Pete Plan Group - Startup Aug 20th thru 22nd

[jackarabit]

Joe, is the "fail" the result of trying to hit awkward and unfamiliar rate targets on the higher-rated splits? The higher-rated splits look to have produced the best paces and the tightest pace spread. The greatest total variation in pace is across the lower-rated splits. Not at all what I would have anticipated. I know you normally have no problem at rates 18 to 22 as you suggested in a previous post that you might do 40' L4 "196" as a hard distance piece.

By my count, there are four non-contiguous splits comprising 2 sub-7' 2Ks in that piece! Not a total lapse of power production in my view but maybe considerable power/endurance lost immediately following hard efforts in inefficient gearings? The session obviously doesn't meet the most basic requirement of a continuous 10k but it does meet that criterion for a 9k. You should take the final K as the fastest cooldown in the history of indoor rowing.

I can't help but remark the "intervals without rest." I have no trouble believing you knock out 9x4' with the best when you don't have one arm tied behind your back. I agree with you that you have a habit-based aversion to continuous distance. I think the corrective is to do 10k continuous at 18 or 20spm next time round. Or you could go on pushing into higher rates I guess. Wouldn't hurt to break out of the psycho-illogical box by setting it as continuous row on the monitor. I commend your willingness to take on an uncomfortable task but I'm keeping the little Xmas tree on my rear view mirror for now. I earned it on the hare-brained long interval salvage op earlier in the week and you can't have it. Na-naa, na-naa, naaa-na.

We're doing 4x1000 Sunday? I better get some rest! I hope you're wrong and it's the 250-250 pyramid. I love the pyramid.

Say, this may be the moment for a bit of Pete Plan archaeology. Did you know that there is some evidence that the 4x1 preceded the 4x2 in week 2 of the original Pete Plan? And the pyramid preceded the endurance waterfall in the third week. According to sources for which I don't have citation handy at present, the pyramid and the 4x1 traded places because doing both 4x1 and 4x2 with one day in between was perceived as being way too much of a good thing. I think that's because every one tends to crack the whip over their own backs on the ranked and competed distances.

[JohnAd]

On to tonight's hard distance epic fail...I set out to do 10 1K intervals with no rest, alternating between 22 and 26 spm.

Personally I'd ignore targetting rate and let the pace be what you chase, breaking up the long hard pieces into chunks and then going for negative splits is very much the Pete Plan way as far as I can tell. You just take your last average split for the piece, start off at that, then go higher anytime you feel you can and you can hold that pace to the end but the main thing is to do the last segment, say 1500m for the 10k, faster and you can always throw in a fast last 300m, then you've beaten your previous time have a new target for next time. The key thing seems to be stepping up the pace only when you know you can hold it to the end. So next week I'd suggest starting off another 10k at 1:51.8, doing 6k at that, see how you feel, maybe take it up 0.5 at that point if it's feeling good otherwise just stay at 1:51.8 bacause you now know you can do that and then go for it in the last 1500m, then you'll have a new average that you should know you could hold evenly for 10k if you wanted to. Rinse and repeat. I think that after a few goes round that you'll be needing to hold something crazy like 1:48 from the start and you'll naturally need to up the rate a bit but you'll know it will be fine.

[hjs]

So...I'd like to consider myself a reasonably intelligent person, but I'm not sure why I haven't incorporated any hard distance work into my training. As I've mentioned, I have trouble holding higher spm. I started rowing again in January 2016, but I don't think that I've done more than a 3K piece at more than 18 spm in over eight years. It would sure make some sense to start working on that. It might also make sense to set reasonable targets to start off. 0 for 2!

@Jack - hand over that car air freshener. All you've done in the last couple of days is set two PBs without trying to. There is a new sheriff in town.

On to tonight's hard distance epic fail...I set out to do 10 1K intervals with no rest, alternating between 22 and 26 spm. My target pace was 1:53 and 1:45 respectively (really just a guess). It felt really awkward trying to achieve my target pace relative to the spm. And then I crashed...

1:52.0 22 spm
1:43.7 25 spm
1:52.8 22 spm
1:45.2 24 spm
1:53.5 21 spm
1:46.9 23 spm
2:06.3 19 spm soft
1:45.5 24 spm
2:11.8 19 spm even worse, but I was dead
1:40.8 26 spm bit of a rally, but with previous rest, doesn't really count

Ended up at 10K in 37:16.7 at 23 spm.

I need to get some mojo back before Sunday's 4 X 1K

Nothing wrong with doing only long distance work low rate for a while, almost every toprower does. It simply takes time to convert that to shorter work.
Why the rate changes? Thats needlessly making it more difficult. A next time start out at your current av. Rate 24/25 gor the first 5/6k and take it home from there. Will go fine. Would be advice.

Last point rating, I very much think you use a to long stroke. Given your height/weight you are no powermonster, so I think you have build yourself a very long leanback . If so this stroke can,t be used at higher ratings, so you have a problem.
One fix is rowing strapless, this will make your stroke more compact, with less leanback, the base for a higher rating.
For 2k you should be looking at 30 as a minimum. Certainly not lower.

All in all you have a good base to improve upon I think. Any goals in mind? Doing the ctc?

[G-dub]

Joe, when you say 1' intervals no rest, are you setting up the machine for that? That would give you different splits and a different total time of course than doing a continuous row. It would also seem jumping to 10K hard would be a big jump from what you normally do.

[jackarabit]

I think you mean 1K intervals, Glenn. Doesn't change a thing from continuous distance set to 1K splits if one rows thru the monitor resets.

Henry, the occasion of trying the rate alternation is back upstream a few pages. Joe tried this C2 WOD radical rate alternation at my suggestion and based on the heterodox and not very appropriate strategy I added to a subsequent SS row. Neither Joe nor I expected wonderful performance yields. A goofy experiment which doesn't fit the steady and repetitive order of march in PP. I take the responsibility of encouraging an experiment which wasted a day of prescribed training. I think Greg's anything goes "fourth week" is where these diversions and detours from the plan belong. Apologies to all here for disturbing the scholastic discipline.

I will point out, in regard to plan content, that importation of strategies of execution such as those which prevail in WP L4 are also not the best way to approach Pete. I hear from John that Marston's major rationale for avoiding L4 derived from the "lunchtime" limitation. I believe Marston thought that he himself had accomplshed the "heavy lifting" prior to developing his unperiodized race prep plan. It may be that not many in present company are quite ready for and comfortable with the Pete Prescription? My view is that "anything goes" is a slippery slope in all cases rather than solely in this one instance. What's done is done of course and I am placing my clumsy coaching attempts under lockdown for the duration.

[G-dub]

I think you mean 1K intervals, Glenn. Doesn't change a thing from continuous distance set to 1K splits if one rows thru the monitor resets.

Henry, the occasion of trying the rate alternation is back upstream a few pages. Joe tried this C2 WOD radical rate alternation at my suggestion and based on the heterodox and not very appropriate strategy I added to a previous SS row. Neither Joe nor I expected wonderful performance yields. A goofy experiment which doesn't fit the steady and repetitive order of march in PP. I take the responsibility of encouraging an experiment which wasted a day of prescribed training. I think Greg's anything goes "fourth week" is where these diversions and detours from the plan belong. Apologies to all here for disturbing the scholastic discipline.

I will point out, in regard to plan content, that importation of strategies of execution such as those which prevail in WP L4 are also not the best way to approach Pete. I hear from John that Marston's major rationale for avoiding L4 derived from the "lunchtime" limitation. I believe Marston thought that he himself had accomplshed the "heavy lifting" prior to developing his unperiodized race prep plan. It may be that not many in present company are quite ready for and comfortable with the Pete Prescription? My view is that "anything goes" is a slippery slope in all cases rather than solely in this one instance. What's done is done of course and I am placing my clumsy coaching attempts under lockdown for the duration.

Don't you get a speed jump on the first strokes if you roll through the interval starts? Or does it equal out? I always thought if I did a 2K on 1'"'intervals" I would get a faster time than if I rowed it continuous.

[G-dub]

Speed Pyramid. Walk like an Egyptian.
Happy with the segments within the red box. Never been under 1:45 for those before. Had to let rate be my friend today. Lungs are feeling ragged.

[jackarabit]

Red zinger, Glenn! Rate is the multiplier. Done Dutch and Gorby proud!

[mdpfirrman]

So...I'd like to consider myself a reasonably intelligent person, but I'm not sure why I haven't incorporated any hard distance work into my training. As I've mentioned, I have trouble holding higher spm. I started rowing again in January 2016, but I don't think that I've done more than a 3K piece at more than 18 spm in over eight years. It would sure make some sense to start working on that. It might also make sense to set reasonable targets to start off. 0 for 2!

@Jack - hand over that car air freshener. All you've done in the last couple of days is set two PBs without trying to. There is a new sheriff in town.

On to tonight's hard distance epic fail...I set out to do 10 1K intervals with no rest, alternating between 22 and 26 spm. My target pace was 1:53 and 1:45 respectively (really just a guess). It felt really awkward trying to achieve my target pace relative to the spm. And then I crashed...

1:52.0 22 spm
1:43.7 25 spm
1:52.8 22 spm
1:45.2 24 spm
1:53.5 21 spm
1:46.9 23 spm
2:06.3 19 spm soft
1:45.5 24 spm
2:11.8 19 spm even worse, but I was dead
1:40.8 26 spm bit of a rally, but with previous rest, doesn't really count

Ended up at 10K in 37:16.7 at 23 spm.

I need to get some mojo back before Sunday's 4 X 1K

Nothing wrong with doing only long distance work low rate for a while, almost every toprower does. It simply takes time to convert that to shorter work.
Why the rate changes? Thats needlessly making it more difficult. A next time start out at your current av. Rate 24/25 gor the first 5/6k and take it home from there. Will go fine. Would be advice.

Last point rating, I very much think you use a to long stroke. Given your height/weight you are no powermonster, so I think you have build yourself a very long leanback . If so this stroke can,t be used at higher ratings, so you have a problem.
One fix is rowing strapless, this will make your stroke more compact, with less leanback, the base for a higher rating.
For 2k you should be looking at 30 as a minimum. Certainly not lower.

All in all you have a good base to improve upon I think. Any goals in mind? Doing the ctc?

Good advice as always Henry. @ Joe - I would stop worrying at all about rating up.

@ Jack - Your advice is always welcome. You give sound / highly intelligent advice and always very thoughtful (if we can understand it!). I know what you were getting at with Joe. What I think people aren't differentiating is the SS rows SHOULD NOT be L4 type work. The timed day - I feel is perfect for L4 work (but use the L4 tables of Wolverine for prescribed paces - these are incredibly accurate). Doing L4 type work (very high end UT1 work) is a recipe for disaster (not that you'll crash this week ) in the middle of the PP. Doing it on the timed day is actually (I find) a break from going after 5K PBs every week. So I think that an L4 type workout does have a place, just not on the SS days.

@ Glenn - Really nice work Glenn! That sub 7 is inching closer!

[Bloodbuzz Corio]

@ Glenn - awesome! This is actually a bit quicker average than your 8x500 last week yeah (though I think you mentioned there they were not at 100%?).

@ Mike - agree and a good reminder there on L4 not being SS rows. Quoting from the WP pdf on the L4: 'Intensity is generally ~ 80-90% of 2K' - so that would be AT/TR - not UT by my reckoning.

@ Jack - I've not had my 2 cents on your back to back PBs and suitability of pacing over week 1. Seems to me like the worst case scenario is you finish the PP with 2 new PBs - which is not a bad outcome at all so I'd say you should be enjoying these achievements not worrying about their appropriateness!

[G-dub]

About the same pace Blood. I didn't crank down the averages on either on the last rep or two. Today I definitely had no desire to! Could have in the 8 X 500, but I figure I only need to go at 1:44.9 on a 2K so why bother with going any faster ! Feels good to have a session to talk about after all the awesome work done so far by everyone! Only thing I'm bummed about is that 1K showed 1:44.9 on the screen and not on the summary!

[jackarabit]

@ Mike's most recent: Interesting reasoning on L4 for "free rate" continuous distance, Mike. One is "free" to choose low rates on the "timed" day? And the "timed" day is the hard distance day? The "timed" day looks to be a general purpose camel for jockeys with agendas--yours as well as mine.

[JohnAd]

Wk1 Session 5 Hard 30' Target 1:58 did 7681m avg 1:57.2 with splits
1:57.9 r23
1:57.6 r24
1:57.3 r23
1:56.9 r23
1:55.8 r24
Pretty much did what I told Joe to do a few posts ago, went out at target and turned the screw when I felt I could, nearly went too far as I was only just holding it together for the last 500m. Note to self: I do have to sort my technique out as I don't think I'm doing it properly and must stop giving advice when my own house is not exactly in order.

@Glenn Great effort to hold the 1000m rep to 1:45.0

[Joe L]

Thanks for everyone's advice.

@ Jack - I think it was a "fail" because I didn't hit my targets and I basically quit on the 7th and 9th 1K interval. It felt awkward because when I tried to hit the target spm, my pace was too fast. I had to consciously ease off on the power (I also had trouble maintaining 26 spm). And then I crashed. However, it was certainly not a wasted session. I'm ok with a "fail" here and there. It's how you respond that matters

@ hjs - Thanks for the input and advice. I'm sure you're right and my stroke is too long. To be honest though, it doesn't feel that bad. I'll definitely give rowing strapless a try on my SS days. I'm going to stop stressing about it and just let it come naturally (good advice @ mdpfirrman). My stretch goal is to break 6:20 for a 2K (not at the end of this training cycle, but eventually).

@ Glenn - I set up the 10 X 1K in RowPro (fixed intervals with no rest), but rowed it as a continuous piece. I don't think the clock starts until you take the 1st stroke of each interval so my overall time is probably off by a few seconds. I didn't think that was material for my purposes. Great work on your speed pyramid!

[G-dub]

John, in case of confusion I'm not calling you out my friend, although it sounds like it. It's a question I've had in my mind .nI think I gave myself credit in the early days on a 30' piece that I broke into 3 no rest segments. And I totally spaced 1k on your post! Anyway, you've got it going on so keep rolling! It would be much easier if we could talk instead of write all this stuff.