Category: Ethereal Rowing

Yesterday (Nov 5) was the training plan rest day and there was neither rowing done nor a blog post made yesterday.

Today’s training plan session is probably the weirdest of all the Pete Plan sessions, the “Speed Pyramid.”  It is a set of seven intervals done in this order: 250, 500, 750, 1000, 750, 500 and 250. The rest in between each interval is supposed to be a time equal to 90 seconds for each 250 meters of the preceding interval.  So the rest after the first 250 meters was 1:30.  After the second interval of 500 meters, the rest time was 3:00.  Etc.  The rest periods were active rest with slow rowing.

The first 3 intervals were each to be done at a pace equal to the average pace of all the intervals of the previous instance of this particular session in the previous cycle.

So the target pace for today’s first three intervals was 1:54.6.  The 1,000 meter interval and the three intervals following it are supposed to be done at a “faster pace, if possible.”  So I set target paces for each of them, with a target pace of 1:50 or better for the 1K, 1:49 or better for the 750m, 1:45 or better for the 500m and 1:40 or better for the final 250m.

The targets chosen for the last four intervals were based on what I thought was reasonable based on past experience.

Target pace was achieved for each of the last 4 intervals, with the exception of the 1K, due to an interruption at the beginning of the 1K which delayed starting it promptly.

The resulting average pace for all 7 intervals was 1:50.1 and that will be the target pace for the first three intervals of this session in the next cycle.

RowPro for Windows was used for this session because RowPro 5 for the Mac (Beta version) will not yet allow for programming variable intervals.

Happy trails to you.

Today’s Plan session was designated as recovery, steady distance of from 8K to 15K.  I chose 8K, with pace the highest priority target.  The pace target was 2:20.5, which was the midway point of UT2 (relative to my most recent 2K TT). Second priority was HR less than 75% HRmax.  Last priority was rating 22-25.

By making pace the first priority, it was most certain that the desired recovery level of effort would not be exceeded.

Second priority of HR never exceeded 60% HRmax.  Last priority of rating was rather sloppy but all in all I was happy with the session.

I was trying to keep today’s recovery session in the UT2 zone, as mentioned in the first paragraph.  If the first part of the definition (see the Rowing Lingo page/tab on the home page of this site) of UT2 which is a percentage of power relative to a person’s recent 2K TT is used, I succeeded. But if the second and less commonly interpreted part of the definition for UT2 is used (65% to 70% of the number arrived at by adding a person’s HRR+RHR) then I was rowing too hard.  I consider the first and more commonly used definition of UT2 to be the valid one.  At least, it felt “right” in that I wasn’t working hard enough to sweat but wasn’t working so ultra easy that it was extremely boring. If I’d rowed at an effort level that would have kept my HR at 65-70% HRR+RHR, that would have been in the range of 97 to  104, which would have been a much more boring effort level, to my experience.

RowPro 5 for the Mac (beta) note:  I had a difficulty getting the custom session programmed to be subdivided into 20 splits, so that the distance would be equal for all splits including the final split and the glitch earlier noted could be avoided.  (If the last split distance is not the same as all the previous split distances, the displayed pace for the last split is wrong, because RowPro 5 for the Mac uses the previous split distance value to calculate the pace for the last split). I finally managed to force it to be 20 splits by editing the previous 8K which had been automatically subdivided into 27 splits and instead of choosing to “save” it, I clicked the button to start rowing it immediately.

Happy trails to you.

 

Today’s training session was endurance intervals, 5×1500 R5:00.  There was a 2500m warmup and warmdown.  DF was 135.  Straps were loose. Target pace for all but the last interval was 2:00.3, which was the average pace for all 5 intervals in this same session of the first cycle.

The resulting average pace for all 5 intervals this session was 1:59.5.  That will be the target pace for all but the last interval, three weeks from now when this is repeated in Cycle 3.

Happy trails to you.

Today’s Pete Plan scheduled session was specified to be a distance of from 8K to 15K at a rating of from 22 to 25 and at a recovery pace.  I chose 8K as the distance. DF was 125. No warmup or warmdown. Straps were loose, as usual.

Happy trails to you.