Pete Plan Autumn 2015

[Balkan boy]

mspina,

I agree with G-dub. You're probably fit enough to start with the Pete Plan, or even the Wolverine Plan if you're keen on putting a lot of hours and meters on your rower.

You may have to carefully balance your crossfit activity with rowing. I assume your 4-5 crossfit sessions per week are all hard workouts, and that won't leave you enough days and strength to do 2-3 hard sessions on the erg (Pete plan) + 2-3 steady state sessions.
I've tried something similar last season with 3 very hard functional/crossfit sessions and 2-3 hard sessions on the rower or treadmill. I crashed and burned and never improved my times on the erg.

If you really want to drop your 2km time (and you should be able to achieve 7:30-7:45) you have to put in the hours on the rower. Nice things about these plans is that you'll see improvements week by week.

I find HR monitor very useful. I use it in combination with a Suunto watch that logs all my trainings.

Take a look at original Wolverine Plan from witch the Pete Plan was derived. It will put some things in perspective.
http://www.concept2.com/files/pdf/us/tr ... nePlan.pdf
https://quantifiedrowing.files.wordpres ... -notes.pdf

[Bob S.]

Your C-B time was excellent for someone in the high end of your age bracket. When you hit 50, you will be well up in the top percentages. I think that you have assessed it correctly to say that it would help to work on endurance at this point. That is the one area that I feel that Crossfit doesn't put enough emphasis on. If you do take up the Pete Plan right away, I think that it would be best if you modified it to do mostly long distance stuff for the first couple of 3-week cycles. There are still almost 4 months until the next C-B, so the first month or two would best be spent mostly on endurance. A couple of regular PP cycles in January and the first half of February would work well to get your speed up for the C-B.

Bob S.

[G-dub]

I totally agree with you Bob and BB - she needs to find a block of time for endurance work on the rower. One thing we did this summer, which changes things slightly, is to do the PP on 4 week cycles instead of 3. The 4th week is a time for testing and also doing some other intervals that Greg concocted. So there are fewer "cycles" before her event if she does it that way. I think the PP can be tweaked the first cycle so that she is not killing herself on the speed work and focusing on the longer stuff.

I also wonder, like BB does, about how much cross fit can be handled during this period. Maybe a good course of action would be to spend the next 6 weeks on endurance and keeping some of the cross fit going and then transitioning into PP mid December and go full rowing thereafter with a little weight work sprinkled in.

[mspina]

Thanks for the quick replies all!

I am definitely on the look out for overtraining - yes, my CF workouts are HARD, and I'm at a pretty competitive gym with a focus on heavy lifting, so it's intense. That said, back in my tri training days I regularly did 2x/day workouts to get all the swim/bike/run workouts in, so I'm used to pulverizing myself. I will keep an eye out for signs of overtraining though.

I'll start with Pete's Beginner this week and next, and see how that shakes out - it's got a LOT of similarities, especially since I sort of assumed I'd do the optional workouts most weeks. If that's really the case, you are right - just jump in with you all on the 14th. Worst case I can dial it a back a bit and go for 4 days of erg/week at 2 interval / 2 steady state, and ramp up as it gets closer to the end of Feb - plenty of time before the big day.

Holy crap, I'd be SO STOKED if I can start to scratch at 7:30! I was pretty proud of the 8:07 - I had very little rowing under my belt at that time, but I know how to settle into the pain cave and hang there.....

-----------
Michelle

[bisqeet]

The more the merrier!
I love the bluetooth polar ♥. Makes those endurance rows better (hr capped not pace). Don't use it on sprints. Intervals.

[jackarabit]

Michelle, I won't venture a guess at what plan is most appropriate for you at the moment. There are fitters and fitters. We have an instructor from NJ on here who says xfitters of his experience are very receptive to erg training as a serious discipline. You don't mention injuries which suggests you've survived the craziness. Aerobic condition? Can't help but improve!

Show up, row, report your progress, share in the little victories and the moaning and groaning. No tech toys or indoor rowing software required but ErgData and a HR monitor are as useful as any. RowPro lots of fun and plenty of exportable/crunchable data but very awkward for setting interval sessions cf. to performance monitor on the rower. Got a week plus before 11/14. Plenty of time to steal a march by trying five or six sessions from the first week Pete Plan. Don't time trial the longer steady state >8k days; easy conversational pace with lots of long strokes, slow recoveries.

[Bob S.]

Worst case I can dial it a back a bit and go for 4 days of erg/week at 2 interval / 2 steady state, and ramp up as it gets closer to the end of Feb - plenty of time before the big day.

That a would be a 50/50 strength/endurance ratio. Plus, you are already doing plenty of strength work with Crossfit. The usual recommendation is a much lower ratio until it is close to race time. At 4 days of rowing a week, at least 3 should be long stuff for the next month or two.

[mspina]

Worst case I can dial it a back a bit and go for 4 days of erg/week at 2 interval / 2 steady state, and ramp up as it gets closer to the end of Feb - plenty of time before the big day.

That a would be a 50/50 strength/endurance ratio. Plus, you are already doing plenty of strength work with Crossfit. The usual recommendation is a much lower ratio until it is close to race time. At 4 days of rowing a week, at least 3 should be long stuff for the next month or two.

Got it. And after I wrote this I had the same thought! I'll focus on the long/slow work in the shorter term. The HR monitor will be helpful to keep me in check. I have no problem going hard - I have a much harder time holding back! That will help.

Hmmmm - time for some new Netflix shows to get addicted to for my background viewing!

[G-dub]

Only because it would be fun to have you in the group...one could create a 9 day week and put two long days or one long day and one rest day between each of the 3 hard days. You would then do a 3 week cycle in 4 weeks. I'm considering this actually for the first cycle if Jack will let me.

[mspina]

Only because it would be fun to have you in the group...one could create a 9 day week and put two long days or one long day and one rest day between each of the 3 hard days. You would then do a 3 week cycle in 4 weeks. I'm considering this actually for the first cycle if Jack will let me.

Ooooh - that's a good idea too! I am a huge nerd and created a formal schedule already - I'll monkey around with it and see what I can come up with.

And at the very least I'm definitely going to hang around here! I'll post what I'm doing even if it's slightly "off."

[jackarabit]

Sorry I come off as a control freak, Dub. I'm good with any sched including three OR four week rotations AND 9 day weeks. I am wary of tinkering and customizing ("Frankenplan" comes to mind) in reaction to individual desires, including mine and yours, after the "plan" start. A lot of latitude must be allowed for conflicts with work schedules, family responsibilities, illness, injury, and plaIn old contrarian impulse (like HD and I doIng the HM on the hard distance day) but to the degree possible, we should attempt to turn the page at roughly the same time. The four or five of us who were able to stay roughly on task and on time with our workouts and our workout reporting this past summer know exactly what was sacrificed to the daily commitment and what we gained in return. The privateers already have a training thread, everyone free as a bird to come and go and do what pleases when it pleases to do it. I'm not embarrassed to say I think this thread should not be a dupe of that one.

[G-dub]

I appreciate that you keep us honest and the plan sacred! It's as it should be and someone has to keep slippery eels in line for the good of the order. I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that a 9 day week would enable better results on the hard days and make at least one of the "easy" days more productive.

[ericallenboyd]

I am in on this for sure and probably will start next week as I will have some weeks where I miss a couple of days because of my work travel and then over Thanksgiving I won't be by a rower since I will traveling as well but want to work through the program. This way I should be basically on the same week as everyone else when they start on 11-14

Just started rowing again a month ago and feel like I can get through it and improve as I go forward.

[bisqeet]

Worst case I can dial it a back a bit and go for 4 days of erg/week at 2 interval / 2 steady state, and ramp up as it gets closer to the end of Feb - plenty of time before the big day.

That a would be a 50/50 strength/endurance ratio. Plus, you are already doing plenty of strength work with Crossfit. The usual recommendation is a much lower ratio until it is close to race time. At 4 days of rowing a week, at least 3 should be long stuff for the next month or two.

Got it. And after I wrote this I had the same thought! I'll focus on the long/slow work in the shorter term. The HR monitor will be helpful to keep me in check. I have no problem going hard - I have a much harder time holding back! That will help.

Hmmmm - time for some new Netflix shows to get addicted to for my background viewing!

I use subtitles as well as a 1000w sound system. The c2 can get loud. I tend to watch series wholemeal.
Strain, walking dead, anything with Sean bean, marvel, vikings, Dexter. Hooked on 'the glades at the mo'

[mdpfirrman]

If we are a full participant (I'm still on the fence about doing it six days a week, I'm leaning more toward five days a week and keeping the tougher 3 pieces each week), do we have to start on the Saturday as our day one, week one?

My schedule is more going to be Monday through Friday and adding in Saturday w/ Sunday for rest. If I decide to modify it, it's going to be losing one of the longer recovery days. So basically I'll be doing some variation of PP, not quite at the beginner level but also not quite the 6 days a week either.

I respect what Jack's saying but also understand what I think right now I'm capable of doing as a newer rower too. Certainly don't want it to be counterproductive in terms of burnout / fatigue either. I have a solid base of 30K meters weekly now for a month but only been doing 3 days a week. I think going from 3 days to even five days will be a tough adjustment.

My HRM broke a while ago. With the suggestions about using HR to monitor effort, I'm thinking about getting a new one in advance too. I'm absolutely terrible at toning down longer rows and not going full effort. This, above all else, is the reason I want to do Pete's Plan (what I can learn from lower SPM sessions).