Pondering the Beginner Pete Plan

[DJ1972]

I would not say weeks, more likely months.

In all reality, I think you're right. Chipping off 3.4 seconds is a really big effort at r20, when you felt like you were giving your all.

It can happen if you keep working hard, but it shouldn't be under estimated how much it takes. I'd highly recommend training your mind for the last 10 mins, which are always horrible when you're really pushing the limits. Try not to let your inner chimp take over with negative thoughts of doom.

It will probably also help to not go out quite so fast for the first six minutes, and just trying to squeeze out more pace as you progress. I say probably, as not everyone benefits from neg or flat splits, but they are the outliers.

I extended the 30 min BPP sessions into 30R20 as I believed that strength (and mental) development would be beneficial (in my case).
I wrongly assumed that I could hold a 2:02 pace when I felt ok in the first 6 min...but there are 24 min to hold after. I will follow your advice on pace.

Overall, it is an exercise worth integrating on the technique and stability of the stroke as tiredness kicks in. I noticed that, after the 20 min mark, my technique was affected and focusing on it again resulted in maintaining pace....so negative thoughts counter-balanced with technique focus!

[Sakly]

I would not say weeks, more likely months.

In all reality, I think you're right. Chipping off 3.4 seconds is a really big effort at r20, when you felt like you were giving your all.

Fully agree.
Somewhere I read something about gaining 20W/year with a proper training. This was likely based on an already good trained athlete and a 2k power output, so not directly translating to the 30r20, but it shows what we are talking about (and for myself this estimate is close to what I got for my 2k journey). You need to step up nearly 20W average to get the 30r20 sub 2:00 pace, and keep in mind this is more focused on strength and less on cardiac output, when you can see faster gains on the latter one.

[DJ1972]

Week 18.2
4 x 2000m / 4min rest – In week 14 you did this session with 3 reps. Do the first 3 reps at the pace you managed for that session, and the month of work you’ve done since will allow you the extra rep.

Target was at 1:59.2 with one more interval. Work via 30R20 helped me produced enough from my legs to maintain pace and have a go on the last rep.

Code: Select all

Time	Meters	Pace	Watts	Cal/Hr	S/M	
31:44.7	8,000	1:59.0	207	1014	24	164
7:58.5	2,000	1:59.6	204	1003	23	158
r: 4:00	21						
7:58.6	2,000	1:59.6	204	1003	25	163
r: 4:00	18						
7:58.5	2,000	1:59.6	204	1003	25	166
r: 4:00	17						
7:49.1	2,000	1:57.2	217	1046	26	170
r56	

I am not too sure how to handle the stroke rate on the 1st rep (SR 23). Perhaps this is low and the session should be completed with the same SR 25/26 as for 2nd to 4th. However, I did not do that so my HR would not immediately go too high.

[Joris]

Thanks for the feedback Dangerscouse, Reuben and DJ1972.

FWIW, this is my opinion. You'll necessarily hit the buffers on pace, as you'll find the limit of your current ability, so this may be about right or lower than expected due to under recovery. It's important to be honest with yourself as both of these have different solutions.

It sounds like you're going through a bit of rough patch with other life stresses, so if it is, I'd rein it in a bit, based on the fact that the last rep is open to ramping up the pace anyway. You should be able to fairly quickly figure out if it's a temporary issue and something you can fight through or not.

Dropping back on the pace on SS can quite often be a good idea, as long as you're mindful of what you're doing and not letting it become an easy way out. There's a subtle but important difference between doing what you should and what you could.

It's not entirely clear to me what you recommend for the steady state sessions. Going a bit slower or letting myself not be influenced too much by a higher heart rate and just doing the same thing I was doing, even though steady states start to feel more and more like heavy sessions?

Personally, I find it more tempting at steady states to keep aiming for a faster time, because that is more fun and challenging than maintaining the same pace as previous sessions, let alone going slower.
But as a beginner who has little to no experience with endurance sports, I don't want to force myself and risk stagnation or fatigue or injury. From what I've read, I still mainly remember that the goal is not to go as fast as possible during steady states but to gradually build up a condition base. I consider the heart rate monitor as a helpful tool to learn about my own abilities and as a monitor to keep building up patiently rather than unconsciously building up the intensity of my steady states.

This happened to me when I was moving from the 8k to 10k SS rows. Up until that point I had been able to maintain the same pace for the SS rows as they increased in length, but then hit a bit of a wall. I'm retired, wasn't sick, had just the "normal" stressors, so I guess I just got to the point where my body couldn't maintain the progression, and I had to back off a bit and consolidate. So I lowered my SS pace by 1 or 2s, persevered (aka ground out the meters at whatever pace I could manage), and then came out fine a few weeks later, even lowering my pace slightly in the last week or two. I don't recall any difference in my intervals during that stretch. YMMV and all that.

Recognizable, and I followed your advice to lower my SS pace a bit.

Welcome back! On a personal basis, I repeated the same week when I had a break and added some steady state until I felt that I could progress to the next week of plan.

For now I'm going to continue with the plan, but I did replace the day 5 session with a steady state session.
So far I don't feel like it's getting much better yet, so maybe I'll eventually repeat a week or add some random ss sessions.

Week 20.3 [30 min]:
I decided to use this session as a way to rediscover my "real" current steady state pace. So no target time, just heart rate driven, whereby I set myself a maximum heart rate of 140. The ida was that I could then use that same pace afterwards for the next longer steady states.
I ended up with a split of 2:23 and an average heart rate of 135.

Week 20.4 [10k]:
Although I felt as well rested as previous session (30 min - 2:23 - avergage heart rate 135) my heart rate went up again quite a bit (144 instead of 135) despite following the same pace of 2:23.
The reason was not that the distance of this session was longer, because my heart rate went above 140 already from minute 9 and did not drop below it afterwards, while I reached a maximum of 140 the previous session. The only positive I got out of it was that my heart rate remained more or less constant throughout the entire session and thus did not show a (sharply) rising curve towards the end.

Week 20.5 [10k]
Based on the previous session, I thought it would be more useful to do another steady state session instead of an interval session.
So I swapped the 8 x 500m with a 10k session.
By again choosing a pace of 2:23, I hoped this would show that the previous session was a negative outlier. Unfortunately, my heart rate once again reached 143, following a similar patern as the other 10k session.
So for now it looks like I will have to keep this pace for a bit, or maybe even go a little slower for the ss sessions.

The last session of week 20 remaining is interval session 20.2 [5 x 1,500k]. Although the stars are not favorable I will make the best of it and try to achieve at least the same target as that of session 16.2. Based on the result of that session I can evaluate where I'm at for the interval sessions and how I can follow up for the next sessions.

[reuben]

So I lowered my SS pace by 1 or 2s, persevered (aka ground out the meters at whatever pace I could manage), and then came out fine a few weeks later, even lowering my pace slightly in the last week or two.

I should clarify this. "I lowered my SS pace by 1 or 2s" - I rowed slower by 1-2s/500m, which I don't think was a potentially confusing statement. But when I said "lowering my pace slightly in the last week or two.", I lowered my time/500m, and thus actually increased my pace as my body adapted to the longer distances. It was a poor choice of words on my part.

I'm on Week 18 of the BPP, and I rowed the 11k at a pace almost another second faster, so after slowing down 1-2s/500m for the SS state sessions for a few weeks I'm now actually a bit faster than I was before I slowed down.

[Dangerscouse]

So far I don't feel like it's getting much better yet, so maybe I'll eventually repeat a week or add some random ss sessions.

This might be the biggest issue that you're not addressing. Progress isn't linear, nor rapid, so you need to learn to love the process and not focus on progress. When you just enjoy doing what you're doing, you'll go much further than focusing on your progress at a granular level.

Steady state could be either really easy, medium effort, or somewhere in between but they shouldn't get harder and harder. HR could be a good guide for you to use, as that theoretically takes the guesswork out of it, as you sound like you're too tempted to go too hard too often.

[DJ1972]

So far I don't feel like it's getting much better yet, so maybe I'll eventually repeat a week or add some random ss sessions.

This might be the biggest issue that you're not addressing. Progress isn't linear, nor rapid, so you need to learn to love the process and not focus on progress. When you just enjoy doing what you're doing, you'll go much further than focusing on your progress at a granular level.

Steady state could be either really easy, medium effort, or somewhere in between but they shouldn't get harder and harder. HR could be a good guide for you to use, as that theoretically takes the guesswork out of it, as you sound like you're too tempted to go too hard too often.

I am on the same line with the above comments. From personal experience, you expect (and desire) progress to come steadily and fastly but you may just stagnate for a while. Some days, I see a mix of improvement and not so good session in terms of HR. I come to realize that this will take me years to achieve. The BPP is focus on the 2k prep and I am currently doing it before I focus more on 5k and 10k

I am lucky to have found this erg as I don't want to jog and run to stress too much joints, I don't want to cycle as you train mostly the bottom part of the body, I add swimming in the summer and squash and this brings me to

Week 18.4
[10000m] – Try restricting the stroke rate to a strict 20spm for the first half of this row, working on technique. From half way allow yourself to increase the rate only with a corresponding increase in pace.

Code: Select all

Time	Meters	Pace	Watts	Cal/Hr	S/M	
50:27.4	11,000	2:17.6	134	762	21	142
27:32.8	6,000	2:17.7	134	761	21	142
r: 2:00	15						
22:54.6	5,000	2:17.4	135	763	22	142
r15				

I changed the session to my usual steady state with one 1k extra as I have now passed the 1000k with the erg. One milestone ticked, more to go!