In last Thursday's post I mentioned that I was a bit frustrated with my 2000-meter results relative to a 5000-meter piece I did last summer. A day or two later I got an e-mail from my coach, Maks Frančeškin, reminding me that it's not useful to compare times from one session to those from another, especially if the sessions occur at different times of year. He mentioned how much difference the wind can make, and I was quite aware of that already. But he also mentioned a factor that had never occurred to me:
The weirdest/most jaw dropping one is the difference in water temperature. The Germans are saying that 1 degree Celsius higher temperature of the water gives you 0.5 s on 1000m. Slovenian study is 1 degree=1s.
The Mississippi River gets pretty frigid in the wintertime and doesn't really warm up until late May or June. Each March for years, I've tried to break 50 minutes for a lap of the harbor--a distance of not quite 6 miles. I've never managed to do it, even though I've done 6-mile/10-kilometer races later in the year (i.e., the summertime, when water is warm) in which I've clocked faster than 48 minutes. I'd always chalked it up to not being in peak form in March and the fact that it's typically windy in the late winter and early spring. Now I know another factor that's worked against me.
On Tuesday I did a calm 50-minute paddle. It was a chance for me to "put back together" some of the technical components that I'd been addressing one by one in painstaking fashion. Maks told me to look for what I "know and feel is the most effective stroke," and it reaffirmed something I mentioned a week or two ago--that my natural "cruising" stroke rate has dropped a bit since I started this training program. Two months ago it felt awkward to paddle at 60 strokes per minute, but now it feels quite natural. When I bothered to look at my cadence sensor's readout on Tuesday, I was paddling mostly at 60-64 spm in the harbor; out on the Mississippi that went up a bit, 64-68 or so.
Yesterday I did a "variable pace" workout: two sets of (3 times 2 minutes on/1 minute off at 66 spm; 3 times 1 minute on/1 minute off at 80 spm; 3 times 30 seconds on/90 seconds off at 90 spm). I worked to keep my stroke quality the same throughout the different stroke rates.
Today I did three sets of (3 times 3 minutes on/1 minute off at 50 spm and 6 times 30 seconds on/30 seconds off at 76 spm). My instructions were to do the 50-spm pieces at high power, and then try to bring that power to the short bursts at the higher stroke rate. I felt like I was doing a good job of that, though as with most of these power-building workouts my power supply ran dry toward the end.
This is an easier week than the last couple, and my body is appreciating that.
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