Pete Plan Group - Startup Aug 20th thru 22nd

[Litewait]

@nick - downhill today, of course intervals tomorrow will make a man (or mouse) out of me. You put in the meters, you don't suck, period.

[Bloodbuzz Corio]

Proud of this one!

And so you should be! Great session Glenn - very quick indeed and still able to speed up a bit for the final interval!

[JohnAd]

Proud of this one! Felt pretty great all the way. I feel like I'm back in the game for a minute!

Great session and below the magic 1:42, I'm sure you'll be in the game for more than a minute.

[jackarabit]

90' SS
61%2kW @ 72%HRR + RHR (2k+22")
21.8 spm

[JohnAd]

5.1.2 SS 10k @ 2:04.2 r22 MHR 144
Was a bit pushed for time so kept it to under 45 mins, tried an easier stroke and faster rate than Saturday, felt a bit hard at the start but soon settled down and now feeling a nice glow in the legs. In Jacks lingo 61% of 2k Watts and 74% of HRR

[mdpfirrman]

PP 5 X 1500 interval today. My first interval in nearly 3 weeks and it showed. My PB 5K time is 1:56.7 - knew I shouldn't try that as I've been off on vacation and sick before that. My PB on this interval is way below that (I think around the 1:54 something mark). This workout showed I've lost quite a bit between vacation and being sick.

5:50.9 / 1500 / 1:56.9 / 27
5:49.5 / 1500 / 1:56.5 / 27
5:49.8 / 1500 / 1:56.6 / 28
5:52.4 / 1500 / 1:57.4 / 27
5:57.3 / 1500 / 1:59.1 / 27

7500 / 1:57.3 / 27

Really, really tired on this one. Didn't want to do the last one because I had nothing in the tank after the 4th one. Kept telling myself this is training so times don't matter and I need the work anyway, so I went for the 5th and gutted it out. Way off my best performance and not even matching my PB 5K so a bit disappointing. Hopefully the jet lag and being off 4 of the last 6 weeks explains how awful this felt.

[G-dub]

Good work, Mike. First one is always daunting - you know the drill. It's good to have you back across the wall and back at training.

[JohnAd]

Mike, well done for slogging it out, I'm sure the old pace will come back quite quickly. When I did the BPP I had quite a long gap in the middle off with colds and life and was annoyed when I first got back but pleased by who quickly things returned to normal.

[mdpfirrman]

Thanks John / Glenn. Just amazed at how in two months I can go from what was my peak to this. My last round was 1:56.6 (last month) and my best was 1:54.5 just two months ago (on my second go around on the plan). To be 3 seconds off this pace is a bit disappointing but it will come back quick if I put the work in.

[john_n]

My SS wasn't a deliberate r20 session, I was just looking for something that felt good but not too easy and that's what I settled into, probably because I was used to the rhythm from Wednesday. ... and as my watts per stoke is about 85% of my 2k ones and there are 2/3rd of them it felt good, I felt tired at the end but in a good way, I do seem to be getting a slight stiffness in my right shoulder, I think I need to concentrate on making sure my stoke is relaxed.

It sounds like you’re in quite a bit better condition for the r20 rowing. I also felt tired “in a good way” after 30 minutes of it at 2:07 rpm and the last minute of those 30 minutes seemed to be a very long 60 seconds.

Very nice 8 x 500 you did for 5.1.1. Impressive pace increase on the final interval. Also, nice work on your 5.1.2 SS 10K.

Glenn - It sounds like the training you’ve done between last year and now have greatly enhanced your circulation system, so your heart doesn’t need to pump as fast to get the same amount circulating through a smaller number of capillaries. I only say that because once I read that if a sedentary person would start doing only 30 minutes of walking daily, that after merely a couple weeks the number of capillaries in his circulatory system would increase by a factor of about 1,000, which is an amazing amount for such a small and gentle amount of activity increase. The effect of engaging in rowing training must be much more dramatic on the capillary increase.

Very nice 8x500 you did on Nov 14th and definitely one to be happy about.

Ben - Good going, on your BPP 13.3 rowing. Super low r19.

Jack - Interesting about your HRmax experience. Another vote for fountain of youth effect of rowing and possibly its effect to increase HRmax somewhat.

The Kiwi spreadsheet was supposed to be the HR zone generator!?! No -I had the same experience when I clicked the link you provided, as you now report and it also only showed pacing, so I thought maybe you had been referring to different post in the same context which had a link, and I navigated through that which led to the Interactive site until finding what looked like what you were referring to with the 2K training program generator and it's HR zones generator. I couldn’t get the spreadsheet to work with “Numbers,” which is Apple’s spreadsheet which works fine (except this time) for Excel spreadsheets.

Very nice 90 minute SS you did on Nov 15rh, with a superlative—looking pace graph.

Rohan - Happy to know that you got well soon. Could have been something you ate - or you’ve got a strong immune system from your healthy lifestyle. Looking forward to your race results.

Mike - Welcome “back at it”. If the erg seems more popular in your gym it might be because some of the people there read this article which was featured in the Nov 10 Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyl ... ge%2Fstory

Nothing to be disappointed about with your PP 5 x 1,500 - it’s just that you’re adjusting from the pace of life in Mexico which is slower, according to some writers such as this one who wrote, “Generally speaking, Mexico’s pace of life is slower than that of the US, Canada and Europe…” Did you remember to remove your sombrero before getting on the erg?

Tim - Good going on the “psoriatic arthritis pelvic joint crusher” with a very strong pick up in pace on the last split.

Nov 14 Cycle 2 Week 2 Day 2
8K SS recovery,
previous average pace for this piece in previous session: 2:20. Result for this session 2:19.4, with ending HR slightly up at 47.1% HRR
Target Pace: 2:19.5 (1/2 second faster than previous recovery 8K)
Straps loose, DF 135 10 min warm down

Nov15 PP Cycle 3 Week 3 Day 3
Waterfall. Its prior cycle average pace 1:59.8. Today’s average pace result was 1:58.5
Target:
1. Pace: 1:59.8 for first 3 intervals. Faster pace, for last
DF 135. No warmup. 15 min warm down
The RowPro report below doesn't include a usual chart with HR and pacing because for this session I used an older version of RowPro and forgot to tell it to "save strokes" which seems to be necessary for generating that chart.

[mudgeg]

PP Beginners Week 12 Day 1

Second 10000m row of the BPP. Plan says increase your average pace over last week 'slightly even if by only a tenth of a second'. Week 11 average 2:13.0.

Today: 44:13.4 / 10000 / 2:12.6

Pleased with that as it is a new 10000m PB (previous PB was only last week!). Also at 1876m to go, I went through the million metre mark for this calendar year. My first row of 2016 after over a year off with serious illness was 5000m on 8 February at 2:46.7! In May of this year, prior to the BPP I did my first 10k at the slightly less ridiculous pace of 2:32.8. Really come on in leaps and bounds since starting on the BPP.

[mdpfirrman]

Solid Waterfall John N. Nice last 2K!

Gordon - huge strides! A 2:12.X 10K, even for me, is challenging. That's nice work.

[JohnAd]

John N, Very nice waterfall, another session where you've taken over a second off . Slightly confused by the rest time on the report, does that include your warm down? If so does that mean you are also a no rowing in the rest person?

Gordon, the first of many 10k PBs over the next few weeks I hope, great stuff.

[G-dub]

SD: 10K, r21, 2:07

[Pie Man]

Glenn great 8x500 you should be proud of it.

Rohan glad to see you have bounced back from your illness, especially as you have a race in ten days, good luck with that be sure to let us know all about it.

John N, nice waterfall with a strong 2k finish.

John Ad, very strong 8x500, and nice to see you improving again.

Jack solid 90 min row

Gordon, that certainly won't be your last 10k PB well done on your improvements over the last few months.

Mike, good to finish the 5x1500, Pete recons that for any break you can drop 1 second / 500m for each week away. So a 3 second drop after a 4 week break is better than that. As others have said it will come back to you pretty quickly.

So as the BRIC is less than four weeks away and as others have pointed out having loads of indicators to my 2k pace isn't a substitute for actually doing a proper 2k. I decided to do a 2k TT instead of my 8x500. I normally start the PP on Sunday, however life got in the way so I only had time for a 6k SS.

So yesterday was the day, got down the gym around 7pm 2k warm up, settle down for the main event...

Set out at 1:48, it didn't feel comfortable, I handled down at 500m! (1500m to go) rate was all over the place, I had no idea why I just stopped rowing, but I did. Waited a few minutes and tried again, got to 750m (1250m to go) but pace was slipping so HD again... Then proceeded to do my worst SS in a long time, rate was random, pace was slow and varied with virtually every stroke... I feel well enough although my resting heart rate has been 5 bpm higher than normal for the last week or so. I was feeling nervous before I started, more so than any of my previous training pieces.

So tonight was 2k TT JFDI. DF 118

2k warm up,

Decided on 1:48 again, having read the sprint thread with Shawn's excellent discussion on 'mental demons' while attempting a 1k.

1:48.9 32spm 147HR
1:48.6 33spm 155HR
1:47.1 32spm 160HR
1:45.5 32spm 163HR

7:10.1 32spm which is a new PB of course as I haven't done a proper 2k TT in months.

I'm glad I tried this, yesterday was a real eye opener to how mentally tough I have to be, today it wasn't any easier, I just gritted through it. I was pretty spent at the end, the first 1k felt terrible, it was only in the last 500 when I started to think I could actually finish this that I relaxed a bit.

Am I happy with 7:10.1, I should be, before I started the PP anything sub 7:30 would of brought a smile to my face, but now it's odd that the .1 is annoying, sub 10 would of been much better. Not being closer to 7:00 is a disappointment, it shouldn't be but it is. Hopefully I can channel that whenever I try a 2k again, as it has to come from me, I don't think that 7:10.1 is my ultimate time but it's a start.