Pete Plan Group - Startup Aug 20th thru 22nd

[Pie Man]

Nice improvement Glenn from last time and through the piece.

[Bloodbuzz Corio]

@ John r.e. hard 30' - John still a great time overall and only a very small positive split - more than I decent outcome I reckon.

@ Piers - nice 5k - not too far off your PB!

@ Gordon - good finish to BPP week 2 there.

@ Glenn - solid improvement from cycle 1 there and a couple of particularly strong intervals at the end - I assume if you weren't feeling much pf a rhythm it was more about getting through it than particular calculations about how much to leave in the tank for cycle 3?

PP Cycle 2, Week 1, Day 1 - 8x500 - 1:43.5 (by my arithmetic - monitor rounds to 1:43.4)



Extremely happy with this on 4 dimensions:

• Hit target of overall improvement of 0.3/500m from cycle 1
• Hit target for each interval to the exact tenth of a second
• Very even pacing within the intervals - average pace was at 1:43.6 or 1:43.5 at the halfway mark of all 8 intervals. I'd been really interested in the Mike C post John linked to a few pages back where he said he wanted to even or negative split the individual intervals (and that when his students had tried this many had reacted positively to it). This meant that for the bulk of these intervals as soon as I settled down I was almost always seeing 1:43 or 1:44 on the monitor - only saw the very occasional 1:42 or 1:45 in the second half of any of these - and (at least today) this pacing really worked for me. Felt far more in control than the previous times I've done this workout (despite this being my fastest).
• No PM dramas!

HR Max was 186 - actually in interval 7, with max of 185 in intervals 6 and 8, and 184 in intervals 4 and 5.

[Pie Man]

Nice 8x500 Rohan as you say very consistent in time and stroke. Out of interest what warm up did you do to get into the rhythm so quickly?
I was happy with my 5k but as I said it seems to take 10 mins to settle down which won't be much use when I try and do a 2k!

[JohnAd]

Glenn, great start to cycle 2, I know we're not really against each other but it's hard not to see that as a gauntlet being thrown. Especially after a morning run.

Rohan, exemplary pacing and a nice improvement to week 1. I'm looking forward to trying to pace the 500s properly on Monday. Glad to hear it worked for you, also good that pm drama is now over.

Gordon, I agree your base fitness probably hasn't miraculously improved by that much in 2 weeks, but your erg specific fitness will be coming on in pretty large bounds as you become more efficient and more confident in what you can do. Keep with it and I think you'll surprise yourself by where you end up. Having faith in the plan is part of it and the 3 parts of it all seem to miraculously come together from about halfway through.

[lindsayh]

Gosh this thread is huge. Will try not to be too long winded.
OK guys - I'm in if you will have me! Never done this before so a bit nervous (nothing wrong with an old guy with "performance anxiety" I guess!) I hope the occasional mention of my name in the past few weeks hasn't created unreasonable expectations of what I might be able to do.
Now is probably a good time at a beginning of cycle 2.

My name is Lindsay Hay- turn 65 on the 27th September which puts me up an age group of course. I live in Sydney (Australia)
Started this caper about 8 years ago after 30 years in the gym and found I enjoy the challenge, the fitness and the racing.
Also found I was a sprinter not a stayer so most success from 2 km down including some high rankings.
PBs 2km (6:46.6) and 5km (18:17.1) from last year - HM (1:59) and 1 hour (1:57) done this year
My SB was done earlier today in a race - 6:52.1 @1:43.0 on no specific training as I build a foundation.
Current LP is probably 1:17. MHR 173, RHR 43 so HRR 130

I am doing the PP for different reasons that most - I have signed up to Boston on Feb 12 next (have a ticket booked) and have included three PP cycles in a 24 week plan that started August 1 finishes on Jan31. The PP is the meat in a Interactive Plan sandwich with the goal of at least sub 6:48 and hopefully sub 6:45 which would be quite competitive. When you get to the pointy end of times (and maybe slowing naturally) the improvement is very incremental compared to many on the plan at the moment. I will race again on November 8/9 at the end of the PP which will be a really interesting benchmark on how things are going.
Bring it on! I will have to try to sort out the google chart thingy next. Thanks in advance for the encouragement this seems a pretty special group.

[G-dub]

Welcome Lindsay! It will be fun to be part of this with you. Welcome also Slacker - join the party.

Rohan, that is the session I am looking for! Very precise and solid all the way through with great pace. Yes, I think I have room to go lower across the board if I can equal past efforts on this workout, but last night wasn't the night. Couldn't get in the flow. Probably needed more warm up. I only cranked on the last ones just so I didn't get too far behind you guys!

John, between you and Rohan it is hard not to get spurred on a bit! You are clearly stronger and fitter but your sessions are looking like what I need and want to do. The challenge will be to not get too carried away trying to equal you!

I find the biggest challenge with this training is I can't sleep worth a crap the night after a hard session. It feels I just roll around all night. Anyone else have that problem?

[Bloodbuzz Corio]

Lindsay - welcome to the thread! Really looking forward to seeing your times here and the rest of your progress towards Boston. I think there are at least a couple of us in the thread who are using this as preparation for one or more races in the UK towards the end of the year a few weeks after the Nov dates you mention - (which I assume are the Pan Pac Masters on the Gold Coast?) - so hopefully some common ground there over the next few cycles!

Piers - really not sure my warmups are anything folks should be looking to emulate - but for the sprints like today I've been doing about 2k to warm up - mostly at about my SS pace, with a few bursts of about 6-10 strokes at a higher pace - I think today I did one of those under 1:50 and 2 at or under my target pace. For the endurance intervals or hard distance I've been doing about 1k to warm up. So certainly nothing like the ~20 minute Fletcher warm up favoured by Dean, Jack, Greg et. al. I am starting to think forward to BRIC in December and so locking in a warmup which will be effective in the timing/capacity available under race situations - so may try some different things over the next few weeks also.

[G-dub]

I enjoy the Fletcher's, but at 5k it adds a fair bit of time (patience) and volume on top of those tough sessions! On the other hand, it's also easy to rush the warm up and then suffer the first few intervals. I think my best sessions had 2500-3k warm up with some bursts as Rohan describes. I also have my weights set up right there and it's amazing what pulling a few deadlifts right before does to open the pipes up.

[JohnAd]

Ben, welcome great to have you on board, fire me a PM with your email address and you'll be able to stick your time up with the others on the spreadsheet we're all using.

Lindsay, welcome too. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this works for you at the very pointy end. If you could also fire me a PM with your email address I can add you to the google thing.

Glenn, the sleep thing is odd, I've found the opposite which is that I'm finding easier to get to sleep. When do you do your sessions, I get mine done in the afternoon at around 3-4, I've found in the past that doing sessions after work can keep me buzzing a bit like you describe but for me 6 hours after a session bed is definitely what I need.

[Pie Man]

Hi Lindsay

One of the first things I read on this forum was your 90 min plane ride to do an hour race followed by a 5k and then back again. That was some feat so I will follow your PP with interest.

Rohan and Glenn thanks for the info, I need to try out a few different ways but as you say the full Fletcher is 10 mins longer than mu normal 2k and I am pushed for time sometimes as it is.

[Bloodbuzz Corio]

As far as a warm up I like longish (2000m to 3000m) very easy meters, a short break. Then sit on the erg and do a few pulls followed by ten hard strokes. Do this twice and ready to go. i do this primarily because at an event timing your warm up can be a bit tricky due to availability of a warm up erg. So I don't do anything hard until I'm sitting on my assigned machine. Nothing worse than doing a couple of hard "blasters" then getting delayed for 20 minutes. At home on your own, not as much of a problem. I guess the most important thing is to do some sort of warm up and get a light sweat going, but don't exhaust yourself.

Piers - one more on the topic of warmups - I took this quote from Edward from this thread viewtopic.php?f=3&t=147697#p377874 - but I do like his suggestion here - about the same distance as I've been doing, not a ridiculous amount of fast stuff, simple, and well suited to events.

[JohnAd]

Ben, thanks for sticking up your times so far, looking great so far, doing the 6K in week 3 in one minute less than the first 5k is some going.

[G-dub]

Hour ish mountain bike ride with my posse. One has to get outside some too.

[gregsmith01748]

A couple of thoughts on warmups.

The long fletcher warm up was designed for 2k arena racing where you have a minimum of at least 10 minutes of hanging around and getting set before going all out. Doing it as prescribed and then diving right into a session would probably impact your training pace. I use it anyway mainly because I like consistency and I want to use exactly the same routine as I would at a news ace do that I'm not tempted to use my brain on race day. I do take 4 or 5 minutes between warmup and the main session when I do a full fletcher.

I only use it for the short interval sessions. For the long intervals and hard distance sessions, I do a 2k at my "steady" pace with 3 bursts of 10 strokes each at my intended pace target for the session. I do the bursts at 1500,1000 and 500 m to go. Again, I always do the same thing, both because I'm a little obsessive but mainly so my session times are comparable.

For steady state sessions, I never warm up (but people tell me I should and I ignore them).

One interesting thing I saw in a paper about cool downs. They tried 4 different types. Hard. Easy. Bursty. And athletes choice. The most effective was athletes choice. The lesson that I taught me was that everyone is different, and it's a good idea to try different approaches to warmups and cool downs. It is also a good reason to keep a journal or record what you do so you can compare over time. I've done a couple thousand sessions and without my journal I'd be lost.

[mdpfirrman]

@ Lindsay / Ben - Welcome both of you!

Ben, your timing on the 3 weeks is fantastic because that's around where all the other BPP members are (roughly). You will be right in there with them doing the same types of rows, which is great.

Lindsay - I'm really looking forward to seeing your times. When your times are as strong as yours, it will be interesting to see if there's a jump in performance. I find your times amazing!

Rohan / Glenn - nice way to start us all off on the 8 X 500. I'm looking forward to doing mine tomorrow. Seems it went more smoothly for both of you after doing it one round already.

I perhaps keep my warmup too simple. I did the Fletcher last year before my only race. I normally do 2K before my short interval sessions and 1K before the intermediate sessions and the timed row. No WU for SS rows. For all intervals (and the timed row) I do a 1K CD. I might do more but my sessions are typically limited in time as I try to keep it to the "lunch hour" like the plan suggests and I have to drive to the gym (which takes only 10 minutes total - right down the street from me).