Due the lack of images of people rowing at supersonic speed, this image of a Navy plane approaching supersonic will have to suffice. It was found somewhere in Wikipedia.
Today’s indoor rowing session was another 30 minutes done while trying to maintain a target heart rate of 130 BPM. According to the analysis done by RowPro 5 for the Mac, comparing today’s session to yesterday’s, the pace increased by .3% at the same heart rate of about 130 BPM. In miles per hour, pace increased by about .258333 mph.
If I can keep increasing at that rate every day, my rowing pace should reach the supersonic speed of about 720 mph in only 7 to 8 years from now.
That’s something to look forward to.
Other than that, there was nothing special about today’s rowing. It was done offline with no warmup or warm down.
Finish screen for today’s 30 minute sessionReport for today’s 30 minute sessionRowPro graphs for today’s 30 minute sessionConcept 2 online logbook graphs for today’s 30 minute sessionRowPro 5 for the Mac graphical comparison of today’s 30 minutes to yesterday’s.RowPro 5 for the Mac’s statistical comparison of today’s 30 minutes to yesterday’s.
The ticker (my heart) seemed to want to beat at a snail’s pace during today’s time of rowing online.
Yesterday evening, I took Zyrtec with dinner. Not because I’ve been having any allergies, but because it seems to enhance staying asleep. I’d had several days in a row of waking up too early and had been accumulating excess sleep debt.
The Zyrtec worked and instead of sleeping from 4 to 6 hours, I slept almost 10 hours. All caught up on sleep, with some to spare. But I felt sluggish and slow, as an after-effect of Zyrtec, which I rarely take and therefore am not used to.
Today’s indoor rowing session was 30 minutes done online with a few other guys. My goal was the same as for the past few days: to adjust the effort throughout the session, so as to keep heart rate near the target heart rate of 130. If you read the recent blog post about choosing that HR target, you know that I used a modification of Dr. Philip Maffetone’s “The 180 Formula,” to arrive at the aerobic target of 130. Upper boundary is 140 and lower boundary is probably around 114 to 120.
When it came time to row, it seemed that I had to row with greater effort at a significantly faster pace, to raise heart rate to the 130 BPM target zone. Afterwards, I used the RowPro 5 for the Mac analysis feature, to compare today’s 30 minutes to yesterday’s. The results of the analysis are the last two screenshots below.
Finish screenshot of today’s 30 minute session.Session report of today’s 30 minute sessionRowPro graphs of today’s 30 minute sessionConcept 2 online logbook graphs of today’s 30 minute sessionRowPro analysis of today’s and yesterday’s 30 minute sessions showing their graphs superimposed. I don’t know how this is edifying, but it looks cool.Stats and what RowPro’s analysis algorithm had to say about comparison between today’s and yesterday’s 30 minute sessions.
Speaking of good improvement: The above photos are of the first and current models of the Concept 2 indoor rower. These images were found on the website of a British health facility called Fitness Matters.
Today’s main indoor rowing was a 30 minute online session done with a target heart rate. The target was the same as it had been in the 30 minute session on September 29th. But the average pace was faster by -1.4 seconds/500 meters. The session burned 8 calories more than Sept 29th to go at that faster pace. The increase in power was +3.2 watts.
I guess that’s good improvement. But since it’s from one day to the next and I’m no expert, it might not even be statistically significant. Therefore, I will “ask” RowPro. RowPro has a feature which can be used to compare two rowing sessions that are similar (either both the same distance or time duration.)
Okay, here’s what RowPro says and it doesn’t seem much more enlightening that what is in the above two paragraphs. But it is confirmation that there was improvement since two days ago.
When RowPro compares two similar sessions, it superimposes their graphs for HR and average pace, as you can see in the above screenshot which compares today’s 30 minutes to the similar session done on September 29th.RowPro says that there was an increase in both performance and also in strength. I don’t understand why, unless there is something magical-ish about Dr. Maffetone’s 180 formula … when it is used as intended. This is both surprising and encouraging.
But even if it isn’t especially enlightening, at least you saw a demonstration, immediately above this paragraph, of the kind of results you can expect when RowPro 5 for the Mac compares two similar sessions.
The above image was found in an article on the Ithaca College website. The image was chosen because of the name of the boat, which you can see in white letters painted on the boat and located between the coxswain and the stroke rower.
Today’s indoor rowing goal was to simply act upon the resolution to do more than 10K. First, there was a 10 minute warmup, followed by 30 minutes online with two others and finished with a 4K warm down.
All totaled, the distance rowed amounted to around 12K.
Finish screen of the main 30 minute online piece30 minute reportRowpro’s graphs of the 30 minute sessionConcept 2 online logbook’s graphs of the 30 minute sessionConcept 2 online logbook’s graphs of the warmupConcept 2 online logbook’s graphs of the extended warmdown. 4K was chosen for the warmdown, to bring total distance to above the day’s minimum goal.Summary of today’s rowing
Happy accomplishment of rowing resolutions to you.
The above image was one of the first results when I searched using the terms “various indoor rowing” and it is from a Hong Kong Indoor Rowing website.
Today’s indoor rowing was a few sessions offline and two sessions online. The effort level varied from easy to hard.
First there was a 10 minute warmup, then a 30 minute online session. Then there was a hard 4 minute session for entry in the rankings. After that, there was a 10 minute warmdown and then a “just row” mode warm down.
Finish screen for the online 30 minute sessionreport for online 30 minutesOnline 30 minute graphsFinish screen for the 4 minute session, which was entered into World RankingsReport for the 4 minute session4 minute session graphsThis is a summary listing of all indoor rowing I did today. The other 3 session reports aren’t worth bothering to post.
The above image was among the very first results when a search for today’s blog post image was done using the search terms “sunday indoor rowing”. It is a photo on a Dublin (Ireland) High School website and the page includes the three words used in the search.
Today’s rowing should have been interesting and requiring a degree of mental focus, but instead it was boring and got almost no mental focus. It was a 10,000 meter distance that was scheduled online almost 3 hours before start time. But nobody who rows online noticed it or was able to join it at the scheduled time.
So I rowed it alone. Rowing alone doesn’t have to be boring, but other things on my mind, plus the subject matter of a documentary I chose to view while rowing… all seemed to have a summary effect of suppressing enjoyment of the rowing.
On the positive side, the distance was accomplished and heart rate was elevated slightly for almost an hour, which is a health benefit.
10K finish screenThis report is accurate with no software glitches. The unusually long Time recorded for Split # 11 is because the documentary I was viewing stalled. I had to troubleshoot the Apple TV and finally had to shut it down and restart it, to get the documentary to resume playing.You can see the interruption very clearly on the top graph, where the 11th split is listed.
Today’s indoor rowing was scheduled online, one hour in advance of start time. But there was nobody else who joined in.
It was done at a leisurely pace that most younger rowers would find boring. I watched a documentary during the session, so a leisurely rowing pace was best, so as to have maximum mental focus available for the documentary.
The above photo was found on a site called WoodenBoat Forum where the subject seems to be the building of wooden boats.
Today’s activity was more indoor rowing. It was done online, in the hopes of making up for the lack of water by having some company. But I didn’t schedule it enough in advance (only 30 minutes) for anyone to notice it and join.
Other than that, it was fine and the distance was done without incident or interruption.
The above photo has absolutely nothing to do with the indoor rowing session that I did today. It was the second image that Bing presented when I searched the web for images using the search terms, “raise the heart rate a little bit for a little while with indoor rowing” . The Microsoft (Bing) search engine found it on a website called The Lakeside Collection, which doesn’t seem to have anything to do with any kind of rowing.
That’s all today’s indoor rowing was about (what the title says). So I started out at a high enough effort level to raise HR above 133 for a while, then eased back. I was watching a documentary video which lasted about 90 minutes. After the documentary was over, I quit rowing. A grandiose total of 887 calories was burned… but who’s counting?
Today’s rowing distance was set to half marathon and was considered sufficient after 10K. It was followed by a very leisurely 3K warm down.
The reason today’s session qualifies for the category of “mentally absorbing” is because there were two paceboats and I made it a point to stay focused enough on the rowing, to stay ahead of both of them.
