Today’s rowing was a compromise between rowing and abstaining. Abstaining, because one of my goals this season is to row a daily average equal to or as much as 10% more meters/day than last season. But I’ve been exceeding that, so I must exercise restraint to bring my daily average back down to its upper limit of 9,469 meters/day for this season.
The quickest way to bring the daily average down is by not rowing at all. But that’s not appealing. So today I setup an online Quick Row and aimed for a pace of about 3:00/500 meters, which amounted to about 5K which succeeded in reducing the daily average a little.
It was an opportune time to take it easy because even though I feel fine, there should be some consideration to the fact that I raced a little bit on Sept 17th and therefore some recovery behavior should be in order.
And remember: a generous amount of training slow is an important ingredient if you want to race fast.
As part of race recovery, I slept in until after the sun rose today.
After you participate in a race, you don’t need to travel to the moon to find a tranquility base. The aftermath of a race is a feeling and experience unique to each individual and in a sort of inverse ratio to how close that person managed to approach to his or her limits.
My feelings after yesterday’s race were of a satisfyingly ethereal quality, even though I did not push up to whatever my limits are.
For today’s rowing, I scheduled a 30 minute “paddle” session. Three other rowers joined. One rowed at about 2:01/500m right up until the finish, when his RowPro either disconnected or crashed. The other two rowed at about 1:59/500m and gave each other incentive to keep up that pace. I relaxed in Tranquility Base with a pace of about 2:25/500m.
There is no screenshot of today’s rowing, but there is a session report:
Today was the happily anticipated Fitness Matters 5K online race day! But since most people who entered the races are in Europe, most people were in the 10:00 GMT heat. That was 3:00 am local time and not my first choice of times.
I joined the 22:00 GMT heat, which was in the afternoon at 3:00 pm local time.
If you added up all the people in both Europe and the US who joined the races, there weren’t very many. Probably not even a dozen, all totalled, between both heats of the 5K and the 500 m. But this was the first year for the Fitness Matters Devon ONLINE race in addition to their annual venue race and there wasn’t much publicity in advance. In fact, there was no publicity for it whatsoever that I saw on the Concept 2 website. Which might explain why not many people in the US who use the C2 website knew about it.
The only reason I learned about these races is because I frequently look at descriptions of scheduled online rowing sessions on the Oarbits area of the Digital Rowing site and noticed mention in one of the descriptions. That mention included a URL on the Fitness Matters website, where I went to sign up.
There was only one other US rower that I saw who participated, Annabel M.. But she participated in the 500 meter race, not the 5K. And like me, she was the ONLY one in the 22:00 GMT heat she joined.
The race was fun, disregarding the fact that it was rather LONELY, to make an understatement, compared to most races.
The good news is that I came in first place. The bad news is, I finished in absolute last place. So Jesus’ words, “… the last shall be first and the first last…” also applies to a person in a race with only one participant.
Just before the race began I started some music and it was fairly good company to take my mind off the 14 empty lanes in the race.
My race plan was based on my memory of what the fastest recent 5K I had previously rowed this season had felt like. It felt good. No strain, no pain and ample sweat. So, though that 5K was done in a time of 19:53 and I’ve done it faster … I decided to just aim for a time of 19:50 and thereby get a season best time.
I resorted to the Concept 2 Pace Calculator to find what pace I’d need to row, to finish the 5K in 19:50 and it came out to a pace of 1:59/500m.
So from the start, I intended to aim for an average pace of 1:59/500m and then perhaps push harder in the last 500 meters.
I got off to a bit of a slow start because I always seem to be slower off the start, without the voice loudly saying “ROW” even though I was staring at the PM screen looking for the word ROW. But when ROW appears, it is like my mind hesitates and says, “wait.. wait for the voice!” When the voice was working, I always avoided a false start, which is a bit of an anathema in races, by only pulling at the sound of the voice.
In the first 200 meters, my instantaneous pace went up as high as somewhere between 1:45 and 1:50 but I eased that down immediately and tried to settle in at 1:59. But 1:59 just felt too easy, so I thought I’d aim for 1:58 instead and that’s what I did for pretty much the entire distance, with the exception that in the early part of the 5K it seemed that it was taking too long for the displayed average pace to get down to 1:58, so I picked up the pace to 1:55 for a bit until the displayed average pace looked more the way I liked it, and then brought the effort back to hold a pace of about 1:58.
I waited until the last 500 meters and then experimented to pick up the pace to as much of a sprint as I thought I could maintain for 500 meters without needing to back off on the effort.
All in all it was a lot of fun. It was also comfortable and I think I could do it quite a bit faster without inflicting much pain. But I’d rather try to find my best pace by approaching it from the slow side than from the too-fast side because starting out too fast and then having to back way off is a big disappointment, race or no race.
Here are the screens, reports and charts:
About one hour before the race, I did a 30 minute warmup to test and limber up all systems. This is the warmup finish screen.Report for warmupCharts for the warmup.Finish screen for the 5K race. Only one other lane is occupied and that other person is the Race Starter who did not participate but who did watch it from start to finish. She was cheery at the start and after the finish, so that helped. Cheering and/or cheeriness is an important part of any racer’s motivation.Session report for 5KCharts for 5Kfinish screen for warmdownReport for warmdown.Charts for warmdown.
Today inadvertently began 3 hours before dawn, which is almost three hours earlier than usual. I was wide awake, so I found a boring book to read about a computer operating system. It didn’t lead to any yawning, so I guess it is wrong to call it a boring book. Then I took a couple of super-strong Valerian pills, called “Formula 303.” I seldom resort to them. Their normal use is as a muscle relaxant but they can be a sleep aid if not resorted to very often.
Then I went back to bed and waited for the Valerian to relax me to sleep. But the muscle relaxant must have disagreed with one or more heart muscles, because I started to have irregular heartbeat. Which is very distracting if you are trying to go to sleep. It beats normally, then stops long enough to miss a beat every once in a while. So I gave up waiting for sleep and got up. Before sunrise. As has been normal lately.
Next I made coffee and did all the usual things with the exception of getting ready to row.
I hadn’t decided to do any rowing at all today because I’m signed up for a 5K race tomorrow. And I don’t know anything about training for a race or if there is anything special a person should do before a race… I just joined it for the fun of the experience. Though I don’t know anything about training, resting before a race sounds reasonable. So I contemplated not rowing today.
While I was contemplating not rowing today, I remembered that my driver’s license is about to expire, so I made a trip to Department of Motor Vehicles and renewed my driver’s license. That wasn’t very involved – just a vision test and a new photograph.
Continued contemplating whether or not to do any rowing today.
There was another 5 minute practice session scheduled today, for the Fitness Matters Devon online races. But I didn’t join it because I still hadn’t made up my mind whether to do any rowing today.
By late afternoon, I decided to do 30 minutes of rowing, for the sake of contributing some meters to the concept2.com Fall Team Challenge. So I setup a 30 minute QR (it stands for “Quick Row,” which is what Digital Rowing calls an impromptu, non-scheduled online rowing session). Nobody else joined, for the simple reason that nobody else was online at the moment. Except for someone named “Billy”. But Billy has had a presence in the chat room for a couple days now, so I don’t think he’s really there, though his instance of RowPro has remained logged in and connected.
So I rowed the 30 minutes at a very easy pace and watched part of a documentary about overseas sweat shops where clothes are made for the fashion industry. Another reason, besides budget economy, to ignore fashion and use clothes until they wear out.
Below, is the screenshot and data for today’s slow 30 min QR.
Finish screen for todays 30 minReport for today’s 30 minCharts for today’s 30 min.
By the way… heart rate returned to normal after I gave up trying to go back to sleep. So it looks like “all systems are go” for racing a 5K tomorrow.
There are 2 heats for tomorrow’s 5K. Quite a few have joined the first heat at 10:00 GMT which is 3:00 am here and the time when I’d rather sleep. So I joined the other 5K heat, scheduled for 2200 GMT which is 3 pm locally and a much more sensible time to be doing such a thing. But so far… I’m the only one who has joined that heat, besides the official race starter. Hmmmm.
Here’s another bit of review related to RowPro 5 for the Mac: The notes feature does not yet work, for adding notes to individual sessions logged. You can add a note to a logged session but… as soon as you close then re-open the logbook, the note is gone. If you are connected to internet, the session uploads before you can add a note. But whether or not you are connected to the internet, the note disappears or is erased or moves to a parallel universe… it is no longer there if you leave the log and then go back after adding a note.
But that is minor, compared to the wonderful freedom and relative ease of being able to run RowPro directly on a Mac without having to install Microsoft in a virtual machine, run it from “Boot Camp,” or have a separate PC for RowPro.
All in all, I’m still very happy with RowPro 5 for the Mac and if it works okay in the race tomorrow I’ll be that much happier. Happy, happy.
Yesterday’s rowing was average but yesterday’s post was large and long. Today’s rowing was small and short and I’m tending toward minimalism with this post. I was feeling lethargic this morning and didn’t get up at my usual time. Which is why the sun is so high in the sky in this morning’s photo. Call it tired, perhaps… but it resulted in an early morning feeling of lethargy.
Today’s rowing consisted of 7 minutes warmup followed by yet another 5 minute practice session for Fitness Matters Devon online races.
WARMUP finishWARMUP reportThis is a view BEFORE the PRACTICE SESSION began. You can see that the Race Starter is giving some instructions.Report for 5 minute PRACTICE SESSIONScreenshot of finish for 5 minute practice session.
Unlike yesterday, I didn’t do any fast rowing today. I watched the pace of the other rowers and they were either rowing quite a bit faster than I wanted or, in the case of only one, much slower. Or … in the case of the one whose initials are MR – he rowed both exceedingly fast and very slow but some of his fast sprints were quite a bit faster than 1:30/500 m, which I’m not currently capable of matching. So I knew I’d be no match for MR if it turned into a race like the brief time of Carpe Diem fun yesterday which had a very close finish.
RowPro 5 for the Mac is now working well and behaving like it should with the important things like uploading files to the correct final destination. The folks at RowPro were actually happy to troubleshoot it because I am using it with the Mac OS 10.11, “El Capitan” which they had not had a chance to beta test.
Today’s 5 minutes of fun is noted in the sunrise sky.
Today’s rowing session was another online 30 minute piece and the second day of trying RowPro 5 for the Mac.
There was one other rower who joined the online session but I don’t know if he is in Europe or the US or elsewhere. He rowed at a constant pace of about 2:01/500 meters. I rowed at a very slow pace around 2:35 with a very low rating in the teens. After 10 minutes, I did 4×10 power strokes, R5 minutes with the last 5 minutes serving as a warm down.
About 2 hours later, there was 5 minutes of online fun. But first, the results for the 30 minute session:
finish screen 30 minutescharts for the 30 minutes
As mentioned above, there was 5 minutes of fun about two hours later…
On this coming Saturday there will be some online races sponsored by “Fitness Matters” in England. There will also be venue races in England, but the good people at Fitness Matters and Digital Rowing (makers of RowPro software) got together and have made it possible for anyone anywhere in the world to join in the fun by racing either 500 meters or 5K (or both) online via the internet from wherever they are.
There is a small fee to join the race, which is the case with almost all official races. For the online races it is $7.84 per race. So I signed up for one of the online 5Ks. It will be a lot of fun, no matter how far back in the competition I place. And I’m sure that there will be many, if not all other competitors who are much younger and correspondingly faster than me.
There have been some 5 minute practice sessions every day this week, to explain to everyone protocol for checking in, starting and to answer any questions.
I’ve joined several of those 5 minute sessions. Today was my 3rd. I figure, the more people the better in a practice session, to best help any newcomer to online rowing get the feel of what it’s like to row & race online.
Yesterday and the day before, I was wearing street clothes during the 5 minute practices. Jeans and a shirt. I didn’t want to get sweaty – so yesterday and the day before I rowed exceedingly slow and even stopped a couple times during the 5 minutes.
But today I decided to dress appropriately and row the 5 minutes at least a little bit faster. So the garb was normal for rowing. Shorts and a heartstrap.
There were 4 total in the practice session. The other three were the race starter (Pam L. of RowPro Rowers & Digital Rowing), Jesper T. of Denmark with whom I’ve rowed many times before, Justine R. who was new and whose location I don’t know.
Justine was definitely new because she said she had “never done this before”. I asked her if she meant she’d never rowed online before and she confirmed that was what she meant. I replied that “I’ve never rowed on the water before,” which I guess was a non-sequitur of sorts but what I was wondering behind that question was whether she was totally new to rowing or simply had never rowed on an erg connected to the internet with RowPro.
Justine didn’t answer my unspoken question, which is a perfectly normal response to an unspoken question.
Before the race starter arrived and before any of the three of us – Jesper, Justine or myself, typed a single word into the session chat. Notice that the current time in GMT (18:25 GMT) is plainly readable at the top of the session chat window.
And then before we could chat any further the Race Starter, Pam, arrived. She welcomed everyone and gave the brief instructions on what to expect for the starting of a race and then started the 5 minute race practice session.
When the word “ROW” appeared on the PM, we all started rowing. Actually, I didn’t start immediately because I’m in the habit of hearing an authoritative announcer voice speak the word “ROW!” loudly at that same instant but the sound is still not working on this installation of RowPro 5 for the Mac.
The others probably heard a voice say ROW! but whether they did or not, they got off the starting line a bit quicker than I did.
I rowed slowly after starting and watched the pace of Jesper and Justine. They were rowing faster than me but were staying more or less together in pace. I continued to row slow (2:25/500m) with a low rating in the teens for the first 20 seconds, while I watched them. Then, I thought I’d pick up the pace a bit, catch up to them and stay even with them so we could all cross the finish line in a group.
So I picked up the pace to between 2:00 – 2:05/500 m for the next 90 to 100 seconds and was slowly catching up to them.
As the distance between my boat and the lead boat (Justine R.) became smaller, she rowed a bit faster. So I rowed a bit faster, to keep closing the distance. You can see in that session report that the 6th split was a pace of 2:00 and then from split to split my speed increased, as I had to keep increasing the effort in order to keep closing the distance.
I caught up with Justine’s boat somewhere in the last few splits and decided that it felt like a race and was having too much fun to slow down and just stay even to the finish line, so I passed her boat.
And she kept increasing her speed. I know there are a lot of strong, fast women rowers, from looking at the women rowers’ results in the Olympics… but I don’t think I’d ever before rowed with a woman rower who was this fast. I was impressed. And still having fun. And wondering how much more she could speed up.
Well, she did keep increasing her speed and by the last 20 second split, I had to row an average pace of 1:42/500m to keep her from gaining on me. I think that I got my instantaneous pace as high as 1:36 for at least one stroke, before reaching the finish line and I’m pretty sure Justine was still increasing her speed. Like I said, I was impressed. And it was a lot of fun.
Finish screen for the 5 minute practice that turned into a surprising race.Session report for the 5 minute practice that turned into a race.Oarbits results view of the 5 minute practice session. Oarbits is the name of the online rowing server access at digitalrowing.com
Here are a few more review-type comments about RowPro 5 for the Mac. The problem with row session files not uploading to the concept2.com online logbook has been resolved by the RowPro programmers.
RowPro 5 for the Mac is different from RowPro 4 in many ways and beautiful and fun to use in the same ways.
One of the ways it is different is there are 2 logbooks in RowPro 5 for the Mac. An online logbook, which is supposed to show all sessions uploaded or waiting to be uploaded to Concept 2 and “Local logbook,” which I assumed means what it implies, that the files are stored locally on your computer’s hard drive. But I looked and there are no documents or files that are associated with RowPro.
There’s only the RowPro App, in the applications folder.
So… I don’t understand how the files are stored locally unless they are stored as “invisible” files to avoid inadvertent damage by user klutziness etc. I know that the Apple OS stores some critical files as invisible because they are essential to the operating system and there is no reason most users would ever need to do anything with them. So maybe that’s what Digital Rowing does with RowPro files on a Mac – gives them the “invisible” tag so we won’t accidentally mess with them.
If I want a printable session report for any rowing session, I must go into the “local logbook”, right click it and select details. Then if I want to print it, I choose one of the usual Mac ways such as command+P or the menu item File->Print…
But if I am in the ONLINE logbook in RowPro 5 for the Mac and want to see an abbreviated version of the session report, I can double-click the session and a window will open up. That window with an abbreviated session report has the nice feature which shows average pace and ending heart rate for each split as you hover the cursor over the graph. See screenshot below:
as i hover the mouse cursor over the 11th split it displays the split number, the average pace for that split and the ending heart rate at the end of that split.
There is a little quirk with the display of time in GMT at the top of the online session chat which I noticed.
When RowPro 5 for Mac is opened, it always opens to maximum size and covers the entire desktop, though not in absolute full screen mode. When it is like that and covers the entire desktop, it blocks some items that I like to have access to on the right side of my desktop. If I click and grab the right side of RowPro then drag it a couple inches to the left, it leaves a couple inches of desktop that I want to see. The quirk with the display of time in GMT at the top of the online session chat happens only if you resize the window of RowPro 5 for the Mac AFTER checking in to an online session which will result in the time becoming partly hidden like in the following screenshot:
The display of time in GMT at the top of this session chat window is partly covered because I resized the main RowPro window AFTER checking into the online session.
If you resize the Window of RowPro 5 for the Mac BEFORE checking in to an online session, the time in GMT is fully visible, like in the screenshot below:
Today’s rowing session was solo up until the last minute before start time, when Frederic N., who is in France, joined. I was happy to have company and Frederic’s effort was inspirational.
The session was 30 minutes. I rowed at a high resistance and a low stroke rating. Maximum drag factor (that’s what Concept 2 calls the resistance you feel when you pull to row each stroke) can vary from machine to machine, depending on the buildup of dust inside the shroud. For today, the maximum DF was about 165.
Concept 2 is right, to call it “drag factor,” which depends on how much air you allow to flow through the shroud, instead of resistance. And if you read their explanation at the link in the preceding paragraph, you will understand why.
Every 5 minutes, four times, I did a set of power strokes. In between, I rowed at a pace of slow with a rating of low (stroke rate in the teens, which is low). For the last 5 minutes, as a warmdown, I used a slightly higher stroke rate in the 20s.
Today was a first day trial of RowPro 5 for the Mac. If I can get it working satisfactorily then we will switch from RowPro for Windows to the Mac version and I will be able to dispense with the extra chores involved with backing up and maintaining Windows running on a virtual machine on a Mac.
RowPro 5 for the Mac is reported to be stable on Yosemite but it has a few issues when running on El Capitan, which is what I’m using. So I’m a beta tester and happy to be helping.
A couple of issues are that there is no sound and the files which show to be uploaded to the Concept 2 online logbook are not showing up in the Concept 2 online logbook.
I’m not sure if it is missing some features that I frequently resorted to in RowPro for Windows, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to do some things I used to do on a routine basis, such as add notes to each rowing session file before uploading it. The files upload instantly as soon as I click finished, without giving me a choice of doing anything else first.
Also, I don’t know how to modify the number of splits for a session. The default seems to be 30 splits for a 30 minute session. I’d prefer 20 splits, or less most of the time so that the entire session report might fit on one page. But that still might not be possible, because RowPro 5 for the Mac displays two charts instead of just one chart like RowPro for Windows did. I can get used to having the report on two pages so that is no big issue.
There are times when I specified 30 splits for a 30 minute session, but those times were rare and were for a specific purpose when I needed to know heart rate at the end of every minute for the last 10 minutes, so as to get a good average heart rate figure for the last 10 minutes and get an accurate result for lactate threshold heart rate. But most of the time, I’d prefer 20 splits.
As for its appearance, RowPro 5 for the Mac is beautiful, as is RowPro for Windows.
You don’t have to work hard and inflict any pain or discomfort on yourself, to benefit from running or rowing. As the title says, there are benefits to rowing long and slow. For the 25+ years before I took up rowing, I would run long and slow every day there was opportunity. I never did any running in a race.
When I switched from running to rowing, I discovered that all the long, slow running I’d done had built a good aerobic base and I could row faster than anticipated without any previous rowing experience.
But the most important thing was that the long, slow running gave great health benefits. I’ve never had high blood pressure, like far too many people my age have to take medication for. Long, slow running (or rowing) is really great for building up the capillaries and giving your blood a lot more space to flow through.
Yesterday’s blood pressure reading was typical. A good aerobic base gives a healthy blood pressure on the readout face.
Today’s session was 30 minutes online in the company of a rower in Denmark and a rower in England.
The other two guys rowed fast and seemed to have a sort of race which was interesting to watch. For a while it looked like a race, then not a race, then it seemed to be a race again. I could have been misinterpreting it of course, and they might not have even been paying attention to each other’s paces and their separation from each other. It was fun and interesting to watch.
As for me, I rowed very slow and with a low stroke rate for the first 10 minutes. Then did 10 power strokes every 5 minutes until that had repeated 4 times and used the last five minutes for a slow warm down.
Today’s rowing session was scheduled online and joined by 14 rowers in Europe and the US. Mostly Europe. The name given to the session was “30 Restful Minutes or Row Hard If You Prefer” which resulted in a variety of paces and efforts. Rowers Alex and Vincent had an excellent race, finishing within one meter of each other.
I rowed a low stroke rate which was a restful compromise between rowing slow and either rowing hard with intervals or at a faster pace.
At a low stroke rate there’s a lot more time to rest between strokes but each pull has to be stronger than at a higher stroke rate, to maintain any given pace.
RowPro behaved well and did not crash, like it did the previous time when the session was almost full to capacity. RowPro behaved well for me and most of the others, at least. Two of the rowers might have had RowPro crash on them, because they did not finish.
Finish screen for today’s restful 30 minutesToday’s session report
Good morning to all sunshiny people. This is what night owls miss when they sleep in late.
The 2K session was scheduled online and 4 others joined in. Because it was online, there were no crowds to cheer us on.
Since there were no cheering crowds, I played music as a cheering crowd substitute while trying for a season best in the 2K. The choice of music was an extended version of Sandstorm by Tunnel Alliance. It was chosen both because it is somewhat energetic but mostly because it is about 8 minutes long, which is more than enough for time for a 2K. If you are curious about the music you can listen to it at this Sandstorm on youtube link: But be forewarned – it is one of the videos youtube puts ads on which you have to endure for at least a few seconds before you can click “SKIP AD” and watch the video.
The title of today’s blog post includes the words “… and VO2 max In Play,” because for any of you who are dying to know what your VO2 max level is, you will be VERY HAPPY to know that all you need is access to a Concept 2 rowing machine, to measure it for free!
You can get a very, VERY accurate reading of your VO2 max without either the expense or bother of expensive equipment or going to a lab, simply by rowing 2K as fast as you can on a Concept 2 rowing machine and then plugging your results into the VO2 max calculator which is located on the concept2.com website. Which is what I did after racing a 2K.
Therefore, whenever you do your best rowing a 2K on the C2 erg, the possibility of knowing your current VO2 max is “in play.”
A screenshot of my VO2 max result is displayed below this paragraph:
If you’d like to read more about VO2 max, this Wikipedia article on VO2 max is comprehensive, especially if you resort to the references it cites.
If you’d rather have your VO2 max measured while you exercise on a treadmill, you will need special equipment and people who know how to operate that equipment, because treadmills are not standardized and calibrated like the Concept 2 ergs.
This is part of what you need, to measure VO2 max on a treadmill.
I actually did TWO 2K races today, because….I forgot to save the strokes to RowPro for the first and fastest one. I wanted to put the 2K result in the Concept 2 World Rankings for this season, but when using RowPro and uploading the results of any session and then clicking to put it in the World Rankings, your result only shows as “verified” if you also save the strokes. If you don’t save the strokes before uploading the file, it will show as “unverified”.
So… after doing the first 2K at a pace of 1:52.7/500m and forgetting to save the strokes, I rested for about 15 minutes and then did a second one.
Before doing a second 2K, I made a Post-It note which read “SAVE the STROKES!” and taped it to the top of the monitor. The reminder worked. (Of course, I could simply set RowPro to ALWAYS save the strokes for every session, but that extra data amounts to a much larger file and I’m trying to keep the RowPro file size from growing unnecessarily large.)
The second 2K was done at a pace of 1:53.3. Bummer! A little slower, because I consciously eased back on the effort, so the second 2K wouldn’t feel any more strenuous than the first one. It was good enough to set a new 2K seasonal record for me. So I ranked the second, slower 2K instead of the first, faster one.
It looks like I was a bit too lazy and slacked off too much on the second 2K when trying to make it feel the same as the first one, because HR was lower at the end of the second 2K. It should have been the same or higher as at the end of the first one, if it was equally strenuous. At least, that’s my layperson opinion on something a doctor or physiologist would be more of an expert on.
So here are the finish screens and session reports:
