’t matter because the above numbers are excellent “ball park” numbers and should be within a very small percentage or fraction of a percentage of the actual values if they could have been measured and recorded during that ocean rowing voyage. If you’d like to see it yourself, the relevant interview with Sami Inkinen should be at this link-> Sami Inkinen interview on youtube
So I did the 10K at the ocean rowing pace of about 3:56. The session was interrupted once when I had to get off the machine for a couple minutes and help my wife carry things. I made up for the lost time by rowing a bit faster until the average pace returned to about 3:56. Then, toward the end, my wife told me that we were going to have a meal in a number of minutes that would have me still on the rowing machine by then, so I increased the pace a little bit near the end, so as to be on time for the meal. (Call me anything you want, but don’t call me late for a meal.)
The 10K ocean row session would have been extremely boring without a distraction, so I watched a documentary. One of the things Sami Inkinen did while rowing at that pace for 18 hours/45 days was to do mathematical calculations in his head and speak aloud what he was calculating while doing them. (I think he did those while his wife was sleeping – while she was awake, they talked about anything and everything and decided, among other things, that they wanted to have children).
If you compare calories burned for 8K at 2:18/500m (which was the first rowing session done today, for Pete Plan training) and 10K at 3:52/500m (for this “ocean rowing” session) you will see that though the 10,000 meter “ocean row” is 25% more distance, it only used 9.7% more calories than the much faster paced 8K. Therefore if a person wants to row maximum distance on a limited number of calories, he can row further at a slower pace.
Rowing slower to go further on the same amount of calories is analogous to driving a car slower, to go further on a gallon of gasoline.
The report and charts for today’s 10K of “ocean-rowing” effort level are below:
