Pete Plan Thread

[RowerGal]

Thatta way, Mike! Great news. Great confidence-builder for your race. You should be very happy about it. With a little taper/rest day there is definitely more to be had. Look at us 53 year olds go!

I don't think 28 is too bad of a stroke rate. For me, that is my natural rate for a 2KTT ATM. It is not something I work a whole lot on, but down the road I would also like to see what happens around a 30ish SR on a 2K. I love the irony that you don't believe you do best on TT's at home or in gyms - and I am the exact opposite. My 5K PB is from last year (basement ). I did a couple of 5K TTs in December this year. My best was around Christmas (baaaad timing) and after having 10 days off erging for some oral surgery during the month. The best I got was a 21:35. So, yeah, it may be soft now. My 500m TT is even older and I think that one can be improved too as I do tend to have a sprint bias. You have given me some food for thought ....

[Erik A]

Been off the erg since Monday away on holiday. Going to restart BPP on Monday but will be in at the gym for a session tomorrow.

[mdpfirrman]

@ Dietmar/RowerGal - thanks for the kind words! RowerGal, if that 500m is soft, you are very strong at 145 #s! 28 SPM is decent for me, too, but I'd like to get it to 30+. I was really, really stubborn for a long time working at too high of a DF (I think) for me. When tired, I like to resort to longer, more powerful strokes where a higher DF can assist you. The problem is, that wears you down too fast. You crash at the end. Shorter, faster strokes are better in my mind, now, that I've done both. Glenn, Jack and some others (Henry) convinced me of that this year. I thank them for that. Part of what I did this year was work a lot of short, fast stuff. That helped me rate up a bit. Rod pointed out that my DF was probably too high (and it was it turned out). I'm semi strong for my age/height/weight, but not like some of these guys that are 6 foot something and 220/230! I can't race @ 115/120 DF! Right now, around 105 or so is my "sweet spot".

@ Dreadfish - hope you enjoyed the time off. Looking forward to seeing your times next week.

[jbhop5857]

Good Day,

Cycle 5/ Week 1/ Day 4

17k Steady State with 23spm @2:06/500

Felt pretty good. A bit tuckered at the end, but this is suppose to be a recovery day, right? haha

Figuring out what to do with Steady State after the Pete Plan has my brain fried. I can't seem to grasp how moving to a different training plan would do me any good. Pete Plan has two days of intervals, a longer speed day, and three steady state days. If you make one of those a long push, then don't you pretty much have a perfect year round training plan? I get that decreasing the sprints every 3 weeks can catch up to you, but isn't that the idea? I feel like until you really, really hit a wall, it isn't any harder than any other training plan that is effective. Especially if you pay attention to your body and back off the speed or distance of the steady state stuff when you need to. Thoughts would be appreciated.....

Have a good day

David

[OtwSL]

Great job Mike! Good to see you back on form and really testing what you can do!
David, I have no idea. Best for someone like Henry to step in on this one! In my opinion you're doing great on the Pete plan, and until you hit a wall I don't see any reason for you to back off.

[JerekKruger]

@David - your recent 2k was at an average pace of 1:43.5 I think. Based on that, I'd say that if you want to push the 8x500m a bit beyond Pete's suggested instructions you might try going for a 1:41.5 pace for the first 5-7 intervals and, depending on how you feel, go up the pace through the final 1-3. This is based off Pete's suggestion that this workout is about 3s faster than your 2km pace, although I went with 2s faster because (a) Pete's suggestion is only meant as a very rough guideline and (b) you'll bring your overall average down with the faster final reps anyway.

That said, if you decided to go with a 1:42.3 average that would be fine. The actually training difference isn't going to be all that much. In particular I'd suggest not pushing your final Pyramid and 4x1000m sessions before Crash-Bs too much as you don't want to risk burning yourself out too close to the race. Save that for race day itself

EDIT: I'm an idiot. For some reason I thought you were asking about wondering about how hard to push your interval sessions

[mdpfirrman]

Thanks Scott! I appreciate it!

@ David - You seem to be a bit Teflon, so to speak, than most people. Perhaps it's because your age, maybe you did a lot of cardio when you were younger?? I don't know the reason, but normally, people don't handle the rigors of the Pete Plan year around well. Most end up breaking down or getting sick. Especially over 50! One year, we had like 8 to 10 of us start at the same time and within a month we were all dropping like flies!

I can only handle a couple rounds of it. You've already proven you can handle multiple rounds of it no problem (and still improve). I'd say work on more meters but you're already doing a lot!

What I did was more meters this year. Training plans don't have to be that complicated. Most of the research tells us a couple things. 80/20 training works fantastic, you need to do AT (hard longish row) and a speed row around every 10 days. You build cardio by doing a lot of meters at least 12 weeks to gain ground (remember people telling you that you didn't have 12 to 16 weeks?). Basing a year round plan off the PP isn't a bad idea. I've tried it. It wasn't bad but I got lazy on the intermediate interval days (which I planned on skipping) but was going to do one AT workout a week. Well, that didn't happen. My training times have suffered because of it. I'm confident that if I had done more harder AT rows, I'd probably be sub 7:10 or at the very least sub 7:15 now.

Perhaps less intervals at a higher intensity and one less hard day (like alternating the intermediate intervals and a hard 10K or something similar). I think that's the easiest way to modify it and not end up flaming out. Adding in more lifting too. Very hard to gain strength while doing the PP.

Get involved with a virtual "club" on the VTC (Virtual Team Challenges). Any team would be ecstatic to have you. I joined one recently and did my first half marathon ever in November. Some of these rowers are insane. Make my stuff look like cupcake work!

[hjs]

Good Day,

Cycle 5/ Week 1/ Day 4

17k Steady State with 23spm @2:06/500

Felt pretty good. A bit tuckered at the end, but this is suppose to be a recovery day, right? haha

Figuring out what to do with Steady State after the Pete Plan has my brain fried. I can't seem to grasp how moving to a different training plan would do me any good. Pete Plan has two days of intervals, a longer speed day, and three steady state days. If you make one of those a long push, then don't you pretty much have a perfect year round training plan? I get that decreasing the sprints every 3 weeks can catch up to you, but isn't that the idea? I feel like until you really, really hit a wall, it isn't any harder than any other training plan that is effective. Especially if you pay attention to your body and back off the speed or distance of the steady state stuff when you need to. Thoughts would be appreciated.....

Have a good day

David

David you are not burned out, you still improve rapidly and B seem to be well motivated so no reason to change anything. In the longer you should build more aerobic fitness, relative speaking you are stronger than fitter.
But first do you races, worry about the rest after. Focus! on you races now.

[RowerGal]

Figuring out what to do with Steady State after the Pete Plan has my brain fried. I can't seem to grasp how moving to a different training plan would do me any good. Pete Plan has two days of intervals, a longer speed day, and three steady state days. If you make one of those a long push, then don't you pretty much have a perfect year round training plan? I get that decreasing the sprints every 3 weeks can catch up to you, but isn't that the idea? I feel like until you really, really hit a wall, it isn't any harder than any other training plan that is effective. Especially if you pay attention to your body and back off the speed or distance of the steady state stuff when you need to. Thoughts would be appreciated.....

Have a good day

David

@David - I will give you my thoughts. Take what you want and leave the rest....
It looks like you grasp the need to periodize your training down at some point to let your body and mind recover from the training this season. That is good. The "how" and for "how long" are going to be individualized for everyone. We do know that consistent erging year round will make you a stronger rower. So with that in mind, this is what I did last year: I was fried by the end of the racing season in February. I only did 3 races, but they were all poor performances so I was already burning out. So after my races, I took several days off. After that, I knew I needed the structure of a plan to follow, but I wanted to let go of the NEED/PRESSURE/OBSESSION (all produced by me ...) to do the sessions on a particular timeline. So I kept the plan I was on. But, I rowed on days I wanted to, did some other things on the other days in between like cycling, boot camps, hiking, weights, did other rowing challenges, etc. and took multiple days off - including a 7 day no-ergs-available vacation. My 6-day a week plan sometimes took 2 weeks to complete, but that was ok, because in my head, I was still 'on a rowing plan' and it was working for me. I did pad some of the "goal" times but not by a lot (a few secs). I adjusted the goal times based on my intention for rowing totally on how I felt THAT DAY. I did this through July. Then in August I felt "ready" to start focused training for my season (the previous season I had started focused training in April). I started on the 5K PP (I didn't know it existed before this time) in August and did about 5 weeks of it. I liked the idea of doing longer rows and getting started on a "base". I never did the BPP. I started the Full PP in September ... and here I am. With a 2K PR to boot already! I will end my season this year on March 1 and probably repeat my off-season plan I described above again. Except I will add in longer, slower, SS rows in my off season now that distances over 10K don't blow my mind anymore. I hope to do a HM this Spring. I will probably start the 5K plan a few weeks earlier. I learned a lot from my last season (my first year of serious rowing) as to what didn't work for me, and so far, I like how things are going this season. I seem to be peaking at just the right time. This is what worked for me. I hope some of this is helpful to you.

On another note, I did a steady state row today. If I am feeling it tomorrow, I may try a 5K TT (at Mike's nudging ). If not, perhaps an 8K hard row, since I have not done that distance for a hard row before.

[G-dub]

If I may as one of the recent PPers of the last few years...I think the challenge with continuing is that you will eventually plateau or the strain becomes too great. The systems that the PP train can be trained pretty quickly. The thing that requires time is the big cardio engine. So give it an experiment yourself...keep after it until it stops (if it stops) or you burn out! Report back with your findings! Everyone is different and that is what makes this really fascinating

[jackarabit]

David, if it pleases you to take the contrarian view that lunching with Pete year round is no sweat, go for it. Your appetite for steady state is ginormous so reducing "recovery day" volume and hard distance pace should provide the juice for sustaining pace upticks on the core curriculum after the rest of us have turned belly up. A carefully-kept spreadsheet recording the magnitude of those pace ticks cycle to cycle would make your case. Point is "improvement" can be stretched real thin by intention, as in hitting the numbers such that the increment is only a couple tenths of a second per cycle.

Best advice from Henry: cash in your chips and go race.

[jbhop5857]

Thank you all so much. I will consider everything you have all said. For the meantime, I will be listening to Henry. It is time to shut my mouth, train hard, finishes the races and then move on.

Thank you all again

David

[Cyclingman1]

Thank you all so much. I will consider everything you have all said. For the meantime, I will be listening to Henry. It is time to shut my mouth, train hard, finishes the races and then move on.

Just a few comments from an outside observer and occasional rower. I'm sorry to not know your racing, TT schedule. If such are soon, 10K's and the like are an irrelevancy. You need to row fast and rest.

However, having said that, long term there is no doubt that you lack endurance conditioning. Your PR 5K pace is 10s over your 2K pace and your PR 10K pace is 15s over your 2K. The numbers need to more like 5s and 9s. I don't do plans, so I cannot address Pete's Plan. But I do know that training "effort" is what is rewarded in the end. You cannot get away from doing some harder longer rows. If by SS you mean row slow often, then that is what you will end up with: slow for longer distances and a drag on your 2K performances. Imagine what your 2K times would be if you were an 18:00 5K man? And you should be. You would undoubtedly be sub 6:50. And I don't disagree, the Dutchman has a lot of wisdom. But feel free to figure it out yourself.

[JerekKruger]

Figuring out what to do with Steady State after the Pete Plan has my brain fried. I can't seem to grasp how moving to a different training plan would do me any good. Pete Plan has two days of intervals, a longer speed day, and three steady state days. If you make one of those a long push, then don't you pretty much have a perfect year round training plan? I get that decreasing the sprints every 3 weeks can catch up to you, but isn't that the idea? I feel like until you really, really hit a wall, it isn't any harder than any other training plan that is effective. Especially if you pay attention to your body and back off the speed or distance of the steady state stuff when you need to. Thoughts would be appreciated.....

Right, let's take a crack at answering your actual question

Certainly I agree that you shouldn't make any changes till after your races are done, but I don't think you're planning to anyway. Beyond that it largely depends on what you want from your training.

It seems that you tolerate the Pete Plan well, even with significantly higher volume than it's written with, so quite possibly you could stick with it. You could fiddle around with the workouts if you want a bit of variety: by now you should have a good idea of what the various workouts entail so could substitute things like 5x750m or 7x600m for the speed sessions (there's nothing magic about the ones Pete includes) and similar for the endurance sessions. You could even graduate to the Pete Plan's older brother, the Wolverine Plan (though that requires significantly more planning work on the part of the trainee).

However even if continuing with the Pete Plan is possible, it might not be the best choice for you if progress is your main objective. You might not burn out, but you might find that you stall at some point (perhaps you simply can't make progress past 1:38 on the 8x500m out whatever). This is where it might be a good idea to switch to more of a base building plan. You're already doing pretty long rows, but perhaps you could go a little faster on them if you weren't doing all the harder work that the Pete Plan comes with. If you don't already, you might want to start using a heart rate monitor and figuring out some training zones*. This kind of work is time consuming and, fit many people, boring, but it's what makes up the bulk of most competitive rowers training. After doing this for a few months you could return to a sharpening plan like the Pete Plan and, hopefully, build a lot more speed. However this might be rather dull and since you're not an elite rower you're under no obligation to train this way.

*There's some at to this. You can go with percentages of heart rate reserve (max heart rate - resting heart rate) using something like the Free Spirits calculator, but you have to be working with a measured max (not 220 - age or similar) and even this might not be perfect. Ideally you'd do lactate testing, but this is expensive and not really viable for most people. What I like to do is work off my average heart rate for the last 20 minutes of a 30 minute time trial. This approximates your lactate threshold well and then you train at percentages of this.

[Gaucho1]

Very interesting hints and thoughts for every rower. Thanks!
Today i rowed a TT 6k and I was sure to row a PB
I did the 6k the first time:
time Meters Pace Watts Cal/Hr S/M
23:19.5 6,000m 1:56.6 221 1058 24 159
4:40.4 1,200m 1:56.8 219 1054 26 150
4:40.6 2,400m 1:56.9 219 1053 25 156
4:40.5 3,600m 1:56.8 219 1053 24 161
4:40.4 4,800m 1:56.8 219 1054 24 164
4:37.6 6,000m 1:55.6 226 1077 25 167

5 weeks to go to the 30min race in Starnberg. Last year I had 7611m. I´m wondering what´s possible this year.
Best regards and have a nice weekend.
Dietmar