Carla,seat5 wrote:Bob,
Just curious what the goal was (& was that the same as the suggested AT pace?) Stroke rate was nice and steady,the pace variations show it was a struggle, but you went the distance so that is good. I always feel that if I have a crappy workout, it just brings me that much close to the next good one. It's illogical, of course, like pretending that if you do something terribly stupid first thing in the morning you are then home free, having already done your mistake for the day, but it works for me. Probably your next session will be great.
Thanks for asking. My main problem is that I still haven't pinned down what my basic pace should be. I was shooting for <2:10 on the UT1s and <2:14 on the UT2s. This was going fine for several workouts, but they would correspond to an AT pace of 2:02, which is faster than my best 2k time here at altitude. My first ATs were 2x7' on Wednesday last week and my paces were 2:04.9 and 2:05.8. On Friday, my pace for an 8' AT was 2:06.1. On Monday, I did a 5k time trial in place of a 20' UT1 and hit a 2:09.1 pace, just a tenth of a second faster than my fastest UT1.
What it boils down to is that the IP chart shows about an 7-8 second difference in the UT1 and AT paces in this range and my differences are only 2-5 seconds.
I decided yesterday to try a more modest goal for the 2x8' ATs and picked 2:07 (2:06 is skipped on the chart or I would have picked that). On the first piece I succeeded with a tenth of a second to spare, but I was not at all happy that I had to get my HR up into the 150s to do it. On the second one, I fell short by 9 tenths of a second, with my HR in the high 140s ending at 151.
On each piece, I managed to have a final split faster than the others and on the second one, there was a general trend of negative splits. The splits on the first piece were not good. They held steady for the first 5 minutes, then climbed alarmingly for the next two until I was able to work it down back again in the last minute.
A simple, more direct answer to your question is a goal of 2:07 and suggested AT pace of 2:11.5 (interpolated), based on my best 2k time here at altitude, 8:18.5. I have ignored the suggested paces because the UT1 and UT2 paces just seemed to be much too easy: 2:18.5 and 2:23.5 (interpolated). I have never really resolved the problem of translating my best sea level 2k time, 7:54.9, to what I should expect at 4000 ft of altitude.
Bob S.
The final stats looked OK....overall ended with 2:10, averaged 26 SR both days...and had a HR of 183 yesterday and 176 today. But, instead of intervals, I began yesterday's piece thinking I'd do a 4K for the CTC challenge instead...well I began too fast and truly pooped out....which is why the HR is high. Today, was better...both splits were almost identical and HR stayed at 176. But, I did it after an exhausting weight lifting session, so I was pretty wiped out by the end. The crazy thing is that the harder this sport is...the more it intrigues me. 
for week 6 is that I have found a YMCA with many ergs to use when I travel next week. I can stay on schedule.
and call it the TomR plan!
It is way too early for me to be doing this because I haven't got enough base so this felt really awful. I rowed it on a standard erg.