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.
Most people who are familiar with the term “fartlek” think of it in connection with running, but a varying pace can apply to any activity that involves pacing. In today’s case it was rowing. It is no coincidence that these runners look happy – happiness is one of the purposes of changing the pace.
The above photo was found among many photos relevant to fartlek, on a website called Running In India, in an article on that site, titled “Fartleking Around,” by Christine Pemberton.
Today’s workout was limited to rowing only and it was an accomplishment to simply get it done, because there was an inner wrestling match with inertia until the last minute. At the last minute, when I was comfortable and chatting like a bluejay on the sofa, the household muse provided the necessary inspiration to overcome the inertia when she inquired, “Are you ever going to row?” And … off I went, to row.
The piece of rowing was 10,000 meters done as a fartlek. Fartlek is a somewhat strange word (unless you speak Swedish) which means a variable pace. But depending on which source you consult for a definition of fartlek, the definite meaning will vary. However, no matter which particular definition you prefer, all definitions have one thing in common which is a varying pace.
I chose to understand the word to mean a deliberate and somewhat chaotic varying of pace, without further specification.
Sometimes, a constant pace is what my inner rower desires. But not today. Today my inner rower wanted a measure of chaos and variety.
Finish screen for today’s 10,000 meter rowing session.
Report for today’s 10,000 meter rowing session.
RowPro graphs for today’s 10,000 meter rowing session.
Concept 2 chart, and more, for today’s 10,000 meter rowing session.
The only workout today was a 10,000 meter rowing session. Instead of choosing a pace in advance, I decided to row at whatever I settled into that felt good, which turned out to be a pace of around 2:10 at RPE Level 4.
Finish screen for today’s brisk 10K rowing session.
Report for today’s brisk 10K rowing session.
RowPro graphs for today’s brisk 10K rowing session.
Finish screen view for today’s moderate 500 meter sprint. Heart rate was 196 at finish but it got a bit higher earlier in the 500 meters (see one of the screenshots below).
Are you familiar with the formula for determining your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220? The formula may be written: 220 – AGE = HRmax.
If you know a person’s maximum heart rate, you can thereby deduce the person’s age by rearranging the formula as: 220 – HRmax = AGE.
Today in one of the workout sessions my heart rate maxed out at 204, therefore today it was acting very juvenile. To be precise, it was acting 220-204= sixteen years old. I was so focused on the effort during that 2,000 meter SkiErg piece, that I didn’t notice how high my teeny-bopper heart rate reached until afterwards. After uploading the results, I looked at the graphs closely, the way the Concept 2 online logbook lets you do if you use their app (ErgData) and it if it was wirelessly connected to the SkiErg monitor during the session.
Heart was in the range of a 16-year-old’s and it also seemed interested in hip-hop dance moves of some sort.
In total there were five sessions today, which were in this chronological order, one right after the other. A summary list of the workouts is below, (but I will only include data/graph screenshots for three of them):
A brief warmup on SkiErg
An attempt at a 2,000 meter sprint on SkiErg
A brief SkiErg warm down
A 500 meter moderate rowing sprint and
A 2000 meter supplemental warm down.
Summary list of today’s 5 workouts, with chronological order from first to fifth displayed on left.
Report for today’s 500 meter rowing at a moderate sprint effort.
Chart of the moderate-effort 500 meter rowing sprint.
Close up of area on 500 meter rowing chart where heart rate reached 204.
Chart and data for 2,000 meter SkiErg sprint. The place where my effort/pace suddenly drops was after about 1,500 meters when I started feeling a bit too tired. I had been trying to do it in a time that would have placed me second in the current world rankings for my age bracket. After I gave up and was breathing easier, I
Close up of area on SkiErg 2000 meter chart where heart rate reached 200.
I was aiming for second-place in the 70-79 year-old current SkiErg world rankings, but had to settle for 3rd.
Report for final session today, a very easy 2,000 meter warm down.
Graphs for today’s 2000 meter rowing warm down. Heart rate was mostly absent from the display because it was doing some kind of a hip-hop dance and the heart strap transmitter had a hard time counting the beat.
This is a photo of a snail because I felt a sluggish kinship with snails today.
Today was a low energy day but I did manage to include some time on both SkiErg and rowing machine. The sessions and their chronological order were: 2,331 meters warmup on SkiErg at 2:48 pace, 1,000 meter time trial on SkiErg at 1:59.1 pace, 324 meter SkiErg warm down, 5,107 meters on rowing machine which started out with the goal of 10K but I got tired and quit and finally a 1,510 meter session on the rowing machine which started out as a distance session of 4893 meters (the balance of the original 10K) but I got tired and quit that one also.
Screenshot from my Concept 2 online logbook, showing summary listing of today’s SkiErg and rowing erg sessions. The 1K SkiErg session is highlighted because it was a personal best on the SkiErg and ranked in the online world rankings.
Above is a summary listing of today’s sessions. The only screen shot of today’s charts and data is for the 1,000 meter time trial. It was done at RPE Level 8 and everything else was at RPE Level 1.
Chart and data for today’s 1,000 meter SkiErg time trial, the high point of today’s workouts.
Finish screen for today’s 1K rowing session. Notice how much lower heart rate was at today’s finish than yesterday’s finishing heart rate of 192.
Today’s workouts had orderly heart behavior compared to yesterday. The workouts were: a SkiErg session of 182 Calories, a rowing session of 1,000 meters at 2:4.7/500 meters and a super-slow 10K rowing session with average pace of 3:26 including a couple of breaks.
A little chaos is part of the spice of life and is probably so by divine design. But today’s measure of chaos seemed a bit too much. Today’s workout was bothered by excessive chaos of the heart, which has been assigned the medical label “paroxysmal atrial fibrillation.”
If I hadn’t been wearing a heart strap while using the Concept 2 ergs, I might not have noticed it, because it felt a little fluttery but nothing I would notice if my mind was focused elsewhere such as on some physical activity, reading a book, playing a game etc.
But I was wearing a heart strap and its display showed that the little fluttery feeling was correlated with heart rate being too high. When it was regular enough to be displayed. The rest of the time, heart rate was not displayed and unknown.
Today’s plan was for there to be 3 workout sessions. The first was going to be 181 Calories on the SkiErg at a pace of 2:21. But because heart rate was climbing much too high for the effort level, I cut the first session short after 80 calories and took a break, so heart rate could settle. Heart rate didn’t settle, so I did the remainder of the SkiErg workout as a 100 Calorie session, at 2:21 pace. Those two sessions added up to the day’s goal of 181 Calories on the SkiErg.
The rowing workout was a pair of sessions: The first one was the moderately fun session: 1,000 meters at 2:06. The second rowing session was 10,000 meters at an extremely slow pace while I watched a documentary I wanted to see about purifying water.
During both rowing sessions heart rate was very irregular. Other than that, everything was normal. By “everything was normal,” I mean that if I’d talked with a cardiologist about it, as I have about previous episodes of “heart strangeness,” there would have been questions such as “did you feel any chest pains, tightness or shortness of breath?” My answer would have been “No, I was breathing very easy, virtually the same as if I’d not been working out.” None of the workouts done today were hard enough and/or long enough to even make me sweat.
The only session recorded for my YouTube channel today was the 1K. That 1,000 meter session was recorded for those of my 19 subscribers (at last count) and others who would like to row along with it. It is available as a screen recording on YouTube at: Indoor Rowing 1000 meters at 2min 6sec pace 07202019
Chart and data for first of today’s 2-part SkiErg session.
Chart and data for second of today’s 2-part SkiErg session.
Finish screen for today’s moderate 1,000 meter rowing session.
Report for today’s moderate 1,000 meter rowing session. The rowing effort was moderate and breathing was easy but heart rate was excessively high.
Chart showing erratic and excessively high heart rate during today’s 1,000 meter rowing session.
Chart for the extremely slow 10K rowing session done today while I watched and listened to a documentary. Heart rate was so erratic that most of the time it wasn’t displayed.
Finish screen for today’s 1,000 meter rowing session.
Today’s longest session was the approximately 15 minutes it took to burn 180 Calories at a pace of 2:22 per 500 meters on the SkiErg. Today’s most fun session was the shortest one, which was 1,000 meters at a “notch” faster pace than the previous day’s 1,000 meter ranked session.
The 1K rowing session was uploaded to YouTube for those of you who’d like to use it for rowing along with. To add a non-sequitur here: with every word I type and every sentence that is inserted here, I’m wondering if it will pass the test of being scanned by the local household grammarian and spelling expert. She adds an element of stress, but it’s probably a healthy variety of stress.
Finish screen for today’s 1,000 meter rowing session.
Today’s total available workout time was too little, so one of the workouts had to be shortened. The one chosen was the rowing session. It was limited to 1K, but a little compensation was made by increasing the pace to 2:08. The SkiErg session was the same progression as recently. I added one to yesterday’s Calorie goal and subtracted one second/500 meters from the pace belonging to yesterday’s pace target.*
Finish screen view for today’s 10K rowing session. Gertrude is in the yellow boat.
Today the decision was made to discontinue the 7-day series of 10Ks and increase the pace of today’s 10K from the 2:14 pace which was only done in one session (yesterday’s session) to a bit faster 2:13 / 500 meters.
A pace boat was used to help me maintain a constant pace from start to finish. I gave the name Gertrude to the avatar of the female rower in the pace boat.
The most notable thing about today’s rowing session wasn’t the pace boat or it’s lovely female rower, however. The most notable thing was the lack of any heart strangeness. The reason I was so impressed with the good behavior of my heart today was because of what I was watching on another monitor while rowing today’s 10K.
The other monitor was playing a YouTube recording of an online 10K I rowed on September 30th, 2018. That particular 10K was done at an overall average pace of 2:14.2/500 meters which was slower than today’s average pace of 2:13.0/500 meters. But my heart rate was a LOT higher on Sept 30 of last year than it was in today’s 10K. So it appears that the heart is functioning better now than it was a year ago in September. I wonder if it is related to my significantly improving A1C score?? When the A1 C score improves, the red blood cells become smaller, closer to the size they should be. Could it be that larger red blood cells are more difficult for the heart to pump?
There were differences in the approach to the 10K on Sept 30, 2018: I started out faster and tried to maintain a pace of about 2:08 on that day. But by the time the distance counted down to less than 3,000 meters I could hear myself, on the recording audio track, breathing very hard. At 2,800 meters, I was struggling for breath and finally threw in the figurative towel. I finished that Sept 30, 2018 10K, but at an extremely slow pace.
Today’s workout also included a session on the SkiErg which was 178 Calories at a pace of 2:24/500 meters.
