Rate of Perceived Exertion 5

For The Mitochondria

For the first time in many weeks, I managed to do the day’s workouts in the morning before breakfast. That’s supposed to be very good for the mitochondria, if breakfast happens at least 12 hours after most recent previous eating and exercise is included in that 12 hours or more of fasting time.

So, the most satisfying thing about today’s erg sessions was that they were done in the morning, before breakfast and they benefited the body’s vital little buddies, the mitochondria.

The second most satisfying thing was: a SkiErg 5K in improved time.

Also, I was rewarded with a move up in the SkiErg 5K world rankings. The move up was only one place, from 6th to 5th out of 10 total entries. But it’s progress in the right direction, so I’m happy and sort of have a little smile about it, like the little smile on the face of the mitochondrion.

The SkiErg 5K was done at RPE Level 5 and was mentally absorbing because I had to focus on a pace target of 2:16 for the first 4K then tentatively explored faster paces during the final 1,000 meter split.

There was some rowing done also – a very slow 10K session at RPE Level 1. It was not “mentally absorbing,” because it was so slow that my mind wandered all over the place.

Today’s most satisfying session, a 5K on the SkiErg.

Finish screen for today’s very slow and somewhat fartleky 10K.

Reportfor today’s very slow and somewhat fartleky 10K.

RowPro graphsfor today’s very slow and somewhat fartleky 10K.

Happy rowing to you!

Skiing on a Perspiration Pool Towel

The damp area on the towel is about a pint of sweat lost during today’s SkiErg 5K session.

Today’s main erg workout was the shortest of two. It was a 5K done as a time trial on the SkiErg. To intercept the sweat, there is an old towel covering the SkiErg platform. In the photo above, you can see the damp area where the towel caught the rain of perspiration.

After the 5K SkiErg, I did 30 minutes on the rowing machine. The rowing session was done as a series of eight 2 minute work/1 minute rest intervals. Though I worked harder on the rowing machine, my legs did most of the work and the rowing wasn’t enough effort on the legs, to cause much sweat at all. Just a few scattered droplets near the end of the 30 minutes rowing, instead of a rainstorm as happened with the shorter SkiErg session.

Chart and some data for today’s 5K time trial on the SkiErg.

Finish screen view for today’s 30 minutes rowing.

Happy rowing to you!

Reversing Chronological Order

The top screenshot today is of the SkiErg workout, because it was done before anything else today (that’s the reverse order from how I’ve been doing it in the past, with rowing first).

The thing on my mind before starting today’s workouts was recent bouts of heart strangeness during recent rowing sessions. So as a result, today I decided to experiment by reversing the order in which I do the workouts on rowing machine and SkiErg. Instead of rowing first, I did a SkiErg workout first.

The one and only reason for making that change was because I wondered if my heart rate would become irregular again during the first workout of the day, if I did that workout on SkiErg instead of rowing machine.

For the recent few days, heart rate has had fits of irregularity and other strangeness during the first workout of the day, which was rowing. But it has behaved normally during the second workout on the SkiErg, immediately following the rowing.

Interestingly enough, heart behaved normally during the first workout today on the SkiErg. During the second workout, on the rowing machine, it also behaved normally.

Actually it behaved ever-so-slightly abnormally during the SkiErg workout, and what I’m referring to by that is visible in the heart rate graph after the 2nd of 8 intervals on the SkiErg – in the space of graph between 2nd and third intervals. Heart rate stayed regular, but it went way too high, then recovered and behaved very normally after that.

Was it a coincidence or is there something about using the SkiErg, which is done standing UPRIGHT/100% VERTICAL instead of sitting (with the lower half of the body extended horizontally) and which (SkiErg) mostly uses the arms instead of the legs… which is more agreeable to the heart? Or at least, which is more agreeable if it is done as the first workout before doing any hard rowing?

Finish screen view of today’s rowing session.

RowPro graph for today’s rowing session. Notice the CLEAN heart rate graph! No dropouts to zero, which happens with irregular heartbeat. Heart rate was in normal range for the effort, all through the workout.

Another view of today’s rowing workout, with the Concept 2 online logbook chart.

Happy rowing to you!

Better Than Yesterday

Finish screen view of today’s intervals within a 6K piece.

Today’s rowing session was better than the sloppiness of yesterday’s, because HR was better behaved. It was a little bit confused, as can be readily seen from the rowing session graphs of HR and correlating pace, but overall was definitely better than yesterday.

The rowing session was a continuous 6K which contained a set of 4 moderate intervals of 750 meters each. The first 1,000 meters was warmup, then there were four sets of 750 meter intervals alternated with 2 minutes rest and the remainder of the distance was a warm down.

Today’s SkiErg session, like yesterday’s, had zero HR irregularities. It seems that if there is going to be any heart rate irregularity, it is more likely to show up during a rowing session. Go figure (as I also said yesterday…).

Report for today’s intervals within a 6K piece.

RowPro graph of today’s intervals within a 6K piece.

In this Concept 2 online logbook chart, the odd behavior of heart rate during today’s 6K seems more obvious than in the RowPro graph.

Heart rate was PERFECTLY well-behaved during the SkiErg session.

Happy rowing to you!

Somewhat Sloppy Sprints

Finish screen view of today’s 30 minute session with its 7 sloppy sprints.

Today’s main erg workout was a set of 7 one-minute sprints. They were done within a 30 minute continuous session. The first 10 minutes was warmup, then the intervals (one minute sprints) began. Each interval was followed with 30 seconds of easy/rest rowing.

My preference is to have a uniform, crisp-looking graph but today’s wasn’t. It was sloppy. The reason it was sloppy is because after the first or second interval, heart rate started being too high and also irregular.

After the rowing session I did a session on the SkiErg which also included sprints. It included 8 sprints, each of which were done at a higher power level than the rowing sprints. Interestingly, heart rate remained 100% regular and in a normal range for the entire workout on the SkiErg. Go figure.

Report for today’s 30 minute rowing session.

RowPro graphs for today’s 30 minute rowing session.

Charts and some data for today’s SkiErg workout.

Happy rowing to you!

About 45 Minutes

Finish screen view of today’s 30 minutes rowing.

Today’s workouts on the ergs consisted of 30 minutes rowing and 15 minutes on the SkiErg.

Chart and some data for today’s SkiErg workout.

Happy rowing to you!

An Online Hour+

The EliteHRV morning readiness score was good but not quite as good as yesterday’s.

Today’s workout started with a 60 minute session online with three other guys. But one of those three didn’t show, so it was just two others besides me who actually rowed. During the 60 minutes I did most of the rowing at a pace of about 2:15 with the exception of once ever 10 minutes after the first 10 minutes doing an interval which lasted 60 seconds.

After the 60 minute session, there was a 10 minute warm down and then I switched from rowing machine to SkiErg and did 118 Calories on that.

Finish screen view of today’s 60 minute session.

Some data and a chart for today’s 118 Calorie SkiErg session.

Happy rowing to you!

Some Online Rowing & Offline SkiErging

The EliteHRV Morning Readiness analysis of heart rate variability was as good as I could hope for.

Today’s workouts consisted of an online 10K session, a 10 minute warm down online then a 6779 meter online session (all rowing). After those three, I did a SkiErg session that was 117 Calories.

This is a finish view of the graph section of the 10K RowPro session. You can readily tell that I did intervals. They began after the first 2K meters, lasted one minute each and were repeated every 1K after the first interval.

RowPro report for today’s 60 minute online session. I won’t bother to display data or graphs for the other two rowing sessions – a 10 minute warm down and a 6779 meter piece, but if you really want to see them all you have to do is log into your concept2.com logbook account and view them in my logbook, which is viewable by all logged-in users.

This is a view of some of the data for the 117 Calorie SkiErg session. It consisted of 10 Calorie intervals with recovery periods of about 10 calories each.

Happy rowing to you!

Unleashed For A Day

The EliteHRV Morning Readiness reading doesn’t get any better than a balanced 10.

This morning’s heart rate variability analysis gave a score of 10, which is as good as it gets with the EliteHRV app’s Morning Readiness reading.

So I decided to go for an SB (season best) in the 10K rowing. After that, there was a 115 calorie interval session on the SkiErg.

Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 10K rowing.

Concept 2 online logbook data for today’s 115 Calorie SkiErg piece.

Happy rowing to you!

SkiErg 2K Time Trial

Today’s 2K on the SkiErg was done at RPE Level 9. If you play the session screen recording, you will be able to hear me quite out-of-breath when talking after the end of the 2K.

Today’s HRV reading gave a green light to race or workout as hard as I wanted.

Though last night’s sleep had a huge interruption, I managed to get enough sleep at 7 hours 35 minutes to still have a good HRV reading.

The main workout today was the shortest, a 2,000 meter session on the SkiErg. It might correctly be called a “time trial,” because though it was solo, I was trying to go as fast as possible for that distance. It felt like RPE level 9 but I’m new to the SkiErg, so there is lots of room for improvement.

A screen recording was made of the SkiErg 2k and it can be found at this link: SkiErg 2K 02162019

The longest workout session today was 8,000 meters on the rowing machine. It was done as a warmup for the SkiErg 2K and was done with a target heart rate zone of 133 to 158 and it felt like RPE Level 5. Heart rate was allowed to rise above 158 near the end because it felt good, I was barely perspiring and was breathing easy.

Concept 2 online logbook chart for SkiErg 2K.

Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 8K warmup.

Happy rowing to you!