Speed work

I did a gym session on a rainy Friday morning.  By yesterday the rain had moved out and it was partly cloudy and cool.  I paddled for 60 minutes, and with a race just a week away I was looking to increase the speed a little.  I did kind of an unstructured workout where I just did some sprints defined by landmarks in the harbor: the length of the marina, the distance from one set of bridge pilings to another or from one barge mooring to another... stuff like that.  I think I did eight sprints in all, and they ranged from around 20 seconds long to a little over 30 seconds long.  I paddled at sub-maximum intensity; I didn't have my cadence sensor with me, but I think I was in the 90- to 100-strokes-per-minute range.  My recovery times varied depending on how long I had to paddle to get to another landmark--anywhere from 2 minutes to 4 minutes.  My main focus during the sprints was to paddle with good stroke mechanics at those higher stroke rates; right now that matters more to me than whatever cardiovascular value the sprints had.

This morning it was overcast, and some rain fell as I drove back to the river.  Down there I found a pretty stiff north wind blowing.  Fortunately the temperature wasn't too bad: it was a little below 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

I paddled for another 60 minutes, and in the middle of it I did six 12-stroke sprints at 2-minute intervals.  These are basically the same as my 8-stroke sprints, just stretched out a little so I can get the feel of getting the boat up to speed.  I don't want to make them much longer than 12 strokes because the idea is to work the ATP/CP energy system, not the lactic acid system.  Again, I took the best strokes I could.  I do think I'm rotating my hips better than I used to, but it's not automatic.  During the sprints there were strokes here in there where I felt like I nailed it, but at other times I felt sloppy.  It's a good thing that very little of my race next Saturday will be done at such a high stroke rate.

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