Wolverine Plan Discussion

[[old] mpukita]

<!--QuoteBegin-dgivnish+Jan 23 2006, 10:11 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(dgivnish @ Jan 23 2006, 10:11 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Great - thanks for the thread.  I'll try it tomorrow morning.<br /><br />DaveG <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />Good luck with it!

[[old] mpukita]

LEVEL 2 ... this morning ... last all out L1 or L2 workout before race on Sunday ...<br /><br />Most pleased with the results ... after a 21K day yesterday (Not a HM - 10K/5K/2K/2K/2K) but a great night's sleep ...<br /><br />3000/2500/2000 with 1500M recovery rows in between ... 1K w/u; 1K c/d (not Mike's recommendation, but what I can do due to time constraints).<br /><br />TARGET DISTANCED AVERAGED PACE: 2:00.75<br />ACTUAL: 1:59.79 <br /><br />All negative splits ...<br />Some gas left in the tank (but not much!) ...<br />Improvement since last execution: -1.44 seconds ...<br />Felt controlled but with effort ...<br /><br /><i>NOTE TO GEORGE: Your PM to me might have been right; might have to see how I feel with 500M to go and quickly recalibrate expections in real time!</i>

[[old] tennstrike]

<!--QuoteBegin-mpukita+Jan 25 2006, 09:46 AM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(mpukita @ Jan 25 2006, 09:46 AM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->LEVEL 2 ... this morning ... last all out L1 or L2 workout before race on Sunday ...<br /><br />Most pleased with the results ... after a 21K day yesterday (Not a HM - 10K/5K/2K/2K/2K) but a great night's sleep ...<br /><br />3000/2500/2000 with 1500M recovery rows in between ... 1K w/u; 1K c/d (not Mike's recommendation, but what I can do due to time constraints).<br /><br />TARGET DISTANCED AVERAGED PACE:  2:00.75<br />ACTUAL:  1:59.79 <br /><br />All negative splits ...<br />Some gas left in the tank (but not much!) ...<br />Improvement since last execution:  -1.44 seconds ...<br />Felt controlled but with effort ...<br /><br /><i>NOTE TO GEORGE:  Your PM to me might have been right; might have to see how I feel with 500M to go and quickly recalibrate expections in real time!</i> <br /> </td></tr></table><br /> <br /><span style='color:blue'><span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Good Luck Mark !</span></span><br /><br />I'm off this Saturday on a six day golf trip so I don't know if I'll see your results, but post them somewhere. I've found Mike's input on racing the 2K to work really well. Establish a goal as GP (maybe 1:50 or 1:51), GP+1 until 1200 left, GP until 600 left, GP-1 to 200 left then GP-2 (whatever is in the tank) to finish.<br /><br />Jeff

[[old] mpukita]

<!--QuoteBegin-tennstrike+Jan 25 2006, 01:00 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(tennstrike @ Jan 25 2006, 01:00 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I'm off this Saturday on a six day golf trip so I don't know if I'll see your results, but post them somewhere. I've found Mike's input on racing the 2K to work really well. Establish a goal as GP (maybe 1:50 or 1:51), GP+1 until 1200 left, GP until 600 left, GP-1 to 200 left then GP-2 (whatever is in the tank) to finish.<br /><br />Jeff <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />Thanks Jeff, and hit 'em straight when on the course.<br /><br />I have a race plan put together ... conservative, and a little more even-paced than +1, 0, -1, -2 ... more like +.2, 0, -.2, -.4 ... I won't go into the reasons because they're all mental from my last (pretty much an aborted attempt at a PB) in a RowPro race after too much red wine the evening before. If I have gas left in the tank at 500M, my cox (my daughter, who loves to deliver pain to her "boys" when in her boats -- 4's & 8's) and I have a plan to do some real-time adjustments. <br /><br />Of course, first time, the entire thing will likely go to pieces and it will be one giant mess of flailing arms, gasping for breathe, clanging chain (oh yeah), forget the monitor, just row! ... you get the picture ... not pretty.<br /><br />I'll post and let you know how it went ... have a good trip. To where are you off?<br /><br />

[[old] tennstrike]

<!--QuoteBegin-mpukita+Jan 25 2006, 02:03 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(mpukita @ Jan 25 2006, 02:03 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin-tennstrike+Jan 25 2006, 01:00 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(tennstrike @ Jan 25 2006, 01:00 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I'm off this Saturday on a six day golf trip so I don't know if I'll see your results, but post them somewhere. I've found Mike's input on racing the 2K to work really well. Establish a goal as GP (maybe 1:50 or 1:51), GP+1 until 1200 left, GP until 600 left, GP-1 to 200 left then GP-2 (whatever is in the tank) to finish.<br /><br />Jeff <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />Thanks Jeff, and hit 'em straight when on the course.<br /><br />I have a race plan put together ... conservative, and a little more even-paced than +1, 0, -1, -2 ... more like +.2, 0, -.2, -.4 ... I won't go into the reasons because they're all mental from my last (pretty much an aborted attempt at a PB) in a RowPro race after too much red wine the evening before. If I have gas left in the tank at 500M, my cox (my daughter, who loves to deliver pain to her "boys" when in her boats -- 4's & 8's) and I have a plan to do some real-time adjustments. <br /><br />Of course, first time, the entire thing will likely go to pieces and it will be one giant mess of flailing arms, gasping for breathe, clanging chain (oh yeah), forget the monitor, just row! ... you get the picture ... not pretty.<br /><br />I'll post and let you know how it went ... have a good trip. To where are you off? <br /> </td></tr></table><br />Mark:<br />Off to Arizona, near Dwayne but a little north. Hit a new PB tonight in 10K. Last attempt was early November. Bettered the old time by over 1:13. Again, good luck. Don't know how you hold the .2 stuff.<br /><br />Jeff

[[old] mpukita]

<!--QuoteBegin-tennstrike+Jan 25 2006, 10:00 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(tennstrike @ Jan 25 2006, 10:00 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin-mpukita+Jan 25 2006, 02:03 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(mpukita @ Jan 25 2006, 02:03 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin-tennstrike+Jan 25 2006, 01:00 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(tennstrike @ Jan 25 2006, 01:00 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I'm off this Saturday on a six day golf trip so I don't know if I'll see your results, but post them somewhere. I've found Mike's input on racing the 2K to work really well. Establish a goal as GP (maybe 1:50 or 1:51), GP+1 until 1200 left, GP until 600 left, GP-1 to 200 left then GP-2 (whatever is in the tank) to finish.<br /><br />Jeff <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />Thanks Jeff, and hit 'em straight when on the course.<br /><br />I have a race plan put together ... conservative, and a little more even-paced than +1, 0, -1, -2 ... more like +.2, 0, -.2, -.4 ... I won't go into the reasons because they're all mental from my last (pretty much an aborted attempt at a PB) in a RowPro race after too much red wine the evening before. If I have gas left in the tank at 500M, my cox (my daughter, who loves to deliver pain to her "boys" when in her boats -- 4's & 8's) and I have a plan to do some real-time adjustments. <br /><br />Of course, first time, the entire thing will likely go to pieces and it will be one giant mess of flailing arms, gasping for breathe, clanging chain (oh yeah), forget the monitor, just row! ... you get the picture ... not pretty.<br /><br />I'll post and let you know how it went ... have a good trip. To where are you off? <br /> </td></tr></table><br />Mark:<br />Off to Arizona, near Dwayne but a little north. Hit a new PB tonight in 10K. Last attempt was early November. Bettered the old time by over 1:13. Again, good luck. Don't know how you hold the .2 stuff.<br /><br />Jeff <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />It's simple ... just watch the monitor ... actually, it's all about having a cox who can guide you every 100M to 200M. Gosh, I hope she's good in math! (She is, honors math, thank goodness!)

[[old] nharrigan]

First off, I think this plan and all the thoughtful commentary by Mike are great. I've been following it since Thankgiving and I am very close (1s) to beating my PB from college. <br /><br />I have a question about workout paces and what pace one should aim for in the 2k. <br /><br />Mike wrote that to achieve a 6:24 he would need to be able to do L1 4x1k in the low 1:35s and the 4x2k in at 1:40 or better. I have just reread this. Is this power range between workouts and 2k normal for most athletes? <br /><br />I recently did a 2k test and my time was quite a bit better than it would have been if I used the workout predictors. My 2k average was .5s faster than my 4x1k. I think in Mike's description it was about 1s slower. <br /><br />Am I not doing the L1 and L2 hard enough? Or is the standard deviation (between predictor workouts and actual 2k times) fairly large? My workout times have continued to improve and I am trying to figure out an effective race strategy for the crash-bs.<br /><br />Thanks for the input. <br /><br />Neil

[[old] mpukita]

<!--QuoteBegin-nharrigan+Jan 28 2006, 01:48 AM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(nharrigan @ Jan 28 2006, 01:48 AM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->First off, I think this plan and all the thoughtful commentary by Mike are great.  I've been following it since Thankgiving and I am very close (1s) to beating my PB from college. <br /><br />I have a question about workout paces and what pace one should aim for in the 2k.  <br /><br />Mike wrote that to achieve a 6:24 he would need to be able to do L1 4x1k in the low 1:35s and the 4x2k in at 1:40 or better.  I have just reread this.  Is this power range between workouts and 2k normal for most athletes?  <br /><br />I recently did a 2k test and my time was quite a bit better than it would have been if I used the workout predictors.  My 2k average was .5s faster than my 4x1k.  I think in Mike's description it was about 1s slower.  <br /><br />Am I not doing the L1 and L2 hard enough? Or is the standard deviation (between predictor workouts and actual 2k times) fairly large?  My workout times have continued to improve and I am trying to figure out an effective race strategy for the crash-bs.<br /><br />Thanks for the input. <br /><br />Neil <br /> </td></tr></table><br />Neil:<br /><br />I have exactly the same questions.<br /><br />My best 2K to-date is 7:26.1 or 1:51.5.<br /><br />My fastest 8x500 = 1:49.1 or RP -2.4<br />My fastest 4x1000 = 1:53.1 or RP +1.6<br />My fastest 4x2000 = 1:58.1 or RP +6.6<br /><br />(if my addition/subtraction is correct)<br /><br />From my reading ...<br /><br />... the 4x2000 should be RP +4<br />... the 4x1000 at RP -1<br />... the 8x500 at RP -1 or MORE<br /><br />So my times here appear to be out of whack ... and I'd like to think I can improve the 7:26.1 right now (or at least tomorrow). I've just rationalized that I haven't done enough of these, taking the baby steps improvements Mike recommends, to get to "the limit" ... and thus I have some work to do on the L1s and L2s that are still "out of whack". I feel that I'm now close with the 8x500M, but the rest need more work (i.e. could be done faster).<br /><br />I'd be interested in your thoughts on this, and updates in the future as you do them more and improve your times.<br /><br />Thanks -- Mark

[[old] ragiarn]

Recovering from back spasms- the past month has been a disaster for my training program. First I came down with a virus which affected my training for about a week. I no sooner got back into the rhythm of training when a pulled a muscle in my thoracic area during a all 1000 m time trial. I recovered from that and was getting back into my training agian when an ice storm hit our region and I strained my low back trying to clear the ice from my drive and sidewalks. (I should have made my wife clean to snow). The back spasms stopped me in my tracks for another 10-12 days. This was the first time I have been able to string together 6 consecutive training days.<br /> <br />After physical therapy my back is back to normal. I feel that my power and strength are back to normal but my endurance is shot. <br /><br />This all started after I booked a room in Boston for the Crash-B race in February. I have been debating whether I should cancel the trip but I have decided to go anyway. I didn’t break any records last year and won’t break any this year either. The race just gives me a goal to train for.<br /><br />My plan is to beat my own record which should be easy if I can regain my endurance somewhat. Besides I just turned 65 so am going into an older category. Maybe I can find a 69 year old I can beat this year. <br /><br />The next 4 weeks are not going to be easy. My goal for this week was to work on my endurance with lots of Level 4 work before trying to tackle the other levels. I tackled a few 500 m sprints this am and was pleased that the power is still there and my back is holding out. The endurance is improving somewhat. I plan to do another workout today- L4.<br /><br /> After the Crash-B race I will begin to get ready for the biking season. This year I hope to be able to get back into bicycle racing <br /><br />Ralph Giarnella MD <br />Southington, CT

[[old] mpukita]

Ralph:<br /><br />Sounds like a rough month. We all hope you're healing fast and get some good training in to prepare for the CRASH-B event. Showing up and giving the best you've got on that day is what it's all about. We'll cheer you on regardless of performance on that day. Just take care with training ... please don't reinjure yourself and make things worse!<br /><br />Regards -- Mark

[[old] ragiarn]

<!--QuoteBegin-mpukita+Jan 28 2006, 12:42 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(mpukita @ Jan 28 2006, 12:42 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Ralph:<br /><br />Sounds like a rough month.  We all hope you're healing fast and get some good training in to prepare for the CRASH-B event.  Showing up and giving the best you've got on that day is what it's all about.  We'll cheer you on regardless of performance on that day.  Just take care with training ... please don't reinjure yourself and make things worse!<br /><br />Regards -- Mark <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />I can assure you that I am being very cautious. I am taking <b> Baby steps in my recuperation</b> - I am making sure that I stop before becoming exhausted. Injuries are more likely to occur towards the end of exercise if attempts are made to push the limit while exhaused. <br /><br />Ralph Giarnella MD <br />Southington, CT

[[old] nharrigan]

Mark-<br /><br />Good luck in your 2k. <br /><br />I think that the relationship between predictor workouts and 2k pace is not constant. Maybe as one gets more and more fit, the relationship approaches that Mike described. I'm only doing 5 erg workouts a week, so I may never get to that level.<br /><br />My last 4x1k average pace was just at my 2k pace. 1:37.5.<br />My stroke rating on the L1 stuff may be part of the problem. I'm usually around 30, so I'm going to start pushing up the rating. I've got an 8x500 on Monday, so I'll see how that goes with the higher ratings.<br /><br />Ralph- Hope you have a speedy return to form. <br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />Neil

[[old] mpukita]

Thanks for the help Mike ... my first race, a new PB (7:23.3 from 7:26.1) ... and first place in the LW "old guys" group -- they grouped Masters, Veterans, Seniors, etc. together.<br /><br />Thanks to all the WP devotees for the great exchange of information and personal experiences with the Plan. It's a big help.

[[old] FrancoisA]

<!--QuoteBegin-mpukita+Jan 29 2006, 09:21 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(mpukita @ Jan 29 2006, 09:21 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Thanks for the help Mike ... my first race, a new PB (7:23.3 from 7:26.1) ... and first place in the LW "old guys" group -- they grouped Masters, Veterans, Seniors, etc. together.<br /><br />Thanks to all the WP devotees for the great exchange of information and personal experiences with the Plan.  It's a big help. <br /> </td></tr></table><br />Congratulations Mark!<br /><br />We are not that old by the way; there is life after 47! <br /><br />I have noticed that your 500m is within 0.1 sec of mine, so to go under 7 min on the 2 k, all you have to do is work on your endurance. Those L3 and L4 workouts will do just that.<br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />Francois

[[old] mpukita]

<!--QuoteBegin-FrancoisA+Jan 29 2006, 06:19 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(FrancoisA @ Jan 29 2006, 06:19 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin-mpukita+Jan 29 2006, 09:21 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(mpukita @ Jan 29 2006, 09:21 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Thanks for the help Mike ... my first race, a new PB (7:23.3 from 7:26.1) ... and first place in the LW "old guys" group -- they grouped Masters, Veterans, Seniors, etc. together.<br /><br />Thanks to all the WP devotees for the great exchange of information and personal experiences with the Plan.  It's a big help. <br /> </td></tr></table><br />Congratulations Mark!<br /><br />We are not that old by the way; there is life after 47! <br /><br />I have noticed that your 500m is within 0.1 sec of mine, so to go under 7 min on the 2 k, all you have to do is work on your endurance. Those L3 and L4 workouts will do just that.<br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />Francois <br /> </td></tr></table><br />Yes, Francois, I was thinking the same thing on my drive home ... in preparation for my next race on February 25th ... lots of focused L3s and L4s ... especially longer and faster L3s ... my sense is that I've been doing them too slowly and they should be longer.<br /><br />I also want to get the weight down to 162/163 and keep it there. I do not want to do the last minute weight loss thing again ... it's not the way to plan.