After a much needed day off yesterday, we hit the water this morning bright and early for some Sunday speed work. We are about two weeks from the finals of NSR 1, so the work we are doing right now carries a lot of importance for our lead up to the race physiologically. We probably have 3 or 4 race pace workouts coming up over the next 10 days.
We did 4k total of race pace rowing, all at our base speed. 1500m, 500m, 1000m, 1000m. My goal this morning was to establish my base speed as a weapon. I have been getting off the line really well this spring so far, but it seems as though I have been doing it at the expense of my base speed. To clarify, I think you must be able to get off the line at a certain speed to be competitive internationally. If you don't, you get waked. So I do not mean to say I have not been pleased to be able to get out early. But when it comes down to going as fast as you possibly can over 2k, the middle 150 strokes are the meat of the sandwich. Being able to sustain the speed over the middle 5 minutes or so is essential. I do this well naturally, it is in my blood to hold one pace for a long long time. I still need to train it, especially the technical aspect of moving the boat smoothly at base rate. That base rhythym prevents big lulls in speed. It allows the boat to keep running even as great fatigue sets in from 1250-1750.
Dan used the shovel analogy this morning. " Just imagine you have a shovel. You just want to see how deep you can dig. We are practicing that this morning."
I thought he was going to go with the burial analogy but either one works..
This is how the pieces shook out, forgive the spotty results:
1500 m( massive wakes in final 500)
John --
Steve + 1
500m
Steve
John + 1
1000m tailwind
Steve 3:22.5
John 3:22.8
Hugh 3:28.8
Ben 3:31
Donald 2x 3:32
Charlie 3:33
1000m headwind
John 3:42
Steve 3:45
Hugh 3:50
The 1000m piece in the tail was excellent. While I did not get the margin that I would like, it was a completely internal base piece. I felt better and better as it went on and the splits kept dropping. It was pure swing and suspension. Steve got out to an early lead and I just kept leaning back into his lead and accelerating into his boat. Lots of fun. When it was over, I knew I was in a great spot for the next piece. So, I didn't wait around at all on the next 1k. I took off and just enjoyed having paced the workout well.
While this workout gave me some confidence in my speed, it's completely inconsequential. Today was as close as you can get to racing in practice, but it wasn't racing. It wasn't a race. A race is special. This is something Lynn Jennings, Olympic bronze medalist 10k runner, worked with me a lot on this fall. She trained hard. As hard as you can possibly train. But she was never at her best in training. She was great because she was a complete gamer. She under promised and over delivered. Every time. If she had a bad run in training, forget about it. If she had a good run, forget about it. It's training. But when race time rolled around, she was wild animal. And she loved it. It unnerved her opponents because they knew that if Jennings was on the course, it was going to be a tough day for them. She loved to race and she has rubbed that off on me. I am very grateful to have her around as a resource. So today was good, but who cares.
We did 4k total of race pace rowing, all at our base speed. 1500m, 500m, 1000m, 1000m. My goal this morning was to establish my base speed as a weapon. I have been getting off the line really well this spring so far, but it seems as though I have been doing it at the expense of my base speed. To clarify, I think you must be able to get off the line at a certain speed to be competitive internationally. If you don't, you get waked. So I do not mean to say I have not been pleased to be able to get out early. But when it comes down to going as fast as you possibly can over 2k, the middle 150 strokes are the meat of the sandwich. Being able to sustain the speed over the middle 5 minutes or so is essential. I do this well naturally, it is in my blood to hold one pace for a long long time. I still need to train it, especially the technical aspect of moving the boat smoothly at base rate. That base rhythym prevents big lulls in speed. It allows the boat to keep running even as great fatigue sets in from 1250-1750.
Dan used the shovel analogy this morning. " Just imagine you have a shovel. You just want to see how deep you can dig. We are practicing that this morning."
I thought he was going to go with the burial analogy but either one works..
This is how the pieces shook out, forgive the spotty results:
1500 m( massive wakes in final 500)
John --
Steve + 1
500m
Steve
John + 1
1000m tailwind
Steve 3:22.5
John 3:22.8
Hugh 3:28.8
Ben 3:31
Donald 2x 3:32
Charlie 3:33
1000m headwind
John 3:42
Steve 3:45
Hugh 3:50
The 1000m piece in the tail was excellent. While I did not get the margin that I would like, it was a completely internal base piece. I felt better and better as it went on and the splits kept dropping. It was pure swing and suspension. Steve got out to an early lead and I just kept leaning back into his lead and accelerating into his boat. Lots of fun. When it was over, I knew I was in a great spot for the next piece. So, I didn't wait around at all on the next 1k. I took off and just enjoyed having paced the workout well.
While this workout gave me some confidence in my speed, it's completely inconsequential. Today was as close as you can get to racing in practice, but it wasn't racing. It wasn't a race. A race is special. This is something Lynn Jennings, Olympic bronze medalist 10k runner, worked with me a lot on this fall. She trained hard. As hard as you can possibly train. But she was never at her best in training. She was great because she was a complete gamer. She under promised and over delivered. Every time. If she had a bad run in training, forget about it. If she had a good run, forget about it. It's training. But when race time rolled around, she was wild animal. And she loved it. It unnerved her opponents because they knew that if Jennings was on the course, it was going to be a tough day for them. She loved to race and she has rubbed that off on me. I am very grateful to have her around as a resource. So today was good, but who cares.
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