Today’s recovery session was done with a target pace of 2:20.5, strapless and DF 135.
Happy trails to you.
Pete Plan Cycle 2 Week 2 Day 2 Recovery 8K
Category: Ethereal Rowing
Pete Plan Cycle 2 Week 2 Day 1 Speed Pyramid
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.
Pete Plan Cycle 2 Week 1 Day 6 Recovery
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.
Pete Plan Cycle 2 Week 1 Day 5 Hard Distance
The Pete Plan assignment for today was to do a hard distance of at least 5K. I chose 10K. For a hard pace, I chose 2:01.7, which was my previous season best for 10K. There was a warmup and warm down of 1,100 meters each, but I won’t bother to include reports etc for the w/u & w/d. Straps were loose as usual and DF was 135.
The session went well and there was plenty of energy left for a nice push during the last 500 meters.
Happy trails to you.
Pete Plan Cycle 2 Week 1 Day 4
Today’s training plan session was supposed to be a “steady distance recovery”, from 8K to 15K, at rating of from 22 to 25. I chose 8K at r22. DF was 135. No warmup or warm down. Straps were loose as usual.
There were three targets: HR, rating and pace. Highest priority was to keep HR anywhere below 75% HRmax and that required little effort. (Pun intended.)
Second highest priority was to keep rating as near as possible to 22 and it is what got most of the portion of attention given to rowing.
Lowest priority was pace. The pace target was to average about 2:18, but most of the time I paid no attention to it, while my mind wandered in various directions and visited parallel universes. Toward the end of the session I noticed that pace was quite a bit faster than 2:18 and seemed to want to stay in that area, so I brought the average pace down by using legs only and not quite letting my legs straighten 100% with each drive. You can see on the chart that it brought the pace down quite a bit, to do that.
RowPro 5 for the Mac (beta version) note: disregard the pace of 1:39 displayed in the session report for the last split. That is incorrect because the algorithm seems to be using 300 meters instead of the correct value of 200 meters for that last split.
Apple watch note: As I said in an earlier post regarding the apple watch workout app when it is in rower mode, the data isn’t really useful for serious rowers because there is virtually no data except elapsed time from the time you start it until you stop it on the workout app. It also gives an estimate of calories burned, based on an algorithm using HR, body weight and I don’t know what else. The calories burned are usually in the ball park and might be useful for someone who needs that figure for purposes of dieting. It also continuously records HR until the workout is stopped, instead of only sampling it once every 10 minutes when the HR app is not being accessed.
Don’t get me wrong – I like the app and very much appreciate that a rower category is included among choices of workout types. The reason I use it, is so that the “activity” app on the watch will give me credit for doing some kind of a workout and say nice things to me about it. Anyway – – the note regarding it today is that I did use it to record the workout activity but forgot to start it until I’d been rowing for a while. When I remembered, I didn’t have to totally stop rowing, to initiate the logging of a rowing workout. All I had to do was take one hand off the C2 handle and keep rowing while holding the watch near my mouth and say “Hey Siri, start a rowing workout.” Three seconds later (there’s a ready-set-go type of 3 second countdown when it starts recording a workout) it was recording the rowing workout and continuously displaying HR.
After the 8K I forgot to stop the rowing workout on the watch. About 15 minutes later I stopped its recording and it had registered 325 Calories and an elapsed time of 49 minutes. That calorie figure looks about right, for the portion of rowing and then the non-rowing afterwards which included standing, sitting, walking and changing clothes.
Happy trails to you.
Pete Plan Cycle 2 Week 1 Day 3
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.
Pete Plan Cycle 2 Week 1 Day 2 Recovery Row
Today’s Pete Plan session was a designated steady distance recovery row of from 8K to 15K. I chose 10K and followed it with a 2500m warm down.
The only goals for the 10K today were to keep rating between 22 and 25. I guess you could say another goal was to keep HR under 75% max, but at the pace I rowed, I knew it wouldn’t get close to 75% max. The highest HR was about 63% HRmax. DF was 125. Pace averaged out to about 2:19, which was perfect.
Happy trails to you.
Pete Plan Cycle 2 Week 1 Day 1
Today’s episode of Pete Plan was the first day of cycle 2, my second time through the 3 week plan. The session was 8×500 R3:30. I set up the intervals on RowPro, with only 3:20 of rest and when each 3:20 of rest ended, I sat motionless for another 10 seconds to allow the flywheel to come to a rest before starting the next 500m interval.
Before and after the 8×500 there was a warm up and warm down of 1,250 meters. The target pace for the first 7 intervals was 1:55.6, which had been the overall average pace for the previous instance of the 8×500 in the first cycle. DF was 125.
I put the Apple watch into workout mode/rowing before starting the warm up, intervals and warm down and then ended its recording of the workout after the warm down.
The Apple watch doesn’t provide any data that is of interest to rowers but at least it does give me “credit” for meeting the daily exercise portion of what is set as a daily activity goal.
Here are the finish screens, reports and charts for the warm up, 8×50 R3:30 and warm down:
Happy trails to you.
Pete Plan Cycle 1 Week 3 Day 7 Rest Day
Today’s scheduled Pete Plan activity was to do no rowing. So I took Pete’s recommendation seriously and didn’t do any serious rowing. But I did try something which involved the rowing machine.
To test an Apple watch’s accuracy in measuring calories burned while rowing, I told it I was going to row and rowed slowly until the watch indicated that I’d burned 125 calories.
The results from the watch were vaguely similar to the precisely calibrated results from the Concept 2’s ergometer readout. Very vaguely. But, that’s to be expected, since the watch could only base its calculations on 1. elapsed time, 2. The fact that I was using a workout designation corresponding to one of its labeled algorithms (Rowing ) and 3. My heart rate, which was slightly elevated.
The watch’s results showed Duration=20m 5.76s, Total Active energy of 132.37 kcal (1 kcal is the physics term for one food Calorie. So it was what most people would call 132.37 Calories) and Total Resting Energy of 35.3 kcal (35.3 Calories).
I don’t know if the “resting energy” is a portion of the “Active energy” or if they are separate, but I think they are separate because from the time I pressed “go” on the watch and it started measuring time, heart rate and calories, until the time I actually started rowing, was the elapsed time it took for me to put on my socks and shoes. It was the first time I’d used that app and so I didn’t realize I was making it start until… it started its countdown.
I gave the workout app a target goal of 125 Calories. When “active calories” on its display reached 125, it vibrated to let me know the goal had been met. The “total calories” on the display were higher and were probably the sum of “active” and “resting,” but I didn’t jot that number down.
If I ever do that again and write about it in this blog, I’ll include a screenshot of the results. But I didn’t know how to take a screenshot on the watch, when the rowing was done.
Below is a screenshot of the pertinent results as they were recorded in the watch app, after the rowing “workout” results were saved and below that is a view of the session results summary from the RowPro report.
Happy trails to you.
Pete Plan Cycle 1 Week 3 Day 6 Recovery 8K
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.