The SkiErg session was done first today. This is a screenshot of its chart and some of its datat. The area circled on the heart rate graph is where heart rate was too high for the effort.
Today’s erg workouts in the order in which they were done were: SkiErg workout of 139 Calories and rowing erg workout structured as 12X1minuteR45seconds within a continuous 30 minute session.
There was one software glitch with RowPro during the 3rd split of the 30 minute session. It is circled on the rowing session report. There were two heartware glitches, one during the SkiErg session and the other during the rowing session. They are circled on their respective graphs.
Another interesting thing in regard to the heart today was that in the moments while I was standing on the SkiErg before starting today’s 139 Calorie SkiErg workout, heart rate was unusually low, at about 50 BPM. Its usually in the 60’s or higher when I’m standing like that. (see screenshot immediately below).
Surprisingly low heart rate while I was standing on the SkiErg before starting work on today’s 139 Calorie session.
Finish screen view of the rowing session.
Report for rowing session. The circles in three of the columns are errors by RowPro 5.0 for the Mac. The bottom line summaries are correct, however.
Graphs of today’s rowing session. The circled areas are where heart rate was too high and also irregular.
This morning’s EliteHRV Readiness reading was optimal for any kind of rowing…
Today began with a good HRV reading, so there were no restrictions regarding rowing. Also, it followed a good night’s sleep, which was another plus.
Seven hours and forty minutes of good quality sleep last night.
Today’s indoor rowing consisted of two sessions. First, a one minute session which was done just for the sake of putting anything in the rankings for the 1 minute sprint category. Second, was a longer session of 8,224 meters, which was done just for the sake of logging more calories for a current Concept 2 challenge.
The one minute session was preceded by a 750 meter warmup and followed by a 750 meter warm down. The one minute sprint was done with a target pace that would rank me at about the lower 25% of those who had ranked 1 minute sessions to date. That was a pace target of about 1:49/500 meters. I didn’t want to row any faster than that, because the warm up was too short and I wouldn’t really be warmed up enough for an all-out 60 second sprint.
After the one minute sprint was finished, I did an easy 750 meter warm down and that is when the “heart strangeness” happened. It felt like a bit of fluttering and heart rate spiked and remained higher than it should have been for the easy warm down pace. Another strange thing about that strange heart rate behavior during the warm down was that when it spiked, it spiked up to 150 BPM, which is exactly as high as heart rate managed to climb, before the ultra-short 1 minute sprint was finished. Was that a coincidence? Or was that the heart’s way of saying it wanted to sprint for longer than one minute? One minute wasn’t enough indulgence in sprinting? The heart is eager, and “rarin’ to go” racing?
That “strangeness” happened in uncharted territory, because the warm down was tacked on to the 1 minute RowPro session and RowPro does not include tacked-on warmups or warm downs in its charts for the main session report. Below is a screenshot of what heart rate looked like when it spiked during the warm down.
Heart rate had been in the mid- to low-120s during the warmdown, until abour 426 meters remaining, when it spiked up to 150 even though rowing effort remained at a constant, easy level.
A screen recording was made of the entire 1 minute session including its warmup and warm down, so if you view the screen recording, you can see how it acted in real-time on the RowPro screen. The one minute session screen recording is here: Indoor Rowing 1 minute sprint 01122019
For those of you who’d like to row-along with it, a screen recording was also made of the 8,224 meter session and it is available at this link: Indoor rowing 8224 meters 01122019
After the warm down following the 1 minute sprint, I thought I’d have to stop rowing for the rest of the day, but within a few minutes the Afib went away and heart behavior returned to normal, so I did the 8224 meter session in order to bring the day’s total to 10,000 meters and burn a few more calories.
Finish screen for 1 minute sprint.Finish screen for 8224 meter session.
Today’s indoor rowing consisted of four pieces, in this chronological order: 30 minutes online with a training partner, 1K online warm down, 2K offline with a RowPro paceboat (a RowPro 5 for the Mac bug was uncovered during this session) and a 500 meter warm down.
The 30 minute piece was done at a pace that was determined by the other rower, who was aiming for a constant heart rate of between 80% and 85% of his maximum heart rate, to make it an AT session for him. So his rowing pace slowed gradually through the 30 minutes, to keep his heart rate fairly constant. I paced him and my heart rate remained fairly constant. The 1K warm down was done at a pace of about 2:28. The 2K was done at a pace of 2:06 for the first 1,500 meters and then faster for the final 500. The 500 meter warm down was done super slow.
Today’s main rowing session was 10K with a target heart rate of 123 BPM. That target was chosen because it is the top end of what is assumed to be my “UT2 training band”.
If a target heart rate is specified with RowPro, it paints a target zone on the screen. To make that target zone a bit wider than what would have been a horizontal line for 123 BPM, I specified a lower value of 120 and upper value of 126, then tried to keep the HR line in the middle of that area while rowing. It sounds easy, but sometimes the heart behaves a bit illogically and takes a dive though the effort level is unchanged. Or should I say, though I didn’t perceive the effort level to have changed? The heart did that a few times, so I had to spike the effort when it acted that way, to bring it right back up into the painted zone. Each time I spiked the effort, heart rate would sort of reluctantly climb back up into the zone, then I would slow down but it would usually overshoot the zone anyway, so I’d have to slow down even more.
It reminded me of the idiom, “herding cats,” which also inspired today’s title.
The above photo of a dog who seems intent on herding a cat who appears intent on ignoring the dog was found on the website/blog called To Breathe Is To Write.
For today, I signed up to row 10,000 meters online at 14:00 (2:00 p.m.) GMT which is 07:00 local time. But I had a bit of trouble sleeping and was awake for a couple hours in the middle of the night. I went back to bed at about 03:40 and when I woke the next time, for a call of nature, it was from a very, VERY deep at at 05:15. Nature has a way of waking a person from the deepest sleep. I decided I’d rather get more sleep than get up with the alarm at 06:00, so I grabbed my cellphone, opened the myRowPro app and signed out/withdrew from the online session. Then I disabled the wake-up alarms and went back to bed.
The next time I woke it was almost 08:00 after a total of about 6 hours sleep and I felt normally rested.
So I did 10,000 meters solo, offline. Before setting up the 10K, I checked to see if I’d ranked a 10K yet this season and yes, I had. The one I’d entered into the Concept 2 10,000 meter Indoor Rower Rankings had been at an easy pace, so I decided to try to beat it by just a little bit, with another easy-paced 10K. Today’s session was a success in that respect and moved me up one ranking, from 24th out of 53 all the way up to 23rd place, out of 53 results ranked at that point in time. Whoopee! 🙂
The “hiccup” mentioned in today’s title refers to a single episode of heart strangeness: irregular heartbeat that lasted about 5 seconds, beginning after about 3,077 meters (when the remaining distance had counted down to about 6,923). Heartbeat rhythm wavered just that one time but then settled down and returned to normal about 20 meters later when remaining distance had counted down to about 6,923 meters.
The session was screen recorded, for those of you who’d like to row-along with it. It is available on YouTube at this link: Indoor Rowing 589 Calories 08252018
RowPro 5 for the Mac has the ability to compare two similar rowing sessions and calculate if there is any improvement or other difference since a previous rowing session of the same type. I compared today’s 10K with the one I’d previously done and ranked on July 17th and RowPro said there was a “net performance increase” compared to July 17th. I’m no statistician though, so I don’t know if the difference between today’s 10K and that of July 17 is “statistically significant”.
Graphs comparing today’s 10K and heart rate performance to that of July 17th.
Computer analysis results for comparing today’s 10K and heart rate performance to the session done on July 17th.
If you want to see the flat – line heart rate graph, you’ll have to scroll down the the RowPro session report graph because the finish screen is simply blank in the heart rate area when no heart strap is used.
Actually, heart rate was a bit more than zero today but RowPro 5 for the Mac plotted the heart rate graph as a flat line at the zero level, because I didn’t use the heart strap today.
Also, there was no screen recording made of today’s rowing session.
Session report for today’s zero heart rate session.
RowPro 5 for the Mac is happy to display a flat line for heart rate if no heart strap is used.
The Concept 2 online logbook chart doesn’t display anything for heart rate if there is no heart rate data. This seems to be a more correct approach, in my opinion. But it’s of zero consequence either way (pun intended).
Lately, I’ve been using the distance or time rowed by one of my training partners as inspiration for the session. Today was another of those, and I chose to row 7,812 meters because it was the total distance rowed by training partner “FR” on June 13th.
One of the properties of the number 7812 is that it is an abundant number, thus today’s title. Because 7812 is an abundant number, there was an abundance of integers, equal to or less than 30, from which I could choose to have RowPro 5 for the Mac divide the distance into equal splits.
I chose 28 splits and counted down from 28 to 1, as each split was rowed during the session. I counted out loud, but so quietly that it is probably not audible on the screen recording.
Today’s distance was chosen because it was the distance rowed yesterday by one of my training partners, who rowed it while she had RowPro 5 for the Mac in “just row” mode.
3023 meters happens to be a prime number so if you have read anything I said about RowPro 5 for the Mac having a bug show up if it tries to split a distance into unequal splits, you might have guessed why I did it all in one split.
Today’s session was divided into three splits as far as RowPro 5 for the Mac reporting was concerned. For each of the splits, the pace was slightly increased, from first to last split.
According to the author of a Concept 2 blog article titled “What is The Ideal Rowing Stroke,” indoor rowing is “a lifelong pursuit of the perfect stroke. ..”
Although I seem to be very aware of each stroke, I wasn’t conscious of pursuing the perfect stroke in today’s session. Or ever, for that matter. But perhaps being aware of each stroke amounts to the same thing?
Today’s rowing session was 5,025 meters and 653 or 654 less-than-perfect but feeling-good-anyway strokes.
