Today’s main session was 1K for a time challenge. It was done online, with two other guys. It was done at RPE 9 to 10. I didn’t know what pace would be best to target and seem to have started out too fast and faded through the distance.
Happy rowing to you.
Today’s main rowing session was 30 minutes online. It wasn’t a race, because there was an agreement between the other guy and me that we’d aim for a pace of 2:10 and I would pace him. I enjoy pacing another rower. I also enjoy racing, which might be why thoughts, cognition and imaginations of racing came to mind during the session. In the midst of that cloud of race-themed neuron activity, entered the thought that both the other guy and me are each in a race against the fictional figure, “Father Time”. We row daily and do other workouts, to avoid being ravaged by some of the effects of passing time which can be mitigated or avoided through aerobic activity.
The 30 minute online session was done at RPE Level 5 and it’s available as a screen recording for those who’d like to row-along. It’s link is: Indoor Rowing Online 30 mins 01252018
Like last night’s sleep was bothered by atrial fibrillation, today’s 30 minute session was also visited by Afib. However it wasn’t the kind of Afib that changes into tachycardia – it just manifested itself with occasional feelings of fluttering and causing the heart strap to lose track of its count which caused the heart rate display to go blank. After about 15 minutes it settled down and went steady again.
The Afib did not reappear after that first 30 minute session. I did 8 more sessions after the 30 minute piece, some on the rowing machine and the rest of them on the SkiErg and there was no more Afib with any of those.
The RPE Levels for the sessions after the 30 minute session were: RPE Level 2 for the 2K warm down, RPE Level 3 for the 3,000 meter piece, RPE Level 10 for the 100 meter sprint and all the rest of them were done at RPE Level 4.
Happy rowing to you!
Today’s rowing was done on the internet with several others who were located at various places in Europe and the US.
I took it easy for this session and watched the others work hard. The one who finished first did so at an amazing steady pace of 1:51/500m. The one who finished second was just as amazing because his average pace was 1:51.4 but he did not row at a steady pace. Instead, he alternated between rowing for a minute or so at 1:41 to 1:45 and then “resting” at what I consider a race pace in the low 1:50s.
I finished in last place, so the rowing was impressive, by all the others in the group today.
The session was screen recorded for those of you who want to see the online race and/or exercise your imaginations by rowing along while viewing the recording. The recording link is at: Indoor Rowing 30 mins online 09252018
Happy rowing to you.
Today’s rowing session was 10K done online in the virtual company of ten other people.
One of the rowers, Wolfram Huhn, is an Olympic rower.
Some of the rowers may have been racing each other but I’m not sure because I didn’t closely watch what they were all doing all the time. So I don’t know if Wolfram Huhn was racing, but he finished in first place.
I wasn’t racing anybody but did manage to set a new season best time and therefore placed the result for today’s 10K in the Concept 2 online world rankings for 10K this season.
Its always a bit puzzling for me to chose how to categorize a rowing session if it is done at any effort level other than easy. So I chose to categorize today’s session with several of them because effort level for today’s rowing ranged from Easy to Medium Hard and almost but not quite reached “Hard” at the very end. I included “Race” among the categories for today’s rowing session because there were others who were rowing at a racing effort level.
A screen recording of the session will be available later today at this link: Indoor Rowing 10K online 09152018
Happy rowing to you.
Today’s main indoor rowing was 10K done online with two other guys. One of them was in England and he was the one who scheduled the session. He named the session “Hillbilly_10K”. I asked him about the hillbilly part and he said that’s his nickname because he makes home brew.
I know that making home brew of various sorts is a hobby for some people and that you can even buy kits, to get started. But that’s another topic.
The description he gave for today’s online 10K included the question, “are you tuff enough?” which seemed to add to the enjoyment of the whole thing by defining the completion of the 10K as an accomplishment worthy of some kind of recognition.
We all started out at about 2:04. After a bit, “Hillbilly” slowed a bit and gradually dropped further and further behind. Joe Vanischak and I kept that pace of 2:04 point something until about halfway then I slowed down.
I continued to row at a slower pace until “Hillbilly” caught up, then I picked up my pace to stay even with him. When the distance counted down to less than 200 meters, Joe started a sprint, then Hillbilly started sprinting. When the remaining distance was less than 100 meters, I did a little sprinting also and we all finished very close to each other. It was fun.
The session was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording at: Indoor Rowing 10K friendly online race 04202018.
Happy rowing to you.
Today’s main rowing session was an online 10K. There were two false starts before the third and successful start. A false start happens if there is a technical glitch or if one of the rowers starts rowing before the announcement “ROW” which appears simultaneously on screen and over the computer speakers. In that case, RowPro 5 for the Mac (or any other version of RowPro) will announce a False Start.
One of the rowers, Wolfram Huhn, is an Olympic rower and so it was not surprising that he finished in first place by a substantial margin. What was surprising was the pace at which he rowed today’s 10K, during several thousand meters of which his pace was in the 1:40s and even in the 1:30s. Impressive effort on his part. The other rowers were impressive also and the whole group inspired me to row with a bit more effort than during yesterday’s 10K.
I did yesterday’s at a pace of 2:11.7/500m and today’s at 2:08.4. They were both done at what I subjectively classified as “medium” effort. Most of my rowing, especially if it is offline, is usually done at “easy” effort level. All the other rowers were capable of doing a 10K a lot quicker than I think I could do it now, so I didn’t see any rational reason to race, row “hard” or even to row “medium hard”.
The session was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording and is available at the following link: “Online Rowing 10K race plus warmup and warmdown 04082018” The video’s title includes the words “plus warmup and warmdown” because the recording started before I did a 4 minute warmup and therefore included that warmup, the chatroom activity before the 10K and everything until after the 10 minute online warmdown session that followed the 10K.
Happy rowing to you.
Today’s indoor rowing was done online. It was done online because there was a 10K scheduled, with several rowers already signed up and the description for the 10K included the words “Every pace is accepted”. So my slow pace wouldn’t be any bother.
Not that anybody rowing slowly should be a bother – I like to row online with other people, no matter how slow or fast they row. Company is good.
The Olympian in the group was Wolfram Huhn. There’s a Wikipedia article about him. That article is classified as a “stub” waiting for expansion, but it has links relating directly to him.
There was a nice race between Wolfram Huhn and Tomek Kobryzyniecki during this session. Tomek started out to take the lead, getting a few meters ahead of Wolfram. Wolfram picked up his pace and caught up to Tomek after about 1300 meters. Then, for a few hundred meters, Wolfram seemed to be pacing Tomek to stay even with him. After a few hundred meters of pacing him, Wolfram pulled ahead by a meter, then gradually, meter by meter, continued to pull ahead of Tomek until he had more than 20 meters lead. During the last 1,000 meters they both rowed harder as Tomek tried to catch up to Wolfram. Their paces had been in the low 1:50s until then but during the last 500 meters they worked their hardest and each showed paces in the high 1:30s near the very end.
The winner was Wolfram, who reached the finish line about 10 -15 meters and about 3 seconds ahead of Tomek.
The entire session plus the warm down afterwards was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording and may be viewed at the following link: “Online Rowing 10K then warmdown 71 years old 04072018”
Happy rowing to you.
It’s all in the mind, some say.
Today I decided at the last minute to do the Indoor Rowers League challenge for the month of February. So … it wasn’t literally at the last minute, but was literally on the last day for which results could be entered.
I wanted to avoid stirring up another bout of irregular heartbeat, which the doctors have been referring to as atrial fibrillation. So I started out with a 3K warmup. Before doing the 3K warmup, I did a 1K warmup warmup.
Before doing the actual 2K time trial, I did another 2K at what seemed like a reasonable warmup pace.
For the 2K TT itself, I thought it would be reasonable, barring any irregularities from the ticker, to pace it at between 1:52 and 1:53. So I started out at 1:49 and it felt good. But anything, no matter how fast the pace, ALWAYS feels good right at the start … so I slowed to 1:53 and maintained an average of between 1:52 and 1:53 for the first 1,000 meters.
At about 900 meters, it started to feel like I had bit off more than I could chew and that I wouldn’t be able to maintain that pace for the last half. I didn’t like the idea of rowing slower than 1:53 for a 2K, so I just gave up and slowed way down.
One hundred meters passed at the super slow pace and I watched the average pace slow from 1:52 point something, to 1:55 point something. Another hundred meters passed and the average pace got nearer to 2:00. After about 300 meters passed, the average pace became slower than 2:00/500 meters and I decided I couldn’t allow it to be slower than 2:00/500 meters, so I picked up the pace to around 1:57 and rowed at that pace until the remaining distance counted down to around 250 meters. Then, I gave a bit more effort and rowed faster for the final 250 meters, consoling myself by finishing in less than 8 minutes total for the 2K.
There was some GOOD NEWS, as far as I was concerned: Heartbeat only went irregular one time. I could feel it as it happened and then the HR display confirmed it by going blank. But it only lasted a few seconds. That one occurrence was during the final warm down and think it was because I may have been slowing down a bit too much, too soon. So I picked up the pace a bit and slowed down more gradually. It has behaved itself since then.
The 3K warmup was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording and is available at the following link: “Indoor Rowing 3K Warmup 02282018“.
The 2K Time Trial fail was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording and is available at the following link: “Indoor Rowing 2K Time Trial And Fail 02282018“.
First, the screenshots for the 3K warmup:
Next, screenshots for the 2K TT fail:
Happy rowing to you.
Today’s main rowing session was 6,344 meters out of a total of 21,126 meters. The 6,344 meters was for the Indoor Rowers League’s November 2017 competition. The distance of 6,344 meters was chosen in honor of the experience, book and website of mountaineer and author Joe Simpson, who had the experience which led to the book whose cover is pictured immediately above this paragraph.
I did five rowing pieces today: A warmup, 30 minutes online with 4 other guys, 10 minutes easy, 6,344 meters at semi-race pace, a warm down and finally a 4,000 meter supplemental distance just for the sake of adding more meters to today’s total.
Happy rowing to you.
The above photos have nothing to do with the title of today’s post nor do they have anything to do with today’s rowing. But I thought it was interesting that a lot of people have put cars and other things on the surface of the moon…. so why not a Concept 2 rowing machine? Diane volunteered to help put a rowing machine on the moon, so maybe soon … because she is a space cadet with the skills to do it.
Today’s blog post title was inspired by today’s rowing, which was a 30 minute online session with 12 other people. The above screen shot shows the Oarbits’ listing of the session results. The rower who is shown in 10th place is the one who called himself (or herself) Meerkat.
I paced Meerkat to stay within less than 1 meter of him (or her) throughout the first 23 minutes or so and then I increased my pace, to try to get Meerkat to row faster so we could perhaps have a fun race to the finish.
But Meerkat wouldn’t take the bait, so I raced my own shadow and the result was a tie.
Happy rowing to you and your shadow and anyone who will race with the two of you.