The Pete Plan etc

[RdGkA]

Pete Plan is perfect for the water rower, you always compare the result with your last round.

Oh, my fault! You are on a different PP, I was think on the 2k plan.
But with that plan it is the same but different

[Ian Bee]

Yes - it's a tinkered 5km plan to account for a steady 'long' row on the gym C2 during the weekend instead of the Monday 10km.

[Tako]

Great work Felton! That way you will surely stay at least one seat ahead of me in the C2CTC, probably with Erik in between
I was considering the Pete Plan as well to improve speed, but somehow I got my mind fixed on aiming for a daily average of 7k for the season. Not easy which vacation coming soon.
What would the daily average be when doing the PP? I guess I can add several easy sessions to increase it, but is 7k achievable??

[Caratacus]

I think you could easily do 7k average while doing the Pete Plan. I highly recommend it, or any structured plan really, if you are looking to improve times.

[Tako]

Thanks. So I should give it a try then after my vacation.

[Caratacus]

Speed Pyramid - target 1:40.8 (and 1:41.0 from CTC with rolling starts and less rests)
This hurt a lot, probably went off a little too fast and legs were screaming after the 1k

[Ian Bee]

Week 10: A horrible 10x600m, 30 sec rest set today. Overall, a couple of seconds quicker than my previous round (Week 7), but couldn't match the peak speed. Swings/roundabouts etc...

[Caratacus]

Overall is all that counts, isn't it?

[Ian Bee]

Overall is all that counts, isn't it?

Definitely, and the part of me that has perspective is pleased

[Caratacus]

4x2000m - Target from week 2 - 1:48.0
Very happy with this, particularly going faster in each rep which I didn't manage last time and also increasing the power while lowering the SR.

[Ian Bee]

Most of week 10 now complete - day 1 being displaced by a HM on Sunday morning.

week 10.jpg (30.42 KiB) Viewed 992 times

Quite happy with the 7.5km yesterday as I went out too slowly, so it turned into a good negative split piece. This mornings 1650m set was below target by about 10 seconds overall. Given my legs felt rough after a C2 5km last night for the nonathon, I'm very pleased.

[Caratacus]

Good going Ian
Did a 10k today with a target of around 37:30. Forgot to take a photo but was around 1:52.5 for the 1st 6k with a SR of 24 but had to dial back a couple of clicks for the next 2k and managed to get back to around 1:52.5 for the final 2k. SR in the last 4k was 28. Overall time 37:35.2 and a good marker for future efforts

[Caratacus]

4x1000m, target from last time 1:43.4
Really couldn't hold the pace in the last 2 reps 3 weeks ago so was looking for a much stronger effort today.

[Ian Bee]

Great set.

[Caratacus]

60r20

[Ian Bee]

Nicely done.

Today was Week 11 - 6x1km, 1R:

00:03:37 00:03:38 00:03:39 00:03:38 00:03:39 00:03:40

An improvement over the Week 9 set (an average of low 1:49s this time, down from the low 50s).

[Rodger]

With encouragement of my physiotherapist I'm looking for a careful way back into rowing.
I'm considering the PP5k Light. It's only 3 sessions per week, the longest row being only 6600m (4 x 1650m / 4R).

Bottom of the page: https://thepeteplan.wordpress.com/5k-training/

Is there anyone here who has done this particular variation of the PP? If so, what's your experience with it?

[Ian Bee]

Is there anyone here who has done this particular variation of the PP? If so, what's your experience with it?

The schedule I'm following is more or less the light version of the PP (I skip one of the longer distances intended). It suits my purposes well: every session tends to be between 25 and 30 minutes so I can fit them in pre-breakfast. I'm very steadily increasing rates, but the 4R elements do nicely break up the flow of the longer sessions so, while it's pleasantly challenging, I've never felt exhausted through the type of session. The sprinting sessions are awful - 30 seconds of rest doesn't feel like any time at all (with the added fun of trying to scribble times down when on the WR).

If your physio is on board, I'd say there's no reason not to try it.

I'm sure many others will have more in depth thoughts though - good luck.

[Caratacus]

Plan was for the Waterfall today with a target of 1:48.1 but I bookended the session with my first ever go on a skierg. I found this very tough and was sweating buckets. Struggled to crack 10 minutes for the 1st skierg 2k and think I did pretty well to average 1:49.6 for the waterfall afterwards. Did another 2k skierg to finish and got more into the swing of it to hit 9 minutes dead.

[Rodger]

Is there anyone here who has done this particular variation of the PP? If so, what's your experience with it?

The schedule I'm following is more or less the light version of the PP (I skip one of the longer distances intended). It suits my purposes well: every session tends to be between 25 and 30 minutes so I can fit them in pre-breakfast. I'm very steadily increasing rates, but the 4R elements do nicely break up the flow of the longer sessions so, while it's pleasantly challenging, I've never felt exhausted through the type of session. The sprinting sessions are awful - 30 seconds of rest doesn't feel like any time at all (with the added fun of trying to scribble times down when on the WR).

If your physio is on board, I'd say there's no reason not to try it.

I'm sure many others will have more in depth thoughts though - good luck.

Wow, you're on the adapted PP5k for the fourth round in succession now? Close to a full year then? And still improving on your times? Pretty good.
I have good memories of the first time I did the PP5k, at the end of 2013, so I keep coming back to it.

When I was doing the PP5k, I never saw the short interval sessions as sprinting sessions. To me, sprinting sessions are done with high rate. I would try to keep the same (5k) rate through all types of sessions. I think the short-reps-short-rests were about half a second per 500m faster than the long-reps-long rests.

I will probably start the PP5k Lite next week and see how it goes. The start will be dead slow though but that just means more room for improvement.

Edit:
Ian, I notice from your workout sheet, that you treat the 3 x 2k session as a normal long interval session. Is this a deliberate choice of yours?
This is what Pete said about it:

3 x 2k: The 4th type of session changes between a 3 x 2k and a harder distance piece. The 3 x 2k without any explanation would look very similar to the 4min rest rep sessions, and you would pace it accordingly. That is not the idea behind this session, however. This session is a focussed 2k piece, with a fixed warm up and warm down. As such the first and last 2k of the session should be done at the pace of your slower steady distance pieces. The middle 2k is then essentially a sub maximal 2k test. These 2k tests are to gain experience of pacing individual 2k’s, and should be done with a specific plan each time. This could be a pacing plan, such as negative splits, fast – slow – fast, or with a restricted stroke rate, or as a single pace across the entire 2k. They don’t have to be flat out, but should be the fastest workout you do during this 12 week plan.

[Ian Bee]

Edit:
Ian, I notice from your workout sheet, that you treat the 3 x 2k session as a normal long interval session. Is this a deliberate choice of yours?
Because this is what Pete said about it, a long time ago on a forum that no longer exists...

3 x 2k: The 4th type of session changes between a 3 x 2k and a harder distance piece. The 3 x 2k without any explanation would look very similar to the 4min rest rep sessions, and you would pace it accordingly. That is not the idea behind this session, however. This session is a focussed 2k piece, with a fixed warm up and warm down. As such the first and last 2k of the session should be done at the pace of your slower steady distance pieces. The middle 2k is then essentially a sub maximal 2k test. These 2k tests are to gain experience of pacing individual 2k’s, and should be done with a specific plan each time. This could be a pacing plan, such as negative splits, fast – slow – fast, or with a restricted stroke rate, or as a single pace across the entire 2k. They don’t have to be flat out, but should be the fastest workout you do during this 12 week plan.

I'd just read that myself somewhere else - really must read the instructions.... However, even if I had read that, I would probably have still done as I have. I started from a pretty low base (both CV and technique), so over the cycles I have been quite gentle in looking for fractions of seconds here and there over the weeks without really looking for full scale pace. Perhaps on the next round through I'll apply the above logic as it clearly makes sense.

Anyway, because of various CTC attempts recently, I took the 8.5km piece this morning very easily. I don't have a reference time for this distance, but it was similar to my last pace for a 10km and I maintained a rather one sided conversation with the house rabbit during the last 1km: satisfied.

[Rodger]

I couldn't resist starting early - making plans has that effect on me: as soon as the spreadsheet is ready, I want to start filling it.

First up was 8 x 500 m / 1R.
Of course I had no idea of pace, so went by feel. First rep was a 2:02.8 and the overall average pace turned out to be the same. I could say that I judged the pace perfectly, but that would be a lie. Rep 6 was a 2:04.3 that triggered some HD thoughts. Glad I resisted the urge.

Hopefully this is the start of some sort of revival for me.

[Rodger]

Second session of the PP5k Lite: 4 x 1200m / 4R.
The pace was all over the place. I should have done a 5k before starting the plan after such a long time off the rower.
Splits of the 4 reps were: 2:04.6, 2:05.4, 2:04.3 and 2:06.6. That gives an average of 2:05.2.
Much slower than I expected. I hope that's just me having to get used to these intervals again.
At least I have a target for next week now.

[Caratacus]

Great job Rodger. The first cycle of the Pete Plan is always likely to be a little difficult to pace but as you say gives you a target to aim at for next time.

[Rodger]

Cheers Felton!

PP5k Lite week 1 session 3: 3 x 2k / 3R
And another session to be confronted with my bad shape and inability to set a realistic pace goal.
Basically, the first and third reps are meant as warm-up and -down. The middle 2k is supposed to be a sub-optimal 2k TT.
I thought an achievable pace would be to hold 2:00 for the first 1500m and see what's left in the last 500m.
After the first couple of 100's under or around the pace goal, I quickly slipped towards 2:06, 2:08, 2:09 even. Only in the last 100m did I feel safe enough to start a bit of a "sprint".
The end result was 2k in 8:13.6 (@2:03.4 / 30 spm). Retake of this session in three weeks time.

Anyway, that's week 1 done.