Pete Plan Thread

[mdpfirrman]

This is where I call "old man" day of flexibility on the Pete Plan. Today is W2/D5, which is a TT (timed test) day. I didn't think I had it in me to do a 5K all out today. I was pretty tired heading into the workout. I wanted to do (at least) a 5K low rate piece on the hard'ish side of things.

5010 meters

2000 / 2:04.8 / 20 SPM
2000 / 2:05.6 / 21 SPM (yeah I was struggling!)
1010 / 2:04.1 / 22 SPM (had to speed up just a tad).

2:05.0 / 21 SPM Avg

Then did 20 minutes (also fairly hard) on the AirDyne Pro - it said a 225 Watt Average, but the AirDyne seems to estimate high on the Watts to me. I would think it was more like 180/185 or so more realistically. I'd say the AD Pro spits it out around 20% higher than the C2 on Watts. Still a harder workout for me.

[mdpfirrman]

W2 of the PP in the books. W2/D6 - SS work again.

Did 6K (probably too hard for SS work) but around a 2:06. Got a bit carried away with low rate work again and ended up going out too hard. Ended with 26 minutes on the AirDyne but MUCH easier pace than the rower today. Probably spent most of my energy rowing. Should have been more consistent throughout for a SS workout.

[Street]

This is where I call "old man" day of flexibility on the Pete Plan. Today is W2/D5, which is a TT (timed test) day. I didn't think I had it in me to do a 5K all out today. I was pretty tired heading into the workout. I wanted to do (at least) a 5K low rate piece on the hard'ish side of things.

Haha, if that's your "old man" day, what's my excuse? I couldn't face going all out so took it relatively easy on the hard distance today. I did a 5k, but about 6secs slower pace than my PB time.

[bob.haffner]

Good times, especially the last one and at 22SPM. Those endurance intervals are a killer.

@Andy Thanks man. Nice work yourself!

Just got done with the 4 x 1k. I like this one. I feel like my endurance is coming around a bit

/500m Time.1
01:53.6 | 03:47.2
01:53.7 | 03:47.5
01:52.8 | 03:45.7
01:44.4 | 03:28.9

avg 01:51.1

[RayOfSunshine]

BPP 20.2
5x1500 3r
Target 2:00 pace



It's been a month since the 10k TT and moving up to the mountains. I'm still way off where I was, but I need to push through. I did a 2k wu to ensure I got to 10k total for the day.

[mdpfirrman]

Ray - very nice work on the 1500 times five. Only 3 rest is very tough. That's hard!

Andy - thanks but unlike a lot on here, I don't do a lot aside from just body weight pushups and some KBs. A lot of you guys do way more aside from rowing. One crazy guy likes to climb cliffs I've heard!

Bob - nice work on that 4 X 1000m. Wow on that last interval!! I did that yesterday too. Really, really wasn't feeling up to it and felt like doing an HD several times. Then, during the last interval (right at the last 300m when I was really struggling), my wife had a bit of an allergic reaction to something, which for her can be severe and she was trying to get my attention on the rower as I was struggling to breathe and I had to tell her I only had 25 to 30 more strokes. I think I liked to have died trying to talk while finishing the last set but her all2ergic reactions can be serious (and if bad enough potentially life threatening, she has an EpiPen) so I actually felt bad finishing the row. This was a mild one for her.

4 X 1000m

1:50.7 / 28
1:50.6 / 28
1:52.7 / 28
1:53.9 / 28

1:52.0 / 28 Avg

Have to admit that the last two were very, very hard to finish. I think that rowing harder on Friday (my SS day) ended up causing quite a bit of fatigue likely. I was still not completely recovered yesterday. Looking forward to the SS work this morning.

[bob.haffner]

@Ray I'm with Mike, that 5 x 1500 with a short rest is bad news. Nice work!

@Mike thanks and nice work! Glad your wife is ok

[m06w41]

Just posted in the "what training did you do today" thread then when surfing around I found you all hanging out here!

Anyway, I restarted (for the second time) the Pete Plan this morning. Put everything on pause while I studied for the CFA but now that the exam is over, it was time to get back on the wagon. As a 49 Male, 197.6 and 5'8" I'm not a paragon on fitness. Been lurking around these parts for sometime, rowing on and off, sometimes committed and sometimes not but this time I've got no real choice. Wife and I are backpacking Big Bend in September and I can't carry this extra weight around.

Time Meters Pace Watts Cal/Hr S/M
26:38.8 5,000m 02:39.8 86 594 20
02:37.4 500m 02:37.4 90 608 22
02:38.0 1,000m 02:38.0 89 605 20
02:38.6 1,500m 02:38.6 88 602 20
02:41.3 2,000m 02:41.3 83 587 20
02:40.1 2,500m 02:40.1 85 593 20
02:39.8 3,000m 02:39.8 86 595 20
02:40.3 3,500m 02:40.3 85 592 19
02:41.9 4,000m 02:41.9 82 583 20
02:42.0 4,500m 02:42.0 82 583 20
02:39.4 5,000m 02:39.4 86 597 20

[RayOfSunshine]

Just posted in the "what training did you do today" thread then when surfing around I found you all hanging out here!

Anyway, I restarted (for the second time) the Pete Plan this morning. Put everything on pause while I studied for the CFA but now that the exam is over, it was time to get back on the wagon. As a 49 Male, 197.6 and 5'8" I'm not a paragon on fitness. Been lurking around these parts for sometime, rowing on and off, sometimes committed and sometimes not but this time I've got no real choice. Wife and I are backpacking Big Bend in September and I can't carry this extra weight around.

Welcome! This is a great thread. I've dropped a lot of weight on the BPP, so it works for us underfit folks.

[mdpfirrman]

Just posted in the "what training did you do today" thread then when surfing around I found you all hanging out here!

Anyway, I restarted (for the second time) the Pete Plan this morning. Put everything on pause while I studied for the CFA but now that the exam is over, it was time to get back on the wagon. As a 49 Male, 197.6 and 5'8" I'm not a paragon on fitness. Been lurking around these parts for sometime, rowing on and off, sometimes committed and sometimes not but this time I've got no real choice. Wife and I are backpacking Big Bend in September and I can't carry this extra weight around.

Time Meters Pace Watts Cal/Hr S/M
26:38.8 5,000m 02:39.8 86 594 20
02:37.4 500m 02:37.4 90 608 22
02:38.0 1,000m 02:38.0 89 605 20
02:38.6 1,500m 02:38.6 88 602 20
02:41.3 2,000m 02:41.3 83 587 20
02:40.1 2,500m 02:40.1 85 593 20
02:39.8 3,000m 02:39.8 86 595 20
02:40.3 3,500m 02:40.3 85 592 19
02:41.9 4,000m 02:41.9 82 583 20
02:42.0 4,500m 02:42.0 82 583 20
02:39.4 5,000m 02:39.4 86 597 20

Welcome, would love to know a first name too if you're open to that as well. Losing weight and hiking Big Bend sounds like nice goals to have. A lot of us (me included) started out our fitness journeys older and overweight. I just found rowing after I got in semi-decent shape and had lost 70 lbs and kept if off a year or two. Actually, rowing put back around 15 lbs on me but in the form of muscle very slowly after a couple of years.

SS (steady state) day for me today. Last week of the first round of PP. I'm still deciding if I'm going to take a week "off", doing mostly SS work and perhaps a CTC or so or just continue right on to the second round.

W3/D2 -- SS day. Took liberties again today with the plan (just a bit but in the overall spirit of the plan). Did 7K on the rower @ 2:10.8 and then did 22 minutes on the Air Dyne Bike (I like to do around 52 minutes or so of total work on my SS days and that's about what this was -- just over 30 minutes on the rower, quick towel off and then 22 minutes on the ADPro). Went a bit easier on the AD Pro today, used it as more of a recovery. Even the rowing portion was a little easier than usual for me. When I'm feeling fresher, my SS will be around 2:08. When I'm tired, it will be around 2:10/2:11 overall I've noticed.

[mitchel674]

Just posted in the "what training did you do today" thread then when surfing around I found you all hanging out here!

Anyway, I restarted (for the second time) the Pete Plan this morning. Put everything on pause while I studied for the CFA but now that the exam is over, it was time to get back on the wagon. As a 49 Male, 197.6 and 5'8" I'm not a paragon on fitness. Been lurking around these parts for sometime, rowing on and off, sometimes committed and sometimes not but this time I've got no real choice. Wife and I are backpacking Big Bend in September and I can't carry this extra weight around.

Time Meters Pace Watts Cal/Hr S/M
26:38.8 5,000m 02:39.8 86 594 20
02:37.4 500m 02:37.4 90 608 22
02:38.0 1,000m 02:38.0 89 605 20
02:38.6 1,500m 02:38.6 88 602 20
02:41.3 2,000m 02:41.3 83 587 20
02:40.1 2,500m 02:40.1 85 593 20
02:39.8 3,000m 02:39.8 86 595 20
02:40.3 3,500m 02:40.3 85 592 19
02:41.9 4,000m 02:41.9 82 583 20
02:42.0 4,500m 02:42.0 82 583 20
02:39.4 5,000m 02:39.4 86 597 20

Welcome to the thread. This is a good start for you. Are you going to be able to put in all of the weekly PP workouts?

Weight loss was never a goal for me. At 6ft and 170lbs when I started rowing 10 months ago I was more interested in my general fitness. Interestingly, I now weigh 162 and am considerably more fit after completing the BPP. Activities like hiking, tennis and skiing are all much easier for me with my lighter weight and improved aerobic capacity.

[Street]

Just posted in the "what training did you do today" thread then when surfing around I found you all hanging out here!

Welcome onboard! This thread is good for motivation, nice consistant times too.

4 X 1000m

Good times, especially the first two. It goes to show I really need to up my SPM on these to get the speed up on these!


It's the last cycle before my holiday, so I think I'll do these three weeks then spend a week doing a couple timed pieces before I take a couple weeks off. Not the most consistent this time round but I wanted to see if I could go slightly faster each time and it's the first time I've averaged under 1:45 on the 500s!

PP 1.1 8x500m. Target 1:46.8
13:59.9 - 4,000m - 1:44.9 - 30
1:45.9 - 500m - 1:45.9 - 29
1:45.3 - 500m - 1:45.3 - 29
1:45.2 - 500m - 1:45.2 - 29
1:45.2 - 500m - 1:45.2 - 30
1:45.1 - 500m - 1:45.1 - 30
1:44.9 - 500m - 1:44.9 - 30
1:44.7 - 500m - 1:44.7 - 30
1:43.7 - 500m - 1:43.7 - 30

[mdpfirrman]

Nice work Andy! Have you played around with Drag Factor at all? This past year, my SPM were pretty slow (around this time last year). I spent a great amount of time working on keeping my SS pieces from 23/24 SPM. The only way I could do this was lowering the DF to around 104 or so. I had been mostly racing and rowing at around 112 to 115 before that. You really have to move light and quick to keep that up with a lower DF at similar paces.

I ended up racing at 104 DF this early Feb and set a PB by 8 seconds on the 2K. My SPM for that 2K was the highest I had ever managed. It took me swallowing some pride lowering the DF but for me, that was key.

Great 500 X 8! You're at least at your peak level now if not a tad better.

[Street]

I've never really played with it after I found a setting that seemed comfortable. Looking back through my log it seems that I settled around 103 naturally. I probably should spend a bit of time trying different ones again as I've not really tried any others since I started! I'm fairly lightweight and when I tried higher settings it felt like I was having to pull too much if that makes sense..

[mdpfirrman]

I've never really played with it after I found a setting that seemed comfortable. Looking back through my log it seems that I settled around 103 naturally. I probably should spend a bit of time trying different ones again as I've not really tried any others since I started! I'm fairly lightweight and when I tried higher settings it felt like I was having to pull too much if that makes sense..

It makes a ton of sense to me. I would get really, really tired on longer SS rows. Once I reduced the DF just a bit, I didn't get nearly as tired overall from the week. Yours isn't terribly high now but perhaps just a small change lower. Maybe do a few SS sessions where you try to keep a higher SPM or an intermediate session where your goal is more to keep a higher SPM rate versus time. In order to do that comfortably, it's likely you need to move DF down just a bit. Obviously, it's also a factor of your endurance as well (and yours is better than mine). If you're finding its not happening even with a slightly lower drag, perhaps it's habits. I know when I was averaging 25 SPM for my 2Ks, I had gotten into some really bad habits with pausing either at the catch or at the drive finish with slow hands. My DF was too high for me so I was slowing my SPM by artificially stopping. Was hard to get out of that habit but even moving the DF down slightly might help with that too if that's your problem. It forces you to be more non-stop and really pay attention to continuous movement.

I don't like lower drags on sprints. Only 2K or higher distances. I move the DF up slightly for sprints, especially 500m or under. I did the 4 X 1000m the other day with a lower DF. My failure on that one was more about my cardio/AT.