4 x 1k / 5min rest

The beginning of week 5 of the 13 week Boston training plan means that 2k training starts here. What better workout to do as your reintroduction to speed work than the 4 x 1k? I had done this workout on 24th October and faded badly in the final 2 reps. I didn’t want a repeat of that today, so wanted to be realistic in the target pace. I have never managed to do this session faster than 2k+1 pace, ie 1second slower than current 2k pace. My most recent 2k race was a 6:27.2, or 1:36.8 pace, and therefore 1:38 seems like a good target for reps 1 to 3 with a faster last.

 

4 x 1k / 5min rest:
3:16.0 / 1:38.0 / 32
3:16.0 / 1:38.0 / 32
3:15.9 / 1:37.9 / 32
3:13.7 / 1:36.8 / 32

4k = 13:01.6 / 1:37.7 / 32

Just marginally within 1second in pace of that 2k race, which after 5 weeks of solely 5k paced training is a good sign. Fitness wise the session felt fine – the rest periods felt too long, and I recovered quickly, but the pace felt alien to me. With 8 solid week’s of training to Boston I will improve a lot on this 2k type work though.

Note: I am now also on twitter, so if you want to follow me there simply look out for @thepeteplan

Phase 1 complete

Phase 1 of the World Indoor Rowing Championships build up ended yesterday with a 5k time trial. The aim for this was to break 17:10, and it went as follows:

5k = 17:09.3 / 1:42.9 / 28
500m splits:
1:42.8 / 28
1:43.3 / 28
1:43.3 / 28
1:43.4 / 28
1:43.5 / 28
1:43.4 / 28
1:43.5 / 28
1:43.4 / 28
1:43.2 / 28
1:39.5 / 30

I finished the week off today with a steady distance piece. To make it more interesting I rowed a random distance and tried to pace it to finish in an exactly round time, it went well !

14243m / 1:55.8 / 22 = 55:00.0
2500m splits:
1:56.0 / 22
1:56.0 / 22
1:55.9 / 22
1:55.9 / 22
1:56.0 / 22
1:54.7 / 22 (last 1743m)

Next is an 8 week phase leading in to the Crash B’s in Boston, USA. This phase is solely aimed towards that 2k race. The hard work begins here!

Good days and bad days (Week 5 of 5)

We are now into the final week of the first phase of the Boston training group. This first 5 week phase has been aimed at 5k training, and will be followed by an 8 week phase aimed solely at the 2k race in Boston. The aim was to build up a good fitness base, get a good idea of current capabilities, and perhaps more importantly build some mental strength prior to the hard 2k focused sessions.

Last night was the final hard core session of the first 5 weeks, with only the 5k TT to do later in the week. The progression we went through was:
15 x 500m / 1min rest
12 x 600m / 1:20 rest
9 x 750m / 1:40 rest
7 x 1k / 2min rest

Now we dropped back a place to the 9 x 750m but dropped the rest right down to 1min, the same as we did for the 500s in week 1.

9 x 750m / 1min rest:
2:32.6 / 1:41.7 / 29
2:32.8 / 1:41.8 / 29
2:32.8 / 1:41.8 / 29
2:32.8 / 1:41.8 / 29
2:32.7 / 1:41.8 / 29
2:32.8 / 1:41.8 / 29
2:32.7 / 1:41.8 / 29
2:32.6 / 1:41.7 / 29
2:31.3 / 1:40.8 / 29

22:53.0 / 6750m / 1:41.7 / 29

I had managed 1:41.2 average with 1:40 rest 2 weeks ago, but I had a fairly hard 10k in my legs from yesterday so aimed just to get all reps under 1:42 today. Hard work, but sustainable. I didn’t try to push the last rep particularly, so could have skewed the average by pushing that a few seconds quicker had I wanted to.

Sunday I did a fairly solid 10k row, aiming for consistent 1:48s throughout (with a little push in the last 1k):

10k = 35:52.0 / 1:47.6 / 26
2k splits:
7:11.8 / 1:47.9 / 26
7:12.1 / 1:48.0 / 26
7:12.1 / 1:48.0 / 26
7:12.0 / 1:48.0 / 27
7:04.0 / 1:46.0 / 27

Friday was a bad day. I don’t know why, but some days it just isn’t there, whatever it is. The 5 x 5min reps felt tough from the outset, and I had to drop pace after the first rep to get through. In the final rep I got a bad stitch 2mins into it, not something I have really ever experienced on the erg before (possibly due to dehydration), and I had to stop just before the 4min mark of that final rep as it felt like I would do some real damage if I didn’t!

5 x 5mins / 5min rest:
1474m / 1:41.7 / 29
1465m / 1:42.3 / 29
1464m / 1:42.4 / 29
1464m / 1:42.4 / 29
4mins @ 1:42.5 / 28

The plan now is for a fairly steady few days before a 5k time trial on Friday to end this phase. Ideally I will aim to just break 17mins on Friday, though I will pace it conservatively which will require a fast finish if I’m to do that.

7 x 1k / 2min rest (week 4 of 5)

Monday’s are always the hardest day to train for me, so why do I always do the hardest session of the week on a Monday? I am starting a new job on 1st Feb 2012, and one of the best things about my new job will be not having to leave home at 0530 on a Monday and drive 240miles to get to the office. I wonder how much more energy I’ll have all week?

Today’s session was 7 x 1k, and I decided just to go for the same starting pace as I did on the 750s last week. It turned out to be just a bit too fast to maintain today, mentally at least.

7 x 1k / 2min rest:
3:22.9 / 1:41.4 / 29
3:22.9 / 1:41.4 / 29
3:22.9 / 1:41.4 / 29
3:23.6 / 1:41.8 / 29
3:23.4 / 1:41.7 / 29
3:23.1 / 1:41.5 / 29
3:19.4 / 1:39.7 / 30

7k = 23:38.2 / 1:41.3 / 29

I had to play mental games to get through this one. I had to let the pace drift just a little through 4, 5 and 6 rather than trying to be too specific just to take a bit of the effort away. Somehow I convince myself that I’ve done the pace for 750m reps, so just get through the first 750m of each rep. Then it’s just another 25 strokes and you don’t want to let the pace drift and waste all the hard work then.

The 2min rest periods felt plenty long enough. I don’t think the pace would have been much different down to even half the rest. It is close to my current sustainable limits for this type of length session, but slow enough to recover aerobically from pretty quickly.

3 x 15mins / 2min rest

I last did this session 2 weeks ago, the day before the BORC online 2k, so went right at the slow end of the pace target then. I wanted to go towards the fast end of the target range today (1:49 to 1:52), and decided to put in a faster last rep just because it’s the last core session of the week.

3 x 15mins / 2min rest:
Today’s splits (2 weeks ago in brackets)
4112m / 1:49.4 / 26 — (4019m / 1:51.9 / 24)
4114m / 1:49.3 / 26 — (4018m / 1:51.9 / 25)
4205m / 1:47.0 / 26 — (4017m / 1:52.0 / 25)

12431m / 1:48.5 / 26

This felt easier than the session 2 weeks ago. I think I need to push these longer reps a bit more to get some mental strength (and fitness) back. It was tempting to try to push the final rep really hard and see what I could do, but I decided to keep to 26spm and keep the pace fairly moderate – still a solid pace overall for the set though.

www.c2ctc.com

I decided to have my first attempt at this month’s cross team challenge (www.c2ctc.com) last night. It was scheduled for Friday this week, but the shorter session fit in well with my lack of desire for anything longer! In reality it is a fair bit harder work than the session I should have done last night, so at least I’m not shying away from the hard metres.

2000m = 6:49.7 / 1:42.4 / 29
1min rest
1500m = 5:07.5 / 1:42.5 / 29
1min rest
1000m = 3:24.4 / 1:42.2 / 29
1min rest
500m = 1:36.5 / 32

5000m = 16:58.0 / 1:41.8 / 29

It is an interesting training session. The 1min rest between the reps make it quite difficult to judge pace the first time, so I treated it as if it was a straight 5k and used the 3 x 1min rests as a nice bonus as I went through! My initial aim was to break 17mins for the overall 5k, but I have to say after the 2k all I cared about was getting through the set! Mentally the tough bit was the 1500m rep, once that is over the last two reps actually go by really quickly, and the 500m on the end is no problem. So I think the lesson for next time is to push the 1k much harder, because you can always (remind me this next time!) do a 500m at the end of a set like this.

Tuesday evening was:

10k = 37:59.7 / 1:53.9 / 23
2k splits:
7:36.0 / 1:54.0 / 23
7:35.9 / 1:53.9 / 23
7:36.0 / 1:54.0 / 23
7:35.9 / 1:53.9 / 23
7:35.9 / 1:53.9 / 23

Week 3 of 13 to Boston

Today is the beginning of Week 3 of the 13 week training period leading to the World Indoor Rowing Championships on 19th Feb 2012 in Boston USA. On the Monday core sessions so far we have done 15 x 500m (1min rest) and 12 x 600m (1min20 rest). Today was the turn of 750m reps.

9 x 750m / 1min40 rest:

2:32.1 / 1:41.4 / 30
2:32.0 / 1:41.3 / 29
2:32.2 / 1:41.4 / 30
2:32.0 / 1:41.3 / 30
2:32.1 / 1:41.4 / 30
2:32.1 / 1:41.4 / 30
2:32.1 / 1:41.4 / 30
2:32.1 / 1:41.4 / 30
2:29.8 / 1:39.8 / 31

22:46.6 / 6750m / 1:41.2 / 30

It is actually a fair jump from 600m to 750m reps really, but mentally I prefer it with less reps to do and a bit more rest between them. This session got pretty tough going by half way through, but I just aimed to keep a consistent 30spm and the pace followed suit. 1:41 / 1:42 is becoming more sustainable now, which is a good sign for the 5k to come in a couple of weeks time. If I can get comfortably under 17mins for that 5k it puts me in a good fitness position leading to the final 8 week push to race day. There is still a little way to go yet before I’m in that position, but we’re not quite half way though this 5 week phase yet, so a lot of training metres still to put in my legs.

A week of training…

It hasn’t been the highest volume week of training with other more important things getting in the way. I started the week tired after a very early morning start on Monday, and I just wasn’t mentally prepared for a hard final attempt at the Concept2 “Joe Simpson” challenge of 6344m.

1k splits:
1:44.6 / 28
1:45.2 / 28
1:45.5 / 27
1:49.4 / 26
1:49.1 / 26
1:45.8 / 27
1:40.7 / 29 (last 344m)

6344m = 22:28.7 / 1:46.2 / 27

I set off with good intentions of trying to go fast, but it just wasn’t to be. I found it a hard distance to focus on being such a weird number of metres.

Next up was the second in my progression of 5k paced shorter intervals, from 15 x 500m last week to 12 x 600m this week.

12 x 600m / 1min20 rest:
1:41.7 / 29
1:41.6 / 29
1:41.7 / 29
1:41.6 / 29
1:41.6 / 29
1:41.6 / 29
1:41.5 / 29
1:41.6 / 29
1:41.5 / 29
1:41.5 / 30
1:41.4 / 30
1:38.5 / 30

7200m = 24:19.7 / 1:41.3 / 29

A good solid session nicely on target pace.

Then today to round out the lack of volume this week was a negative split 10k, rowed on rowpro with another 6 people from around the world (though 2 didn’t make it to the end) in my living room.

10k = 37:20.3 / 1:52.0 / 24
1k splits:
1:57.7 / 20
1:56.3 / 21
1:54.8 / 23
1:53.4 / 23
1:52.6 / 23
1:51.4 / 24
1:50.2 / 24
1:49.3 / 25
1:48.4 / 25
1:46.0 / 27

I enjoyed this one. It didn’t feel hard for the pace, even though the second half was a fairly good pace in comparison to the 6344m earlier in the week.