Tuesday: 4 x 20′ / 1′ rest L4 (and stroke metrics)

Standard session.

10W * stroke rate as the target power

10 minute blocks

Plan:

Results:  About 0.7 sec fast on pace, and just about right on strokes (+4 for the whole workout)

Workout Summary - media/20161101-131736-sled_2016-11-01T06-47-09ZEDT.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|19719|83:09.0|02:06.5|18.5|144.9|162.0|12.8
W-|19482|80:00.0|02:03.2|18.4|144.8|162.0|13.2
R-|00242|03:09.0|06:30.6|17.1|128.3|162.0|09.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02382|10:00.0|02:05.9|17.0|123.7|138.0|14.0
02|02437|10:00.0|02:03.1|18.4|139.9|145.0|13.2
03|02429|10:00.0|02:03.5|18.4|139.2|145.0|13.2
04|02448|10:00.0|02:02.5|18.7|145.6|149.0|13.1
05|02447|10:00.0|02:02.6|18.8|146.0|153.0|13.0
06|02451|10:00.0|02:02.4|18.9|152.5|156.0|13.0
07|02448|10:00.0|02:02.6|18.9|153.4|159.0|13.0
08|02439|10:00.0|02:03.0|18.5|158.4|162.0|13.2

In terms of effort, it felt great through the first 40 minutes, but when I added in the little 2 minute chunks at 200W, it seemed to really bury me.  My HR climbed pretty hard in the last 30 minutes of the workout.  This is a bit harder than I want to be working in these sessions.  Next time, I will go back to just alternating 18s and 19s.

Since I have the enormous power of rowsandall.com at my finger tips, I decidedto do a bit deeper analysis of the row.  This was an L4 workout so the power and stroke rate is closely prescribed.  Here’s a view of the power versus strokes rate.

You can see that even though my averages were about right, that there is considerable variation in the power from stroke to stroke.  I wonder if greater consistency in applied power at each stroke rate would be a sign of better efficiency?

Here’s a view of Drive Length versus stroke rate.

I would have thought that drive length would increase at lower stroke rates, but that is NOT what happened.  You can see that my stroke actually gets shorter as the stroke rate decreases.  I am also surprised at the variation from stroke to stroke, nearly 10 cm difference.  Maybe a more repeatable stroke would be more efficient?

Now a look at peak and average force

I haven’t really sorted this one out.  There is definitely a negative correlation between peak force and stroke rate, and a less pronounce relationship with average force.  The spread is the thing that has me fascinated.

Finally, work per stroke.  Basically “SPI”.  This by the design of the workout should be pretty flat.

And it is.  The interesting thing to me on this plot is that my consistency gets better as the rate increases.

I posted these for three reasons.

1.  It’s the beginning of erg season and I need a new way to keep myself entertained.
2. I would like to find ways to get faster that I have not yet explored
3. I would like to capture a baseline for the beginning of the season.  Then in March, I can do this same workout and compare the graphs at the end of the season.

This afternoon, I am flying off to San Diego.  Tomorrow will be a fitness center session, then another endurance session on Thursday morning after I get off the red eye.

Hopefully during the flight today I can figure out what my next objectives are and begin to lay down a training plan.