what training have free spirits been doing today?

[Paul Victory]

Well done Jon. First HM is a big occasion. =D> =D> =D>

[Rodger]

Welcome to the forum, Jon!

[strider77]

Very well done Jon and welcome =D>

[Recess]

I'm kinda adopting the Pete Plan - I say kinda as my training times vary too often to be able to be that rigid. But, today I did the 8 x 500 sprints (and took 1000m rest in between ranging from 2:00 to 2:08).

I hit my race pace for most of them - flagged a bit during the second last sprint (around 1:45) - but then managed to hit 1:36 for most of the last one. Methinks it's all in my head then...

Total = 14k - and I'll add a gentle 7.5k on Rowpro tonight.

John

[Paul Victory]

Today was the most training I've done in a day in over 6 months. I started with a HM for the Crazy Bear challenge at 2:04.0 pace. Then I did 3 minutes for the FB monthly challenge at 1:44.2 pace. I finished of with slightly over 10 minutes cool down at 1:58.7 pace. Total 24,600 meters.

I also took the dog for three walks, totaling just over 4 miles. Doesn't sound like much, but she's getting old and it took close to 2 hours in total with all the stopping and sniffing that she loves to do.

[Shang-Chi]

10k @1:49.8 SB

[cowboygrrl]

Today was the most training I've done in a day in over 6 months.

Great Paul.

Another 3k as I ease back into it. Looking forward to the RP session on Sat. (5k). All welcome.

3000m: 15:56.7

[Paul Victory]

Well done Kellie. Looking forward to our 5k on RowPro at 5 p.m. on Saturday.

[BorisZ]

Ski erg / erg intervals for 17+k today - now we just need snow here in WI! 200k holiday challenge: check. Will try and go for 250k.

[dr3do]

Ski erg / erg intervals for 17+k today

Nice! Watching this technique video, I can imagine that a session on a skierg can be quite hard.

[BorisZ]

Ski erg / erg intervals for 17+k today

Nice! Watching this technique video, I can imagine that a session on a skierg can be quite hard.

Yes it's hard. The ski erg makes me sweat much more. You should try it if you find one! My wife just did a skate ski course and she said that her combo ski erg / erg training allowed her to be pain free after a 3 h uphill-skate drill.

[dr3do]

You should try it if you find one! My wife just did a skate ski course and she said that her combo ski erg / erg allowed her to be pain free after a 3 h uphill-skate drill.

I will, because I'm very curious about it… but they are not very common (only here?), so it will become to give it a try. Even never saw one in a gym here.

[Paul Victory]

I've been doing the FaceBook 31 days of December challenge. I've tried to do a pretty close to full on effort each day, but it's getting harder to do this without having a couple of easy days thrown in.

Today was 19 minutes and my objective was to use this to put in a semi decent 5k time in this month's Indoor Rowers challenge. I managed to do 5147 meters @ 1:50.7 pace (including a 1:40.8 pace final minute) to give me a prorated 5k time of 18:27.4. This is just over 7 seconds outside my SB, so I hope to have a go at improving some of my nonathlon scores in January when I will be able to mix in recovery days and the occasional day off.

[Liefcat]

Very impressive "challenge", Paul

[Paul Victory]

It's funny how much your training can vary from one day to the next. Yesterday, I was in the depths of despair (OK, slight exaggeration ) after falling totally off the pace during my 22 minutes row for the 31 mins of Christmas Facebook challenge and only managing 5803m @ 1:53.7 pace. This was only 169m more than I had done on Sunday in 21 minutes and almost 2 seconds slower per 500m.

Today, I was feeling quite tired getting on the erg, but I managed 6168m, which was 365m more than yesterday and almost 2 seconds faster per 500m. I've no idea why, but I wish I could discover what causes the good days and patent it.

Paul V

[dr3do]

I've no idea why, but I wish I could discover what causes the good days and patent it.

The day by day variation can be quite immense. That's why I track my "recovery status" by HRV… and steer my training mainly by this factor. It works well and saved me from "useless" suffering. =D>

[plummy]

Training today - intervals. First set in ages (again) and after 1 x chest infection, 1 x pull back muscle and still with the back end of 1 x head cold (December wasn't a good month) they weren't exactly "sprinty".

4 x 1000 4 mins rest.
3:56.2 ( 1:58.1 ) - felt incredibly sluggish even with a 1:59 (loosener) target
3:51.8 ( 1:55.9 ) - better - 1:56.0 target
3:47.8 ( 1:53.9 ) - target 1:54.0
3:42.9 ( 1:51.4 ) - target was 1:52.0 so I guess I'm happy with that (although I may have pulled a muscle in my stomach now )

[Paul Victory]

I finished off the 31 minutes of December Facebook challenge today with 8,208m in 31:00 @ 1:53.3 pace. I managed to keep a 'clean sheet' and do the exact number of minutes on each day.

It was the equivalent challenge last year and got me back into erging regularly and restored my missing mojo. The first half of this (calendar) year went very well and then I suffered various injuries, which caused me to miss almost three weeks in late July/early August and to only row for 2 days out of 31 between 4 October and 3 November.

So this year's challenge was a chance for me to get a bit closer to where I was fitness wise at end June. Last year, I did 123,539 meters @ 2:00.45 pace during the challenge. My target this year was to do 130,000 meters. I had a few intermediate targets along the way (such as an SB over 4 minutes and over 2k in 7 minutes), but these didn't materialise. However, I found I got stronger as the month went on, in spite of the lack of rest days and it became clear that I would easily reach my target of 130,000 meters.

With a few exceptions, I pretty much followed the same routine every day, with a warm up of around 10 to 15 minutes followed by the daily challenge followed by a cool down of around 10 minutes. I also did the CTC on day 1 and a HM (for the Crazy Bear challenge) as warm up on day 3, but as the month went on, I became more and more focused on doing the best I could in the challenge each day. This was not totally flat out (as you can't row flat out every single day), but generally not that far off.

Yesterday, I hadn't planned to go for a 30 minutes SB, but a number of other participants in the challenge said that they were attempting SBs or PBs, so I decided to give it a lash. I surprised myself by beating my previous SB by 82 meters and comfortably exceeding one of my season long 'round figure' targets of 8,000m to finish with 8,076m @ 1:51.44 pace.

Today was a bit of an anti-climax and I found it hard to motivate myself to push really hard when I started getting tired around the half way mark, but I at least managed to beat yesterday's distance by just over 100m. Overall, I finished the challenge with 133,656 meters @ 1:51.33 pace for an improvement of 10,117 meters on last year and an improvement in pace of over 9 seconds per 500m.

It was a gruelling month and I'm not sure I'll do it again next year if they decide to run it again, but I'm very happy with the overall improvement in my fitness level during the month and I hope I can carry this forward into good performances in the IIRC on January 24th and the BRIC on February 8th. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to meet up with some of you at either or both of these events.

Paul V

[danfennell]

Super job Paul. Congratulations! =D> =D> =D>

I hope this is a catalyst for a great (and injury free!) 2015.

[plummy]

Great effort Paul - stayed the course impeccably =D>

[strider77]

Very very impressive Paul =D>

[dr3do]

Wow, Paul. You impressed me very much. =D>

[JonT]

I've no idea why, but I wish I could discover what causes the good days and patent it.

The day by day variation can be quite immense. That's why I track my "recovery status" by HRV… and steer my training mainly by this factor. It works well and saved me from "useless" suffering. =D>

Boris - what are you using to check HRV? I tried HRV+ on iPhone today with a Polar H7 chest monitor but it isn't working.

[dr3do]

Boris - what are you using to check HRV? I tried HRV+ on iPhone today with a Polar H7 chest monitor but it isn't working.

I use this one (meanwhile they have a translated version of their homepage, maybe not perfect for a native speaker). It's dedicated hardware, a real 500Hz ECG (500 samples per second, which is equal to 2ms, but that with a precision of 0,01%).

Edit: 1000Hz, which is equal to 1ms, would be better, but… the gathered amount of data, which has to be transmitted wireless trough the needle ear called Bluetooth (Smart) is the problem. The usual Beat-to-beat recording transmitters form well known companies like <you the names> have a broad varying "precision" of 5-300%.

[plummy]

First 60 mins for a while. It was a failed OCD attempt (not even worthy of a picture) but happy with 14287 @ 24SPM (nailed that bit) with heartrate around 146BPM average