August Hakuna Tabata CTC

[Iain]

[youtube]https://youtu.be/7oUz34q3LXo[/youtube]

I'm pleased to say that the August 2024 Cross-Team Challenge is going to be Hakuna Tabata.

What's that? It's three TABATAS with two minutes rest in between.

So that means you're gonna do 20 seconds on, 10 seconds rest, eight times, after the eighth one you take two minutes rest, then you do that again, take two minutes rest, and then do it again, and you're all done.

Explanation and how to set up on PM:
https://www.c2forum.com/viewtopic.php?f ... start=2025

[Iain]

Thanks for getting the boat out Clare, now we just need to fill it! Any idea on pacing as, despite the intention of Tabatha, I do not think flat out is possible. Bit slower than 500?

[JonT]

This looks horrid, and while trying to protect my back this is going to be quite a tricky one for me.

[Tako]

It does not only look horrid, it was!
Went for R30 in the active 20sec and then easy R18 during the rest periods.
Hence about ten strong strokes.
Just back from vacation, hence, not in good shape.
Regarding pace I wouldn’t go faster than 2k.

From tomorrow I am back on my regular training, so wanted to get it out of the way. Happy to have it done.
Good luck to all going for it. Remember proper warm up if you go hard, otherwise just do an easy row to get a score.

After first intervals I manage to keep pace constant until the end.

[Iain]

I think it should be possible to go a bit quicker, at least for those of us whose 2k is closer to the 8' of work as there is significant rest. 5 x 2:40 r2' would be a bit quicker than 2k, so 3 and with brief pauses should be significantly quicker. How we deal with accelerating the flywheel for the active parts is the worrying bit for me! But thanks for trying it out.

[JonT]

I set out to do a steady 3x10min but felt the very strange urge to get this done after I had warmed up. My only real form indicator is my 500m time which is 1:43. I got all confused in the third interval.

Overall this wasn’t actually as bad as I thought it would be. I will probably have another bash at the end of the month with a bit more fitness and DF not turned down as much. I had it down today to protect my back.

Lessons - the rolling starts are critical and make a huge difference. Complete rest during the 2:00s works best for me. Pushing harder actually makes frustratingly little difference to the interval times - best not to think about this.

Is ErgZone messing up the interval times for everyone, or just me? I used the official CTC workout, so I know it isn’t me messing it up.

[Iain]

Thanks for the target Jon, although I will do a few faster intervals first as, except for the 1' for Rowlympics, I haven't done any sprints for 2 months. Personally I don't intend to up DF due to requirement to reaccelerate for each interval. I agree that your last interval suggests that you have more in the bag and I don't expect your next effort will be within my capabilities.

[fkoene]

Tough. Rowed 2266 meters, don't think I'll have another go. Going on holiday next Wednesday and I didn't like this one so much that I'm trying again this weekend.

[bierik]

Yes, tough indeed! I did it yesterday and got 2383m. Maybe on a little colder day sub 1:40 is possible.
The pace of 1:40.7 is about 4s below my current 2K pace. So the goal of going below 2K pace should be achievable.

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[JonT]

That puts you leading the pack of FreeSpirits at the moment Kay.

I've just updated our tool and the turnout so far this month is very low. We have one boat afloat and one ashore. I'm delighted to see Plummy has put in a distance

[JonT]

I had another go, spurred on by Iain and annoyed by my slip up in one interval last time. Previous pace 1:53. Target was 1:52 while staying alive. Happy with that but the tank was running in fumes at the end.

Still only 1 boat afloat and a low turnout so far.




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[Iain]

Jonb, that's not motivating for me . Great improvement.

[Mat]

Huge well done to Tako, Jon, Fred and Kay for their performance in this truly horrible workout!

I had a go towards the end of last week and came unstuck in the early part of the second set of 20's having pushed the pace a little too hard in the first set, and not been able to recover sufficiently in the 2' rest

So, armed with that experience (and Kay's pace as a guide ), I had another bash this morning. I think part of the question I didn't know last time was what to do for the meagre 10s rest. This time, the following plan worked better:

Targeted "just over" 1:40 pace (2k - 3s ish)
A half stroke at 3s out to get the flywheel moving again without wasting too much energy
10 (11 towards the end as SR increased) strokes in the 20s
Immediate rest until 3s out, and repeat

During the 2' recoveries, I rested completely until 15s out when I paddled with a few strokes until that 1/2 stroke at 3s out again...

[Iain]

Great performance Mat. Do I take it that the last 3 intervals were probably AF HRs? Interesting that HR doesn't appear to follow a pattern during rest/work on these very short intervals. Also, how much did you struggle to hit pace and how far through each set? On my trial I definitely found that it was taking nearly half the interval to get down to pace after the first few and so maybe my provisional target around 1k pace is too optimistic as this would mean rowing significantly faster than that to make up for the ramp up.

[bierik]

Great row Mat! I concur with your resting and restarting strategies. With one row under the belt I kinda know what to expect and can try again in the next couple of days.

[Mat]

Great performance Mat. Do I take it that the last 3 intervals were probably AF HRs? Interesting that HR doesn't appear to follow a pattern during rest/work on these very short intervals. Also, how much did you struggle to hit pace and how far through each set? On my trial I definitely found that it was taking nearly half the interval to get down to pace after the first few and so maybe my provisional target around 1k pace is too optimistic as this would mean rowing significantly faster than that to make up for the ramp up.

Cheers Iain. The HR may simply have been an error for those final intervals - I hadn't noticed the high rate until you pointed it out and didn't feel any after effects (which I would have done if I'd gone into AF), so its probably a reading error - I needed to change the battery in the monitor for today's Zwift session, so that probably contributed

To be honest, I found that the half stroke at 3" spun the flywheel sufficiently that the first full stroke which was probably about 1/2 sec before the interval began generally set me off at faster than target pace, and then I could settle in for the remaining 9-10 strokes. There's just not enough time to chase the split, and I'd agree that 1k pace is probably too optimistoc for this one - Good Luck

Great row Mat! I concur with your resting and restarting strategies. With one row under the belt I kinda know what to expect and can try again in the next couple of days.

Thanks Kay - I'd agree the first attempt really does provide some valuable learning Good Luck for the next one

[Iain]

Post for numbers geeks only!

Following the underwhelming support for my "over-thinking" post on the Rowlympics, trying again. apologies for those that find any numbers beyond final time and metres superfluous!

Based on Mat's post, I did a quick comparison of 20S interval at my target pace with and without a pre-stroke:

Time: Dist Pace Rate Str Proj. Cal
0:00.4 00.0 None : N/A 0 N/A 0.00 - reaction time
0:01.9 07.6 02:07.0 31 01 78.7 0.47 - stationary flywheel starting 0.4S after start
0:01.9 07.9 01:59.0 32 01 81.8 0.54
0:01.7 07.4 01:56.0 35 01 83.6 0.57
0:14.1 64.1 01:49.8 34 08 87.0 5.07
0:20.0 87.0 01:54.9 33 11 87.0 6.65


0:00.0 00.0 02:07.0 31 01 N/A 0.47 - Pre-stroke not included in interval
0:01.5 06.2 01:59.0 32 01 90.0 0.54 - stroke starting 0.4S before start
0:01.7 07.4 01:56.0 35 01 88.0 0.57
0:16.8 73.4 01:54.5 32 09 87.0 5.26
0:20.0 87.0 01:54.9 33 11 87.0 6.83

Calories are my estimate for me based on C2 estimate assuming this was at a 28 rating.

So to manage 87M I would need to hold 1:54.5 pace once up to pace if I take a pre-stroke, while without I would need to hold 1:49.8. Seems about right and suggests a pre-stroke makes sense. However when I estimate the energy usage, despite the faster pace, the energy taken to pull the additional stroke increases the work required by about 2.8%. Assuming that the rest is short enough that the oxygen utilisation is similar in the 10S rests as in the intervals (as seen by minimal HR recovery), this suggests that unless rowing efficiency decreases significantly at the higher pace, it should be easier to maintain the pace without the pre-stroke!

Please can I have any thoughts why this is not a correct analysis as it is not what I expected or Mat's assumption!

[Mat]

That's some analysis Iain
I'll give some thoughts in case they help...

Whilst recognising that my "gut feel" does not equate to solid data, my thoughts on the pre-stroke and its effectiveness are as below:

- "pre-stroke" for me was not a full stroke, but a half stroke, ie legs only designed to get the flywheel spinning, and with very little effort
- from there, I'm then straight back into the catch for the first "real" stroke
- the transition from the pre-stroke to the real stroke means that I have momentum as I come into the catch, stretching the muscles of the quadriceps as they contract eccentrically, and subsequently benefiting from the elasticity in the muscle as it then contracts concentrically in the drive phase
- This provides a more powerful drive with less effort than a pull from a standing start with a flywheel that whilst not stationery, will be turning more slowly than with the pre-stroke

But... it's been over 30 years since I studied Sports Science, and as I mentioned above, my gut-feel (however well-reasoned) doesn't trump real data!

Good luck all

[Mike Channin]

Had a go at this one this morning, not expecting much, having not done any faster stuff at all, and having had most of the last 2 weeks off while trying to allow some niggling injuries to recover.
My 'plan', such as I had one was to target 1:40 for the first set and see how that felt, and then back off as much as required to get to the end, with an aim to do around 1:44 overall and get into Boat 1.

As is always the way, spinning up the first interval from a standing flywheel was hard and I had to chase hard to get the split down, then over-compensated and ended up on 1:36.1
Trying to gauge the tiny 10s rest was tough, and it felt like the fast pace was killing me. By rep 4 I was ready to give up, but I decided to hang on for at least the first set.
I got the counting wrong and didn't realise I was in the first 2 min until I went to start and saw the long rest still left, which was very welcome indeed.
Paced a bit slower for the first two of the second set, but then realised that the recovery of that massive 120 seconds meant I had a bit more, so pushed a bit more.
Completely missed the start of interval 14, and had to chase it down from an average well over 2:00
Somehow got to the second rest period, and started dreaming that I could actually finish this.
By the third set, I had got the timing of the start sorted, and the pacing of the strokes through the interval.
I'd also remembered the 'trick' to intervals, which is to pull for the target regardless of how dead you feel, as the interval is over quickly, and you can die during the rest, as long as you go again for the next one.
I put on a bit of a push with 6 to go, only to have a slight wobble on 22 where I briefly contemplated the possibility of throwing up afterwards.
Managed to hang on through 22 and 23, and then emptied the tanks on the last one for a 1:32.5. Managed not to fall off, but this is definitely the closest I've come to having to lie on the floor since doing the 16 x 1/r1 CTC about 8 years ago. (Must actually make a space to collapse onto for next time, if there is one...)

Had no idea what kind of average I had ended up with, as most of the session was a world of pain and trying to execute, and then trying to get enough air to carry on.

Was amazed to find out I'd come in ahead of target. Feel like I maybe have some more if I executed better, but not a session I'd want to repeat in a hurry (which is probably a sign that it's a good hard session to do!)

In terms of strategy:
Personally, I would definitely use at least one full power stroke before the start of the next interval to get the flywheel up and running. Usually this is a no-brainer on intervals (hence all the fuss about stationary vs moving flywheel), as you get extra momentum and you can always recover in the rest period. With the very short rest here, the efficiency of this may be less clear cut (as per Iain's well thought through analysis), but it still feels like the right way to go.
The good thing with such a short work interval is that you can put in a set of hard strokes to get ahead of the target, and then back off slightly as the pain hits and still be on target. Another good trick I discovered by the third set was to get the stroke timing right so that the last stroke comes in around 2s from the end, so you can stop a bit early too. 2 Seconds makes quite a difference when you only get 10s off, especially if you're starting a stroke early (about 2.5s before 0).
(Some of this pre-stroke momentum approach may be because I use a relatively high drag, and this makes getting the flywheel spinning that bit harder)


I must admit, I looked at Jon's HR values and thought that they looked scarily high, but then I did the same calculation on mine, and my numbers were almost identical! And this one didn't feel HR limited at all - more lungs and mental if anything.
How is everyone getting those beautiful lists of intervals? I've scraped mine into Excel, but it still looks untidy. (Mind you, I used ErgData, and I suspect most are using ErgZone...)

Finally, I did take nearly as long as the work part of the session to set up the Intervals...

[Mike Channin]

Oh, and in terms of 1k/2k pacing, this was over 1s UNDER my 1k SB, about 10s under my actual 2k SB (which is weak), but still about 6s under more accurate 2k pace estimates.
But then, I always had a good sprint, and manage to relatively over-perform on intervals (or is that under-perform on real/continuous pieces?)

(It's probably a fast-twitch/slow-twitch thing, but who knows...)

[Iain]

many thanks for the great write up Mike. Kudos for setting a plan that required you to set out faster and getting to the end despite being under target! As I said on the "what training" analysis of my pathetic H/D yesterday, the issue for me was settling to pace in early intervals then getting to pace in later ones. For short intervals I try and use predicted finish to hit target. But that meant at beginning by half way through it was predicting too far under target, while by interval 5 it was stroke 4 (including 1 pre-stroke) when I hit target so half way through before could settle and not enough time to hit a rhythm. Did you find that you struggled getting to pace in later intervals, or did you just lower the "target" to compensate for the slower start?

I show an estimate of start from earlier and later intervals for me and what is required to hit my "target". Last is the effect of settling to "early" pace despite slower start:

Time Distnc Pace Pre-strt S/M Cumultv Pred Watts SPI

01.4 05.7 01:59.0 00:00.4 34 00:01.4 05.7 84.0 208 6.11
01.6 07.2 01:52.0 00:00.0 37 00:03.0 13.0 88.9 249 6.73
01.8 08.2 01:48.0 00:00.0 34 00:04.8 21.1 91.7 278 8.17
15.2 67.9 01:52.4 00:00.0 35 00:20.0 89.0 89.0 247 7.05


01.4 05.9 02:01.0 00:00.4 33 00:01.4 05.9 82.6 198 5.99
01.7 07.1 01:57.0 00:00.0 36 00:03.1 13.0 85.3 219 6.07
01.5 06.7 01:54.0 00:00.0 39 00:04.6 19.7 87.2 236 6.06
15.4 69.3 01:51.0 00:00.0 36 00:20.0 89.0 89.0 256 7.11

01.4 05.9 02:01.0 00:00.4 33 00:01.4 05.9 82.6 198 5.99
01.7 07.1 01:57.0 00:00.0 36 00:03.1 13.0 85.3 219 6.07
01.5 06.7 01:54.0 00:00.0 39 00:04.6 19.7 87.2 236 6.06
15.4 68.4 01:52.4 00:00.0 36 00:20.0 88.2 88.2 247 6.85

Shows that only 0.8M loss / interval for not trying to catch up time later, so probably optimum is to settle for maybe a 1M drop if not at pace by stroke 3.

Hopefully will try again Sunday.

[Mat]

Great performance there Mike
I felt like I never wanted to do this one again, but as you've pipped me to the number one spot, I may have to try another go... I'm not convinced though

Somehow got to the second rest period, and started dreaming that I could actually finish this.

I remember feeling exactly the same thing... right up until then the end was in doubt

Good luck with Sunday's attempt Iain - the trial run is done and the analysis is in... hope it goes well

[Mike Channin]

Please DON'T feel the need to go again, Mat!!!

[Mat]

Please DON'T feel the need to go again, Mat!!!

Believe me, it’s not high on my list of things I’d really like to do before the end of the month

[Ian Bee]

Very impressive all round - having read through the results I think (not be design) I followed Tako's regime but with a slightly shorter distance. But I think that's all for the month as I've been neglecting the faster sessions

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