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 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.
Happy rowing and speed play, if you are so inclined.
Today’s indoor rowing was done 100% online except for a brief preliminary warmup.
The above photo, for those who are interested, was found on row2k.com on THIS PAGE. It is a photo of OTW rowing somewhere in Oklahoma.
The first piece was a 20 minute session scheduled by a guy in England who called it “20 minutes easy” but when I asked him what his easy was, it was 2:00 which I consider hard. He decided to row at 2:05 and I did too. About halfway through the session, RowPro 5 for the Mac had a case of graphics freeze, so I could no longer see what the other guy was doing. But otherwise, the session seemed to be still in progress, so I watched the PM (personal monitor) on the rowing machine instead of the computer screen and aimed for an average pace of the 2:05 that we’d agreed to.
As far as the other guy was concerned, it worked out fine because apparently I kept pace with him fairly well and we finished within a boat length of each other.
The second piece was a 6K that I scheduled. I called it “6K Super Easy” hoping that whoever joined would have a preconceived notion of a pace that wasn’t too fast. The guy who joined said he was fine with a pace of from 2:10 to 2:15, so we did that and finished with an average pace of about 2:10.
Happy rowing at your own definition of easy or whatever you like.
Today’s rowing session was chosen because it is supposed to help increase a person’s VO2 max, if it is done twice a week on non-consecutive days. It was a set of twelve 30 second intervals with 2 1/2 minutes rest after each interval.
The workout suggestion was found on a website called Healthy Living (healthyliving.azcentral.com) and was found on THIS PAGE (<-click to get to that page). It’s a big page, so if you don’t want to bother going to that page, the relevant part of that page where I got the idea for today’s workout was: “VO2 Workout: According to Bicycling.com, sprinting all out for 30 seconds in the red line zone followed by 2 1/2 minutes of easy recovery can improve VO2 max by 3 percent in just four weeks. Do the intervals 12 times per workout, and work out no more than twice a week on nonconsecutive days.”
The website’s definition for the term “red line zone,” is 90% to 100% of maximum heart rate. But it’s not possible to get heart rate up to maximum or even 90% maximum in a mere 30 seconds, so I just rowed as hard as I could for each 30 second interval. Except the first one… during which I had to take my hand off the rowing machine handle for a bit, to make an adjustment.
Thirty seconds passes very quickly and you can row very hard for 30 seconds. Most of the 30 second intervals were done at a calories-per-hour rate of between 1,500 and 1,800 calories per hour.
The rowing session was scheduled and done online, but nobody noticed it in time to join, so I had the fun all to myself and rowed alone.
Happy rowing with a nice measure of zip, to you.
Today’s indoor rowing was composed of two 30 minute pieces and a 9 minute warm down. All three were done online with plenty of inspirational company. I won’t bother to show any screen shots of the warm down – just the two 30 minute pieces.
You can treat each piece as a hill climb and decide in advance whether or not you want to be breathing hard by the time you reach the top of each hill.
I chose to be breathing easy by the time I reached the top of the first 30 minute hill and to be breathing a little harder at the top of the second one. The second of the two 30 minute sessions consumed 29 calories more than the first, so I didn’t work very much harder, though I was breathing a lot harder at its finish, because the second session ended with a sprint.
Happy indoor rowing hill climbing to you.
Today’s main piece was a 30 minute online session with three other rowers. Two of the others were in Europe and one was in the US (Connecticut).
Each person rowed to the beat of his own drummer. My plan for the 30 minutes was to keep the average pace at 2:15 for the first five minutes and then at the beginning of each subsequent five minutes, to increase the pace enough so that the average pace of the session would increase by -1 seconds.
So the first five minutes was done with the Concept 2 monitor displaying an average pace of 2:15.0/500 meters. The second five minutes was completed with the average pace sped up a tiny bit, to 2:14/500 meters and so on until the session ended with the final average pace displayed to be 2:10.0/500 meters.
It felt good. I seem to be coughing up a tiny bit of phlegm lately for some reason and the rowing helps to clear it out. To help a bit more, today I started taking doses of an expectorant syrup whose active ingredient is guaifenesin and which has only a small amount of the toxin known as high fructose corn syrup. (Dr. Robert Lustig, MD, has identified high fructose corn syrup as a toxin).
Happy and easy-breathing rowing to you.
Today’s session was 12K done online in the company of one other rower who was in Europe. I did the first 6K easy, the last 6K a bit harder and the last 500-800 meters served as a warm down.
May rowing enhance your health and happiness.
Today’s indoor rowing piece was online. A session was scheduled at 10:30 am local time, called “10km_of_bliss”. It was at about the right time and distance, so I signed up for it. But the guy who scheduled it didn’t show, so I had the 10K of bliss all to myself.
For this bliss session, I rowed easy for the first 5K and then for the last 5K I increased the effort level, to aim for a HR of 142, with a couple of shorter faster intervals toward the end of the 10K.
It was indeed blissful.
Blissful rowing to you.
Today’s activity was 12K scheduled online but solo. It was done at a leisurely pace.
Happy leisurely or otherwise rowing to you.
Today’s main rowing session was participation in a 30 minute online session setup by a rower in Italy. He called it “Very relax for all” and it was relaxing enough as far as indoor rowing goes.
Happy relaxing rowing to you.