Pete Plan 2017

[ChasinElk]

4/20 5k Hard Distance
avg 1:50.8/24

4/22 4x1000m 5mr
1:43/28
1:43/27
1:43/27
1:43/27

Bench
Sumo DL
DB Rows


4/24 50 min L4 (196)
2:02.7/20 12220m

4/25 3k/2.5k/2k
3k 1:49.4/25
2.5k 1:48.7/25
2k 1:48.1/26
avg 1:48.8/25

squat
Db Row
Plank

4/27 5k Hard Distance avg 1:50.4/24

4/29 8x500m 3m30R
1:39/32
1:39.2/31
1:39.3/31
1:39.4/31
1:39.5/31
1:39.3/30
1:39.2/31
1:40.2/30 managed to fall off the seat on the last rep got a lil sloppy lol

power snatch
squats
DB Row

4/30 12500m 1:59.3/21

5/1 5x1500m 5mR
1:48.6/26
1:48.5/25
1:48.4/25
1:48.7/25
1:48.1/26
took this session 2 secs slower than target as i was feeling a little beat up
Bench
Sumo DL
Aussie Pull up

5/3 12500m 1:58.3/21

[sdr2017]

Cali, you are getting in a lot of rowing. Nice 1 hr row--I have not tried to go that long or far.

Dietmar, the fast 500 M was fun to see. I looked at the stroke rate before I understood the distance. 38 s/m is crazy! I guess it is doable (for you) at these short distances.

Mike, thank you for advice about back pain. I am trying to keep good form. It is the side of my back rather than my lower back that hurts. Is that common?

BPP Week 7.2
8000 M 37:26 2:20.3 18 s/m
2000 M 9:10 2:17.7 19
4000 M 9.22 2:20.6 18
6000 M 9:35 2:23.7 18
8000 M 9:17 2:19.4 19

I am limiting the pace by keeping my HR at or under 146. Whenever I get to 145 I try to relax and slow it down a bit. It keeps me at a reasonable exertion level. I ignored the HR for the last 1000 M and just picked up the pace, which is why it was a faster split. At 22 spm towards the end, my HR went to about 154. I am probably obsessing about HR too much, but I have a monitor so it is easy to track.

Scott

[Rowan McSheen]

Afternoon chaps.

One of the good points of having the erg in a conservatory is that during the rests I can look upwards, through the glass roof, and watch red kites circling overhead ... and spot the first swifts of the year. The swifts arrive regular as clockwork on 5-6 May and when they're here I know so is summer

Nice work shaving 5 seconds off the 500m time, Cal. I'd take it too!
Just reading Elk's workouts brings me out in a sweat
And well done everyone not namechecked ... always fascinating to see how people are doing.

BPP week 11 optional 5th workout: 4 x 1500m / 3 min rest, instrux as usual for intervals - hold last time's pace and go for it on final rep. So from week 8 target was in the low 2:05.x's, turned in 2:04.7-8 for the first 3 reps and 2:04.4 for the 4th, all @ 25 spm. Felt good, a hard but not killer session, controlled the pace with an eye to spm and at times eased off a little to not overdo it at this stage of the plan. So still some left in the tank at the end, esp since peak hr was well down on last time. This same session is also in week 12 so I'll have the pleasure again soon enough.

I expected it to be tougher, esp since yesterday's session was a fairly hard 9-mile run. The long steady rows, the focus on technique and spm and a structured balanced plan - they seem to be bringing benefits.

[sdr2017]

Rowan, nice interval session.

I did a short warmup strapless and it felt fine. I have done a number of warmups strapless, as Mike suggested.

Today I wanted to play with my s/m

BPP week 7.n
17:46 4000 M 2:13.3 21 s/m
4:21.0 1000 M 2:10.5 23
4:19.0 2000 M 2:09.5 23
4:36.7 3000 M 2:18.3 20
4:29.8 4000 M 2:14.9 20

The first half was at a faster s/m (and faster speed) than I would normally use for an ss workout. It left me breathing hard and I would not have been able to sustain it for the full length. I dropped back to 20 s/m and took it easy to regain my breath, and then added a little speed to the last quartile. It gave me a better feeling for s/m rates and a bit faster pacing than I have been using on my ss workouts. My back felt fine. The faster s/m takes it out of me a shows that a major limitation for me is aerobic capacity, which is no surprise given my recent history.

[Gaucho1]

All of you - thank´s for positive feedback
riboyles - Tried the long warming up you described. Getting better is getting harder:

Time Meters /500m Watts Cal/Hr s/m HR
1:35.8 500m 1:35.8 398 1668 35 159
0:19.0 100m 1:35.0 408 1702 38 142
0:18.6 200m 1:33.0 435 1795 35 159
0:19.0 300m 1:35.0 408 1702 35 166
0:19.3 400m 1:36.5 389 1637 37 169
0:19.9 500m 1:39.5 355 1520 33 163

The last 100 was hard. But all in all I could win 0.9 seconds.
Best regards,
Dietmar

[ChasinElk]

Thanks for the kind words fellas

Dietmar awesome 500!!!

So planning a 2k test for next week after that been thinking of changing my training. I'm thinking of getting in more meters for 6 to 12 weeks then come back to PP

Option 1 wolverine plan
1 level 1 workout
1 level 2 workout
2 level 3 workouts
2 level 4 workouts
Plus 3 days weight training

Option 2
6 days of SS rowing building to 15 to 20 km sessions
No speed or endurance type work
Plus 3 days weight training

Comments ( for or against) greatly appreciated

[Rowan McSheen]

I wish I could comment on the Wolverine plan ... other than it seems harder to figure out than to actually do

[sdr2017]

HR monitor fail--it was erratic, probably because I was wearing it too high.

Week 8.1
39.08 8500 M 2:18.1 19 s/m
7:49 1700 M 2:18.2 19
7:49 3400 M 2:17.9 19
7:51 5100 M 2:18.7 19
7:49 6800 M 2:18.1 19
7:47 8500 M 2:17.5 19

I am more consistent when I do not play games with the HR monitor. It was a nice row.

[Aks]

Hi there,

I am restarting he BPP after being ill for several months. I had never had Flu before and WOW did that ruin my life. The comeback is so slow. 5k has never felt so far away. Looking for support

Anne

[mdpfirrman]

I'm going to have a hard time catching up with everyone!

@ Anne - Welcome! Just take it easy to start. I don't get sick that much but this year I've had the flu twice, strep throat and a bacterial infection! I just started back rowing today after a 10 day break! It's hard coming back but just ease into it.

@ Dietmar - you're a strong man! Nice work on the 500m and the other work!

@ Elk - You're a beast! The Elk have no chance against you! As for the Wolverine, I can't really comment as I've only cherry picked parts of it in the past. The issue I see with your idea is that if you're going to do the Wolverine, try to do it more like the plan is written. Phase 1, 2 and 3 are all hard work (Phase 4 is hard on the strength per pull, but it doesn't have to be a brutal workout if you slow the SPM down enough). If I were you (with those amount of workouts), I'd probably opt for only 1 workout of Phases 1, 2 and 3 (not two of phase 3) and 3 workouts of the Phase 4. That's nearly the letter and intent of the plan. It's a hard plan. As for the SS meter idea, that's up to you too. If you were to do that, just mix in one day of short intervals, one day of intermediate intervals and one AT day (just shorten them -- doesn't have to be exactly like the PP). Do SS on alternate days.

@ Scott - glad you're back to it! Keep doing that W/U and C/D unstrapped.

Just did my first SS row in 10 days (or any row in 10 days). Did 35 minutes @ 2:20. Pace was a bit quicker but I took 3 towel off breaks. Also did 20 minutes on Stairmaster and a lighter lift. Going to be really sore tomorrow. I hate getting back to lifting after nearly a 2 week break.

[rlboyles]

Dietmar - you look like you were faster on all but the last split - which makes sense - you know more about how you felt, but I'm betting your body probably wasn't used to going out so hard. From my experience, if you keep going out hard like that you will get used to it and then you'll be able to go faster all the way thru.

Today I did a 5000m test. Did 18:36 (33 to 34 spm average till last 600 m at 37 spm). This was better than the 18:52 I did 2 weeks ago, and the 19:07 I did a month ago. It was largely mind over matter. I knew in my mind that 1:52 average pace was relatively slow compared to some of the sprint work, so I put it in my mind to never let the average pace get above 1:51.8 and then hold on and grind it out.

Since starting the Pete Plan (I''m on 2nd 3 week cycle), I've tried to do a 5000m test every other weekend. On the alternating weekends I've done a sprint pyramid workout that I kinda got online and kinda made up --- (note all numbers are the number of pulls): 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 40, 30, 20, 15 pulls ---- where I rest between each set of pulls until my HR gets below 120 BPM then I go again...

I have come to believe in this sprint pyramid because even with the Pete Plan you rarely do full on sprints at high spm, which I believe I need for a full 2000m test. By doing the sprint pyramid, I work the high end of the spm and high speed range.

But then every other weekend like I said, I do a 5000m test to see how my endurance is coming along.

[ChasinElk]

Thanks mike the body bounces back fairly quick from short breaks

I was under the impression the level 3 workouts were SS type rows and the level 4 were very pace specific lower spm?

[hepting]

Anne - good to virtually meet you - welcome back, always hard to come back after being sick - agree with all that say ease back in... you will be surprised how quickly you improve even after months off... if you are feeling better there is not better time than now to get back in the saddle!

rlboyles - Great 5k! Those are huge leaps in the last month.

mpfirrman - welcome back! 35 minutes is a long row to start back with... nice job.

I finished BPP week 10 tonight

8k - 31:14.8 1:57.1/avg I used RowPro and "raced" my 8k from a week ago. First time I actually felt like a real race - I started and held about a half length lead for the first 3k, then fell behind by almost a length at one point. I got a little pissed off and battled back the last 500 and "won" by .8 seconds. I am pushing up against a bit of a wall right now on these longer pieces.

I am on the road for the beginning of this week so will not be back for a few days. My first 10k in many many years to look forward to.......

[mdpfirrman]

Thanks mike the body bounces back fairly quick from short breaks

I was under the impression the level 3 workouts were SS type rows and the level 4 were very pace specific lower spm?

I'm certainly not a Wolverine expert. Quite frankly, the PP (by a lot of people) is seen as a dummied down version of Wolverine. Quantified Rowing is a site that Greg Smith (a frequent contributor to the C2 forums) put together. He has accumulated a LOT of material on the Wolverine plan on that site. All that I could find on Phase 3 is that it's supposed to be 85 to 90% of max 2K effort. That's like the TT day to me on the full PP or an AT row. Phase 4 is supposed to be "generally" 80 to 90% of max 2K effort. The lower the SPM on the Phase 4, it's possible to have the effort more like 70% of max effort (at 18 SPM for instance). The main difference between the plans is Wolverine never allows compromise on the power per stroke on the Phase 4 part of the plan. PP replaces Phase 4 with a MUCH more liberal 3 SS days. Wolverine is discipline to the extreme. Phase 4 is a thing (in my opinion) of beauty, but many people don't have the patience for it (I certainly don't). Where I think the PP is meant to be a sharpening tool, the beauty about the Wolverine Plan is it can be an entire rowing season plan by gradually building the intensity of the Phase 4 rows. Most that try Wolverine go way ahead of themselves on the Phase 4 rows. I usually don't like to talk about Wolverine because there's been some (on here including me) that have been personally chastised about being wrong on the interpretation by "the man" himself. I would like to believe after 3 years of rowing that I understand it better now than I used to (but that's up for debate). Your question might be better to ask others with more experience than me (on perhaps a separate thread). I think there's advantages to keeping speed work (even if not as much as PP) throughout the year. I do like your idea of doing 12 weeks or so with more meters. I'm planning on doing the same. More of a base meter phase (which Phase 4 of the Wolverine is their "base meters") is always a fantastic idea to build up a fantastic aerobic engine. I think it should include one longer day (an hour or longer) per week. I think personally that a day where I do a 90 minute or so row would help me tremendously.

[Street]

Well after three weeks off I was back in the saddle this morning to start another cycle. I managed to get hit with sinusitis and a chest infection with a trip to Amsterdam in the middle. I'm still not feeling perfect but was feeling good enough and I'm not coughing anywhere near as badly so I thought it was time to get back on it. I've been going stir crazy at not exercising for a few weeks!

PP 1.1 8x500m/3'30 rest
14:13.2 / 4,000m / 1:46.6 / 28
1:47.8 / 500m / 1:47.8 / 28
1:47.3 / 500m / 1:47.3 / 28
1:46.8 / 500m / 1:46.8 / 28
1:46.7 / 500m / 1:46.7 / 28
1:46.6 / 500m / 1:46.6 / 28
1:46.6 / 500m / 1:46.6 / 28
1:46.4 / 500m / 1:46.4 / 28
1:45.1 / 500m / 1:45.1 / 27

I started fairly conservatively and pushed a bit more at the end, didn't want to go all out in case I ended up on the floor having a coughing fit! Feels good to be back on it though.

Hi there,

I am restarting he BPP after being ill for several months. I had never had Flu before and WOW did that ruin my life. The comeback is so slow. 5k has never felt so far away. Looking for support

Anne

I feel your pain.. Having three weeks off was bad enough, let alone several months!