Medium Workout – Page 3 – Ethereal Rowing

Reminiscent Of A Race

Finish screen of 5K portion of today’s screen recording.

Today was a bit of follow-through from yesterday. That is, I followed through with yesterday’s determination to avoid procrastination by joining a scheduled rowing session and this morning I kept the appointment online and rowed with several others. The other rowers were at various places in Europe and the United States.

I tentatively decided to pace the slowest person in the group and maybe let it turn into a race. But that person, though he started out at a doable pace, slowed down a bit too much. So there was no race for me, but I rowed a little bit faster than the best time this season and therefore set a new season best, which was entered into the online rankings for 5K in my age category.

Today’s rowing session was only “reminiscent” of a race, because I didn’t row hard enough for it to qualify as a race. I’ve been rowing at an easy pace for so long, that I had a hard time deciding how to categorize today’s effort but finally settle on “medium” since the only part of the session that increased respiration rate even a little bit was during the last few hundred meters.

A screen recording of the session can be found at this link: Indoor Rowing Online 5K and warmdown 09132018

The first part of the screen recording has the 5K and then there is a 2K warm down on the screen recording, which I did with one other guy who had been in the original group.

Finish screen for last part of today’s screen recording, which was a 2K warm down.

Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s online 5K.

Happy rowing to you.

A Couple Short Ones

Today’s rowing was a couple of short ones. First there was a 2536 meter piece, followed by a 500 meter piece. There was a little bit more in addition to those two, but it’s not worth mentioning.

The distance 2,536 was chosen so as to match the distance rowed yesterday by a training partner, DN. The 500 meter piece was done at a little bit faster pace than easy, so I guess it was “medium” and afterwards I ranked it among the Concept 2 rankings.

A screen recording of the first one is here: Indoor Rowing 2536 meters short session 08022218

A screen recording of the 500 meter piece is here: Indoor Rowing 500 meters for fun 08022018

Happy rowing to you.

Not Racing But Ranked It Anyway

Today’s indoor rowing session was another relatively short one, just 5 kilometers. I had a cup of coffee but no food before rowing and it didn’t seem to make any difference in heart behavior.

Though the effort for today’s 5K wasn’t a racing effort, I put the results in the Concept 2 online rankings anyway, because the more the merrier for anyone who likes to use the rankings as incentive. Perhaps there will be some people who look at the rankings before doing a 5K, to see who they want to try to place ahead of. That’s an handy way to have a race.

A screen recording for row-alonging will be available at this link: Indoor Rowing 5000 meters 07222018

Happy rowing to you.

Couldn’t Flatline At 137 Watts

Today’s session was 10K with a target pace of 2:16.7/500m which is about 137 Watts. It wasn’t possible to keep the heart rate graph flat/horizontal at any particular rate because it kept increasing throughout the 137 Watt session. Perhaps it would have leveled out if the session was longer than 10K?

A screen recording will eventually be available for rowing-along-with on YouTube at: Indoor Rowing 10K at 137 Watts 07072018 but it is uploading very slowly and might take a few hours at the current rate of upload.

Happy rowing to you.

Another Half Marathon But The Starter Took A Hike

another-hm-04222018 — The guy who scheduled today’s half marathon may have been doing a lot of them recently (?) because he named it “Another_HM”. Everybody except the starter started rowing at the beginning. The starter himself didn’t row a single stroke and three of the others rowed only part way before they either had technical problems or decided they’d had enough… so only three rowers finished.

Today’s session is categorized as both fun and also boring. It was fun, because it’s always fun to row in the company of others and it is fulfilling to finish what was started. What was started for today’s session was an online half marathon.

But it was also boring, because the others were a lot faster than me, so there wasn’t any element of competition, which is always a happy possibility when rowing online with others.

I was also bothered by a little bit of irregular heartbeat but it didn’t persist.

The guy who scheduled it was there at the start. But about a minute before the start he announced that he’d had a change of plans and would be going for a hike instead of rowing the half marathon. So … since he was there and he was the designated starter, he clicked the start sequence but he didn’t do any rowing. I guess the weather where he was and also the company he had where he was, was just a lot more appealing to him than rowing an indoor half marathon today.

thumb-04222018 — This is a screenshot of the starting line a fraction of a second after the session started. I thought it was interesting that Canadian rower whose initials are EG managed to pull his very first stroke at a pace of 2:03 and he moved two meters before anyone else got off the starting line. He’s got quick reflexes. He also has a lot of power and he showed it for the entire distance.

The session was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording at the following link: Indoor Rowing Half Marathon via Internet 04222018.

AI-Apr-22nd-2018-HM-finish — Finish screen for today’s half marathon. By the time I reached the finish line, everyone else had already left and gone on to their warm downs, showers, etc.

AI-Apr-22nd-2018-HM-rp-gph — RowPro graphs for today’s half marathon.

AI-Apr-22nd-2018-HM-rpt — Report for today’s half marathon

AI-Apr-22nd-2018-HM-C2-chart — Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s half marathon. My heart acted up a bit during the first 20 minutes but then it smoothed out and behaved for the remainder of the time.

Happy rowing to you.

Are You Tuff Enough?

AGg-Apr-20th-2018-10K-online-finish — Finish screen for today’s online 10K.

Today’s main indoor rowing was 10K done online with two other guys. One of them was in England and he was the one who scheduled the session. He named the session “Hillbilly_10K”. I asked him about the hillbilly part and he said that’s his nickname because he makes home brew.

I know that making home brew of various sorts is a hobby for some people and that you can even buy kits, to get started. But that’s another topic.

The description he gave for today’s online 10K included the question, “are you tuff enough?” which seemed to add to the enjoyment of the whole thing by defining the completion of the 10K as an accomplishment worthy of some kind of recognition.

We all started out at about 2:04. After a bit, “Hillbilly” slowed a bit and gradually dropped further and further behind. Joe Vanischak and I kept that pace of 2:04 point something until about halfway then I slowed down.

I continued to row at a slower pace until “Hillbilly” caught up, then I picked up my pace to stay even with him. When the distance counted down to less than 200 meters, Joe started a sprint, then Hillbilly started sprinting. When the remaining distance was less than 100 meters, I did a little sprinting also and we all finished very close to each other. It was fun.

The session was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording at: Indoor Rowing 10K friendly online race 04202018.

AGg-Apr-20th-2018-10K-online-rpt — Report for today’s online 10K.

AGg-Apr-20th-2018-10K-online-rp-gph — RowPro graphs for today’s online 10K.

AGg-Apr-20th-2018-10K-online-C2-chart — Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s online 10K.

Happy rowing to you.

A Quick 5K When No Time For 10K

AE-Apr-10th-2018-5K-finish — Finish screen for today’s 5K.

As the title says, there was not enough time for a 10K this morning, after early morning chores were finished.

The 5K was uploaded to YouTube and is available at this link: “Indoor Rowing 5K 04102018”

AE-Apr-10th-2018-5K-rpt — Report for today’s 5K.

AE-Apr-10th-2018-5K-rp-gph — RowPro graphs for today’s 5K.

AE-Apr-10th-2018-5K-C2-chart — Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 5K.

Happy rowing to you.

Third Start Was The Charm

Third-start-worked — The first of two false start screens this morning.

Today’s main rowing session was an online 10K. There were two false starts before the third and successful start. A false start happens if there is a technical glitch or if one of the rowers starts rowing before the announcement “ROW” which appears simultaneously on screen and over the computer speakers. In that case, RowPro 5 for the Mac (or any other version of RowPro) will announce a False Start.

One of the rowers, Wolfram Huhn, is an Olympic rower and so it was not surprising that he finished in first place by a substantial margin. What was surprising was the pace at which he rowed today’s 10K, during several thousand meters of which his pace was in the 1:40s and even in the 1:30s. Impressive effort on his part. The other rowers were impressive also and the whole group inspired me to row with a bit more effort than during yesterday’s 10K.

I did yesterday’s at a pace of 2:11.7/500m and today’s at 2:08.4. They were both done at what I subjectively classified as “medium” effort. Most of my rowing, especially if it is offline, is usually done at “easy” effort level. All the other rowers were capable of doing a 10K a lot quicker than I think I could do it now, so I didn’t see any rational reason to race, row “hard” or even to row “medium hard”.

The session was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording and is available at the following link: “Online Rowing 10K race plus warmup and warmdown 04082018” The video’s title includes the words “plus warmup and warmdown” because the recording started before I did a 4 minute warmup and therefore included that warmup, the chatroom activity before the 10K and everything until after the 10 minute online warmdown session that followed the 10K.

ACc-Apr-8th-2018-10K-online-finish — Finish screen for today’s online 10K.

ACc-Apr-8th-2018-10K-online-rpt — Report for today’s online 10K.

ACc-Apr-8th-2018-10K-online-rp-gph — RowPro graphs for today’s online 10K.

ACc-Apr-8th-2018-10K-online-C2-chart — Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s online 10K.

Happy rowing to you.

Rowing With An Olympian In The Group

AC-Apr-7th-2018-10K-online-finish — Finish screen for today’s online 10K. Note in the chat room comments that the Olympian rower, Wolfram, waited around and invited everyone, even the slowest one (me) to join a warm down session with him.

Today’s indoor rowing was done online. It was done online because there was a 10K scheduled, with several rowers already signed up and the description for the 10K included the words “Every pace is accepted”. So my slow pace wouldn’t be any bother.

AC-Apr-7th-2018-10K-online-group — Wolfram made sure to plainly state that everyone was welcome to join by saying “Every pace is accepted”.

Not that anybody rowing slowly should be a bother – I like to row online with other people, no matter how slow or fast they row. Company is good.

The Olympian in the group was Wolfram Huhn. There’s a Wikipedia article about him. That article is classified as a “stub” waiting for expansion, but it has links relating directly to him.

There was a nice race between Wolfram Huhn and Tomek Kobryzyniecki during this session. Tomek started out to take the lead, getting a few meters ahead of Wolfram. Wolfram picked up his pace and caught up to Tomek after about 1300 meters. Then, for a few hundred meters, Wolfram seemed to be pacing Tomek to stay even with him. After a few hundred meters of pacing him, Wolfram pulled ahead by a meter, then gradually, meter by meter, continued to pull ahead of Tomek until he had more than 20 meters lead. During the last 1,000 meters they both rowed harder as Tomek tried to catch up to Wolfram. Their paces had been in the low 1:50s until then but during the last 500 meters they worked their hardest and each showed paces in the high 1:30s near the very end.

The winner was Wolfram, who reached the finish line about 10 -15 meters and about 3 seconds ahead of Tomek.

The entire session plus the warm down afterwards was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording and may be viewed at the following link: “Online Rowing 10K then warmdown 71 years old 04072018”