Today’s rowing session was an online 30 minute piece which I’d originally planned to row at a pace of about 2:09. But one of the two British fellows who joined the session said that he had just eaten and so he was going to row “slow”. I asked him what he meant by slow and he said about 2:05. I consider 2:05 to be fast but doable so I decided to row with him. It turned out to be a bit faster than 2:05 and was a much more vigorous workout than I would have done alone.
It was followed by a very slow 10 minute warm down which I won’t bother to display.
There are only two more days left in the Concept 2 Rowlympic Challenge. Yesterday I scheduled an online 30 minute piece for this morning (local time … though it was afternoon or evening in Europe) and nobody else joined in. So I conclude that most people who were trying to achieve any particular number of hours during the challenge have already done so. As I have. Which is why the rowing session was only 30 minutes today.
Today’s finish screenThe session report for today is flawed in that it failed to show all 20 splits. Software glitch.
To complete the Concept 2 Rowlympic Challenge of 15 hours rowing, all I needed was another 40 minutes. So today’s session was an online 7K followed by a 10 minute warm down, all totaling about 40 minutes.
The 7K was done alone because there was also a 30 minute session scheduled at the same time and 30 minutes seems to be a more popular session than a non-standard distance such as 7,000 meters.
The Concept 2 Rowlympic Challenge is focused only on time spent rowing. In order to do an hour of rowing today, I scheduled an online session of 13,000 meters and paced myself so that it would last one hour.
The rowers who joined in the session were in the two countries of Egypt and Spain.
Finish screen for today’s sessionToday’s session report
For an hour of rowing on day 12 of the Concept 2 Rowlympic Challenge, today’s rowing consisted of a 15 minute warmup, an online 10K and a 10 minute warm down.
There were 8 rowers who joined the 10K, in 5 countries: Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Spain and the US.
I rowed with an easy target pace of 2:15, so that the sum of the time for the 10K plus the 15 minute warm up would total 1 hour.
There is a new gadget in the room where I use the Concept 2 erg. It displays temperature, in degrees Fahrenheit, and humidity in %. Before today’s rowing session started, the humidity was 46%. By the time the rowing session was over I’d lost 2 or 3 pounds (1 pound = 1 pint of water). The humidity increased by 10% to help show how much of our water is transferred from body to atmosphere during exercise.
Today is the 11th day of the Concept 2 Rowlympic Challenge.
Today’s rowing was two online sessions of 6K each. The others who joined in were in the countries of Denmark, Egypt, Germany, Great Britain and Spain.
I did the first 6K at a very easy pace and did the second one a bit faster, just for fun, with three increasing levels of sprint paces during each of the last three splits of 300 meters/split.
Finish screen for first of two 6K sessions todaysession report for first 6Kfinish screen for second 6Ksession report for second 6K
For today’s time toward the Concept 2 Rowlympic Challenge, an online hour was scheduled. Four rowers in Europe signed up, plus myself and one other rower in the US. Two of the guys in Europe couldn’t make it in time to sign in, so there were only 4 participants. One of the 4 got disconnected and did not finish. Of the three of us who finished, the two in Europe raced, Ireland vs Germany and the guy in Ireland won by about a boat length.
As for me, I rowed the hour very easy so as to continue recovering from the somewhat fast 5K recently, which resulted in a very slight pain in one knee, which is a sign that I need to go easy for a little while.
Finish screen for today’s hour.session report for today’s hour. As the HR for each split shows, it was done at a very easy effort level,.
Today was the 9th day of the 15 day Concept 2 Rowlympic Challenge.
Today’s rowing session was one hour online. The rowers who participated were in Denmark, England, Germany and the US.
For this hour my plan was to row very easy and use it as a recovery day from yesterday’s season best 5K. The only thing today that wasn’t easy was that I did about 20 power strokes near the end of the hour.
After today’s rowing was completed, the total time I’ve rowed so far during the Concept 2 Rowlympic Challenge adds up to over 10 hours, which qualifies me for a Silver Medal. (The medals are virtual, not actual medals.) Five more hours between now and the last day, to win a gold medal. Woo-hoo 🙂
Finish screen for today’s hour. The avatar shown on the finish screen is that of Bjorn, who did extremely well by rowing 16,716 meters.Session report for today’s hour.
Today was the 8th day of the Concept 2 Rowlympic Challenge.
For day 8 of the Concept2 Rowlympic Challenge, I scheduled three online 5K pieces, 30 minutes apart. The rowers who joined in were good company and were in the countries of Denmark, Egypt, and England. I was the only one in the US.
My plan was to row the first 5K as a warm-up, row the second one at something faster than 2:04/500 m in order to make it a season best for 5K and then row the third one as a warm down.
But that plan didn’t work out because after about 2K into the second one there was a small emergency which couldn’t be ignored. To say more would probably evoke the response, “that’s more information than I need,” so enough said. Because of that small emergency, after about 2K I had to stop and get off the erg for a few minutes. After I returned, I finished at a slow pace so as to save energy for the 3rd 5K which would be the attempt at a season best… if there were no more emergency interruptions.
The 3rd 5K went without interruptions. It was done with a target pace of about 2:00/500m until the last 500 meters and did a moderate sprint to the finish. It became my season’s best 5K time so it was entered into the World Rankings on Concept 2’s website.
Since the 3rd 5K didn’t turn out to be a “warm down” as originally planned, I added a 10 minute warm down afterwards.
Finish screen for first 5K which was supposed to be warm up prior to 2nd onesession report first 5KFinish screen for 2nd 5K which was interrupted by a small emergencysession report for 2nd 5KFinish screen for third 5K.Session report for third 5K. It turned out to be a season best 5K time so it was entered in Concept 2 World Rankings.Finish screen for warm downsession report for warm down
For day 7 of the Rowlympics I scheduled two online 30 minute sessions.
Rowers participated in the countries of Denmark, Egypt, Great Britain, Netherlands, Norway and the US.
I’m still exploring how HR behaves since it went a bit wacky during the sprints on Rowlympic Day 5 and then that day turned into a HR re-synchronization in the 10K that followed those sprints.
Yesterday I took it extremely easy with a pace of about 2:27 for an hour and HR stayed very constant at about 100.
So today I increased the pace slightly and for the first half hour session had a target pace of 2:20. Things went well during that first session with HR very constant at about 110 and so for today’s second half hour I increased the pace to an average of about 2:10 and HR continued to behave normally, including during a short period of sprinting in the final minute or two of that session.
So I’m thinking that its a possibility that the problem with HR on Rowlympic Day 5 wasn’t that I did the sprints or didn’t warm down enough, but rather that I don’t do enough sprints. I have been mostly avoiding them until recently, but perhaps sprints in the right amount are good for “cleaning out the pipes” and “blowing out the dust etc” so to speak, analogous to how it is good for a car which is only driven sedately in the city to occasionally get out on the freeway and drive at high speeds, to “clean out the gunk”.
Here are today’s screens and reports:
finish screen for first of two 30 minute piecessession report for first of twofinish screen for second of two 30 minute piecessession report for second of two
