Today’s indoor rowing was a total of 12,000 meters, split into a 10K session and a 2K ultra-slow warm down. During the first half of the 10K, I rowed slowly as a warmup. During the warmup, I watched miscellaneous videos related to rowing on the water. The highlight of those videos was the one for which you see a screenshot, above, of a coxswain “surfing” while her crew of 8 rowers propels the boat at a moderate effort. The crew cheers her, when she manages to stand up and “surf” while maintaining her balance, which is no easy task with the alternating applications of sudden accelerating power when the crew pulls the oars and the sudden deceleration and “glide” as the crew recovers and re-positions for the next stroke.
The second half of today’s 10K was a series of intervals, while watching the same video as yesterday’s session (HOCR Power Workout).
The final 2,000 meters was an ultra-slow-and-easy warm down.
Today’s rowing session followed the idea that was mentioned in yesterday’s blog article. I rowed along with the entire youtube video titled HOCR Power Workout.
Before starting the video, I rowed for about 15 minutes as a warmup.
I didn’t push too hard during the intervals, but hard enough to have some fun.
Today’s rowing session started out with me in a pensive mood, after having returned from a bi-annual doctor visit. The rowing piece chosen was 10,000 meters which I opted to do offline because I was fairly certain that my average pace would be far too slow for any of my most usual online companions.
Starting out, I decided to watch some video documentaries on youtube. I had to row very slow, to be able to give attention to what was being said and to be able to hear it clearly.
After about 5,000 meters of that, I switched to a rowing video on youtube which was about 28 minutes in duration and which included several intervals of 30 seconds and 60 seconds duration. That was quite enjoyable, so the Idea For Tomorrow’s Rowing Session is to do 10,000 meters while watching that same video and use whatever distance remains of the 10K after the 28 minute video is finished, for a warm down. If that is done tomorrow, the blog post will include a screen shot of the video and a link to it, for anyone else who wants to try rowing with it.
It has a sound track with a musical rhythm that works well with its alternating scenes of relatively slow rowing and sprint intervals.
Today’s main indoor rowing was 4,829 meters, which is about three miles. It was done while watching a youtube video of someone rowing the HOCR 2014 race. I started when he started and finished when he finished. Of course, I didn’t have to steer a boar or avoid colliding with other boats, which are some of the things he had to contend with.
The main session was followed by a few minutes of easy rowing in “just row” mode.
Time was slippery and elusive and it got away from me today, so instead of rowing the usual 10 or more, I only rowed 5K.
Because of the heart problem recently, I restrained myself from jumping in and doing any fast rowing. Not right away at least. Instead, I started out with some featherweight rowing at about 60 Watts and then tried to gradually increase the pressure with each split. The splits for this session were 250 meters.
So the effort was sort of like climbing a hill that got steeper, every 250 meters. By the 16th split, I had worked up to about 300 Watts and kept it at about 300 Watts for that entire split, then used the last four splits, the final 1,000 meters, to warm down gradually so as to not set off any heartquakes in that persnickety heart.
It seems like this has happened several times before. But this one was the worst so far. From the middle of yesterday’s rowing session until shortly after the beginning of today’s rowing session, heart rate was too high. By that, I mean: normally, resting HR is around 50-60 but instead it was around 100 BPM and it felt like it was skipping and galloping all the while. Part of the result was, that I was awake most of the night and got less than 3 hours of fitful sleep last night.
Today I decided to not do any of the most fun type of rowing, which is to row fast. So I started out super slow and maintained a super slow pace for a couple thousand meters, then gradually increased the effort every couple K but never rowed very hard. Heart rate started out high because it was already too high and had been for about 24 hours. But it settled down to a regular rhythm and a normal rate within the first 1,000 meters and behaved normally!!! for the rest of the 10,000 meters!!! Thanks be to God!!! – maybe I’ll get a normalish night’s sleep tonight.
Today I had the good fortune to again have energetic company in an online rowing session. Jim D. and Brent R. both joined today’s 10K. Jim D. rowed at his usual amazing pace of around 1:50 and Brent R. also rowed an energetic pace. So I was once again inspired not to be lazy.
If I’d been alone, God only knows what pace I would have rowed but my guess is that it would have been around 2:20. With today’s inspiring company, I started out the 10K at 2:15 for the first 1K, then increased the pace to 2:10 for another 2K. After rowing for 3,000 meters, I increased the pace to about 2:05 and held it there for another 3K until the total distance rowed was 6,000 meters. At the 6,000 meter point, I increased the pace to 2:00 and though I wasn’t committed to anything in particular, had a general tentative intention of holding the pace at 2:00 until the total distance rowed was 9,500 meters, then sprint for the final 500 meters.
But after 1,000 meters at a pace of about 2:00, I decided to wind it down, so I slowed to 2:05 for 1K, then 2:10 for the next 1K. Then I did a little sprint for a couple hundred meters and then finished the remaining distance at a pace of about 2:15, so no warm down was necessary.
Today’s indoor rowing was another 10K. It was scheduled online, about 15 minutes in advance. Miraculously, another rower noticed it and joined the session. It was Jim D., who did a Jim Dandy impressive rowing effort and inspired me not to be lazy.
I did the first 1,000 meters as a warmup, then picked up the pace for the rest of the 10K. When the distance counted down to where I could see that Jim D. had about 500 meters left to go, I picked up the pace a bit more, to perhaps help inspire him to a good finish. After that 500 meters, I resumed my previous pace and held it to the finish line.
Today was a day for working on the water heater enclosure and that resulted in a late rowing session. After rowing, Diane wanted me to look at and admire the “super moon” which you can see above. I guess by “super” it means that the moon appears larger than usual. It looked empty and luny, as usual.
Today’s rowing session was a quick and very easy 5K.
Today’s indoor rowing main event was an online “celebration party” to celebrate Anne Badane’s having rowed more than 20 million meters. The online session was maxed out, with 16 rowers participating. It was a merry crowd and a happy thing to be celebrating in the small world of indoor rowing.
Before the Celebration Party 20 minute session began, Anne announced that she’d be giving a prize to the person whose distance during the 20 minutes had the most zeros and/or twos. There were four winners who each had 3 twos in their final distances. There were actually five, but one of them was Anne. The winners were Damien Roohr with 5,222 meters, Doug Rolland with 4,222 meters, Albert Kavsek with 4,222 meters and Vincent Guéret with 5,222 meters.
As for me, I chose to aim for an easy pace that would give a target heart rate of about 130 and then during the final minute of the session, I went faster to the finish.
After today’s main event of the 20 minute celebration of Anne Badane’s 20 millionth meter, I did two supplemental 3K pieces at even easier paces, to bring today’s total distance rowed to over 10K.