Today I spotted an online session scheduled at a time that would work out for me to join. It was a 6K and I didn’t have enough time in advance to warm up, so I just started out slowly and then picked up the pace a bit after 1,000 meters.
The other guy said he felt low energy and “blah” but he rowed quite a bit faster than I did and inspired me to row faster than I would have alone.
Happy rowing to you.
Today’s indoor rowing started out the same way as each of the previous two days’ sessions: I set the distance for a half marathon and rowed for an hour. But today I kept rowing the entire distance and finished all 21,097 meters.
For inspiration, I watched an amateur (very, very amateur) GoPro video of a marathon. It managed to supply enough inspiration, after I’d been rowing for an hour, that I wanted to finish the distance.
I don’t know what was inspiring about it, but it did seem to make a difference and I wanted to keep going after an hour, instead of quitting like I’d done yesterday and the day before.
Today I tried to use a different heart rate monitor strap with the Apple Watch. It is called the Wahoo TICKR. It was advertised and described as working with both Bluetooth 4.0 and ANT+ devices. The Apple Watch is Bluetooth 4.0 and it would pair with the watch but it wouldn’t work with the Concept 2 rowing machine’s monitor, the PM3, which is ANT+. So I downloaded the Wahoo utility to test it and it said that to test the ANT+, I needed a “Wahoo key”. After a bit more research, I found that it was not true that the Wahoo TICKR works with both Bluetooth 4.0 and ANT+ devices… unless a person gets another device, for about $50, called a Wahoo Key. The latter device will plug in to the bottom of an older style iPhone (not a newer iPhone like mine, which has a Lightning connector) and it will convert the Bluetooth signal data into an ANT+ signal and then re-broadcast it so that the PM3 or anything else that is listening for an ANT+ signal can use it.
So the bottom line is the Wahoo TICKR won’t work with the PM3 monitor on the rowing machine because it just doesn’t work as advertised and implied in its description supplied to Amazon (which is where I got it). It is on its way back to Amazon. I will just have to be satisfied with the Apple Watch’s built-in HR detector and a separate HR strap to supply a signal to the PM3. The fact that the Wahoo TICKR will no longer work as advertised with the newer iPhones is probably the reason Apple no longer carries it in stock if you check the online Apple Store app.
Here’s today’s rowing screenshots and results:
Happy discovery of inspiration to keep on rowing, to you.
Today’s indoor rowing was similar to yesterday’s. I preset the distance to 1/2 marathon (21,097 meters) and rowed for an hour, then changed the pace and finished a few minutes later… without going the entire half marathon distance.
Because the average pace for the hour was faster than yesterday, the result was that I rowed a shorter distance but worked harder and burned more calories during that shorter distance.
The rate of calories burned per hour was about 774/hour. After the rowing session, I treated myself to 145 calories of Budweiser, according to this search result: “A 12-ounce bottle of Budwesier beer contains 145 calories. Active adults generally require between 1,800 and 2,200 calories a day, according to the National Strength and Conditioning Association. A 12-ounce bottle of Budweiser contains 10.6 g of carbohydrates and 1.3 g of protein.”
Beer contains protein???!!! Until today, I had assumed it only contained calories and zero protein.
Happy calorie burning to you.
I wanted to row another HM today but by the time I could get to the erg there was only time for a 10K. The musical accompaniment was a video recording of an orchestral performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
Happy rowing to you, whatever music you may choose.
Today’s musical accompaniment was another try at classical music. The choice was a playlist of Bach’s concertos. It seemed to be excellent accompaniment to the rowing. If you’d like to hear what was playing, it is at this link—> J S Bach Brandenburg Concertos .
The approach to the 10K today was to start at around 2:20 and gradually increase the pace with each following 1,000 meters.
Happy rowing, with or without music, to you.
Today’s indoor rowing was a bit longer than the daily average, to help make up for yesterday’s lack of any rowing. It was a half marathon with a pace boat set to 2:20/500m.
All systems were go and everything felt okay. I decided to try some classical music as mental background focus, so I asked Siri “What are the names of a few classical composers of lively and energetic music?” Siri’s suggestion was César Franck, of whom I’d never heard.
Siri sent me to iTunes, where there were displayed listings of some of Franck’s chamber music. But I didn’t want to buy anything so I shut that down and went to youtube.
The screenshot at the top of this posting is a view from one of the chamber works that played while I was rowing. There were 8 of them in the playlist and they were each and every one extremely boring. By boring, I mean that it was like I knew what the music was going to be like for the next few seconds, all the time they were playing. The name of the youtube playlist is “César Franck -Late Chamber Music works“. If you decide to click on that link, listen to them and find them boring, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
The half marathon was longer than all those “chamber music works,” so for the rest of the half marathon I clicked to listen to some of Franck’s non-chamber works. The selection that played for the rest of the time while I was rowing was a bit more interesting and was titled César Franck Piano Quintet in F Minor.
May you row with all systems go.
The above photo is from the same website as yesterday and it shows something of their “Rowing Zone”. If you are in Poland, you might want to visit their facility.
Today’s indoor rowing was another 10K and it was done with the same average pace target, 2:08, as yesterday’s. Afterwards, I wanted to try RowPro 5 for the Mac’s comparison feature and see what it had to say about the two sessions.
But RowPro 5 for the Mac had a problem. It didn’t crash, but it wouldn’t/couldn’t access the online logbook, which it has to do in order to compare two sessions to each other.
While I did today’s indoor rowing, dinner was cooking in the form of soup. Photograph of today’s (and probably tomorrow’s) soup is shown above. It consists of beans, carrots, a large potato, broccoli, a large bell pepper, half a large onion, salt, bouillon cube, a 1/4 cup medium salsa, a few dashes of super ultra hot salsa and a can of sardines. It has a flavor that is guaranteed to wake up the taste buds and everything connected to them.
Happy zone rowing and soup sipping to you.
The above photo was found on a website called Aquapark Wroclaw which is in Poland and therefore is not an English language website … but its translation into English (by Google Translate) is here if the link I used to access its translation doesn’t expire before you click it.
Before deciding what to row today, I looked online to see if there was anything scheduled in the next few minutes by anyone else. There wasn’t, so I decided to row 10K and to start out slower than yesterday, at a pace of 2:08 and to maintain that pace as long as body and mind were in agreement that it was okay.
All concerned seemed to be fine with the pace, so it was maintained for the entire 10K and I felt like I was “in the zone” for most of it.
Happy zone rowing to you.
Today’s rowing session wasn’t boring. That’s because I decided to row a bit harder than yesterday and with a bit of a plan. The overall average Wattage level for today’s main 10K session was around 120 Watts. Have you ever touched a lit 100 Watt light bulb? Or even a lit 60 Watt bulb? Incandescent bulbs are what I’m thinking of. I didn’t feel anywhere near as hot as a 100 Watt incandescent light bulb, but maybe its because I’m bigger than one of those and, unlike those bulbs, I’m cooled by continuous evaporation of water.
Happy rowing at whatever Watt level to you.
Today’s musical accompaniment included more 1950s music. The above screenshot is a picture from the 1950s of some teenagers back then dancing to a song called “At the Hop.”
There were unanticipated interruptions today which forced the rowing to be delayed. So, when I could finally get to the rowing machine, I decided to shorten the workout and only do 5K instead of 10K or more which had been planned.
The 5K accidentally turned out to be a season best, though it felt like a medium workout.
Happy hopping and rowing to you.