Category: Mentally absorbing workout

Online Rowing Is A Small World

indoor-rowing-is-a-small-world
There are quite a few people in this photo of an indoor rowing competition. But indoor rowing is a small world, compared to other sports and many people have never even heard of it. Online rowing with a Concept2 indoor rowing machine is an even smaller world and its not always easy to find anyone who wants to row with you online, when you are wanting to do so.

Today’s main piece of indoor rowing was a trial run at a 6K for ranking.  I might try it again tomorrow. The original goal was to do it in a time that would move me up to near the top in the 6K rankings for my age group.  The guy who was in first place had done the 6K in a time that I didn’t want to try for.  The guy who was in second place had done it in a time I thought might be doable, so I rowed at that pace for the first 3,000 meters.

After the first 3,000 meters, I started thinking something to the effect, “how bad do I want this?” and decided to slow down.  After I slowed, I looked at the rankings and thought that I should still be able to easily do it in a time that would beat the guy who was in third place, so I picked up the pace a little and aimed for that.

The result was that I placed 3rd (for the time being) in this season’s rankings for the 6K in my age and weight group.

If I try it again tomorrow, I’ll aim for what today’s average pace was and then see what’s left when there are only 500 meters left and see if I can beat that.

The 6K was done online with a guy who was in located in Germany.  His name is Wolfram and he had originally scheduled an online 10K.  Nobody else noticed and signed up to row with him in that online 10K.

I’d scheduled my online 6K to start 5 minutes after his 10K start time. It’s really nice, to have company when rowing and that might be why he didn’t row the 10K alone and instead joined me in the 6K.

For the first 1,000 meters or so, he paced me at the 1:58.8/500m that I was doing.  After that first 1K, he picked up his speed to very impressive paces that I can’t even maintain for 2K and he finished with a sprint at about 1:40/500m.  He varied his pace a bit and for brief times his pace was slower than mine.  He might have been doing a rowing version of what runners call “fartlek”, which is a Swedish word that means “speed play.”

After the 6K was finished, he said “You saved my evening!” and that’s why I came to the conclusion, noted above, that he wanted some company when he rowed online… even if it was a much slower person such as myself.

I used the beta version of RowPro 5 for the Mac to do today’s rowing and noticed that it failed to label my 6K results as “Verified”.  One of the reasons I use RowPro is to make sure my ranked results are verified.  But… I’m only in third place and who knows how long that will last so… oh well.

AHh-July-16th-2017-6K-finish AHh-July-16th-2017-6K-rpt AHh-July-16th-2017-6K-gph

Happy rowing and speed play, if you are so inclined.

Rowing and Chess

rowing-and-chess

Today’s indoor rowing combined rowing 15,000 meters and chess at the same time.  I didn’t play chess while on the rowing machine, like the two guys in the above photo did. Instead, I watched two lectures on chess.

The two guys in the above photo played “erg chess.”  They each set their rowing machines to count down the same distance and took turns making chess moves and rowing.  When it was one guy’s turn to make a chess move, he was not allowed to row… each of them could only row while it was the other person’s turn to make a chess move.  The winner was either the one who finished the distance or the one who put the other one into checkmate, whichever happened first.

If you want to see how it turned out, the 9 minute 54 second video is at THIS LINK on row2k.com.

AGg-July-14th-2017-15K-finish AGg-July-14th-2017-15K-rpt AGg-July-14th-2017-15K-gphs

Happy, innovative rowing to you.

Meditation Rowing

meditative-rowing

Today’s rowing was 12K while watching two more lectures on cognitive neuroscience.  The first lecture was on the subject of meditation.  When I searched for images using the two terms mindful and rowing, the above image was one of the results.  It’s from a British website called Breaking Muscle and the web page it is found on is called Mindfulness and is about meditation in connection with working out, exercising and competition.

ABb-July-5th-2017-12K-finish ABb-July-5th-2017-12K-rpt ABb-July-5th-2017-12K-gphs

May your meditations while rowing lead to happy things.

41 Minutes Online Intervals

41-minutes-rowed-time

Today’s main rowing was online.  There were two other guys who had setup/agreed to the session in advance and so I rowed according to their plan.  The plan was 7x4r1:45.  In other words, 7 intervals of 4 minutes each, with 1 minute 45 seconds rest after each interval.  The 4 minute intervals were supposed to be done at 2K pace + 11 seconds and with a rating of 20 spm.

It was fun and I was happy to have company.

AJ-June-18th-2017-7x4r145-online-finish AJ-June-18th-2017-7x4r145-online-rpt AJ-June-18th-2017-7x4r145-online-gph

Happy father’s day to any and all fathers who read this.

Eight Miles Today

8-miles-today

Today’s indoor rowing was a total of 13,000 meters which is 8.08 miles according to the converter.  The main part, which is the only one that will be displayed in this post, was a 10K online done with 4 guys who were in England and one who was also in America, though even he was a few thousand miles away, in Connecticut.

The additional 3,000 meters was a single 3K done as a warm down.

The 10K was fun, because all the other guys were going at a much faster pace than I was and that inspired me to row a bit faster and not take any breaks.

AI-June-17th-2017-10K-online-finish AI-June-17th-2017-10K-online-rpt AI-June-17th-2017-10K-online-gph

Happy rowing mileage to you.

Just Row And Let It Flow

just-row-shirts
The motto on some of the shirts gives a good message: Just Row and let the benefits flow.

Today’s activity was an hour rowed online in the company of a rower who was in Germany.

My target pace was to just row easy but I was inspired by the pace of the other guy and so I picked up the rating and pace in the second half of the hour and then went a little faster in addition to that, during the last 5 – 10 minutes.

AAa-June-4th-2017-hour-finish-results

AAa-June-4th-2017-1hour-rpt
I took a short break to fiddle with the activity tracker on my watch and that break is why the pace is so slow during the 15th and 16th splits
AAa-June-4th-2017-hour-gph
There was a short interruption in the middle of the hour after I noticed that I hadn’t told my watch to log the rowing session for activity credit.

 

Happy flowing with the rowing to you.

A Higher Tech and a Lower Tech Rowing Session

over-a-shourlder-rowpro
An over-the-shoulder view of someone (not me) using higher tech with RowPro to race. He is not actually racing online though. He is using RowPro and racing offline against either computer-generated pace boats or rowfiles supplied by other rowers. That youtube video can be found at THIS LINK. If you watch the video, play it all the way to the end so you can appreciate the guy’s effort when you hear how hard he is breathing after the finish. That is quite normal, if a person gives maximum effort to do a 2K.

Today’s rowing consisted of two pieces.  The first was the higher tech session, because it was done online.  Doing a rowing session online is actually easy, but I consider it “higher tech,” because it not only involved the Concept 2 rowing machine and its own computer which is called the PM, but also it involves another computer which runs the RowPro software.  That computer running RowPro connects to both the PM and to the internet.  Via the internet, a connection is made to the Digital Rowing/Oarbits server in Houston.  And other people who are rowing with RowPro, all over the world, can also connect to that same server in Houston at the same time as you, so you can row with them via the internet.

The first session was 30 minutes, with one other person who was located in England.  It was not a race and we rowed within a few meters of each other’s boats, from start to finish.

A-June-2nd-2017-30-min-online
I forgot to take a screen shot of the finish of today’s 30 minute online rowing session, but you can see the results in the yellow area of the Oarbits results screenshot.
A-June-2nd-2017-30-min-online-rpt
What I did different than usual in today’s online 30 minute session was to row at a very low rating. It felt good to be rowing at a very sedate pace. It was enough effort, even at the slow pace, to slowly but surely elevate HR.

A-June-2nd-2017-30-min-online-gph

The screenshot below shows some people who are all racing each other using higher tech of RowPro while their machines are all connected to one server.  You can see that video at THIS LINK. That video is less than two minutes (it was a very short race) and everyone in the room who was not rowing applauds, when the race is finished.

So… it is possible for people to race each other using RowPro while they are all in the same room, but it can also be done with each rower and his/her machine in different rooms anywhere in the world.

rowpro-racing-local-network

The second session today was the Lower Tech of the two, because it only involved using the rowing machine and its PM.  For the second session, the PM was set for a custom 3-interval session which consisted of 500 meters with 30 seconds rest, 1,000 meters with 30 seconds rest and 500 meters as the last interval.  The second session was done for this month’s challenge on the C2CTC website.  The goal was to row the first 500m interval at a rating of 22, the second 1K interval at 26 and the last 500m interval at 30.

lower-tech-pm-only
This is somebody (not me) who is rowing the “lower tech” way, using only the Concept 2 rowing machine and its PM.
June-2017-C2CTC-challenge
A photo of the PM screen showing the results of my C2CTC challenge attempt today. I focused exclusively on rating (strokes per minute) because there was a penalty for doing even 1 SPM more or less than the specified rating for each interval. As a result, the ratings were perfect and the speed was kinda slow.

There was also a strength training session today.  If you want to see the results, they are going to be posted, along with the strength-training plan, in the page of this blog that can be found via the tab named “Current Plan”.

Happy higher or lower tech rowing to you.

Turin Silver Skiffs Inspiration

literal-silver-skiffs
When I searched for images related to today’s inspirational video of the Turin Silver Skiffs 2012, this image showing literal silver skiffs was among the results. It is jewelry from a British website site called Fay Page. The photo is found on a page showing solid silver rowing boats which are made in Scilly, which is a place in England, NOT in Italy (where Turin is located).  You would have to ask the people who design the search engine’s artificial “intelligence” why this jewelry is logically related to the Turin Silver Skiffs sculling race.

The inspiration for today’s workout was a youtube video which I’ve resorted to a few times before but which I’ve not gotten tired of yet.  It is called Turin silver skiffs 2012 and the actual rowing in the video is around 10K. The guy who is wearing the GoPro camera and doing the actual rowing is a young British rower.

Before starting the video and rowing along with it, I chose a custom RowPro session of 11K distance. Then I started the video.  The actual race doesn’t start until a couple minutes into the video, but I started about 40 seconds ahead of the actual race start, since I would be rowing about 1,000 meters further.   The guy who is rowing has to row against the current and much slower than me for the first half of the race course. Then he turns around and rows with the current and has a pace much faster than mine for the second half. I chose paces which resulted in me finishing the 11K at about the same time as he finished 10K.

When people race together online using RowPro and the digitalrowing.com Oarbits server, they usually follow the race with a 9 minute warm down but 4 minutes seemed more than enough to warm down after today’s 11K which was done at less than a race pace.

A minor software glitch showed up when RowPro generated the main session report.  It’s visible on the line for the 16th split.

Though today would have normally been a day for strength-training, I skipped it today and will try to make a spreadsheet for the results of the new strength-training program, before doing the next session, so they can be displayed in this blog.

Here are screenshots from today’s indoor rowing:

AQq-May-30th-2017-11K-finish AQq-May-30th-2017-11K-rpt AQq-May-30th-2017-11K-gph AQq-May-30th-2017-warmdown-finish AQq-May-30th-2017-warmdown-rpt AQq-May-30th-2017-warmdown-gph

Happy and refreshing rowing to you.