http://www.christopherkoehler.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/rowing_training_incentive-300x224.jpgIncentive to get on the ergometer

My author bio is up on DSP?s webpage. I had no idea. I?ve sent the first round of edits back to Dreamspinner, but haven?t heard back about the second round or galley proofs. No word on the cover art. The release date is February 28, 2011. As of right now, the ?Coming Soon? page only has books released up through February 23. Sigh. Baby steps, right?

On other fronts, I think my coach is trying to kill me. I?ll say from the start that even with as many wonderful and skilled coaches as I?ve had over the years, she?s the most skilled at manipulating our bodies to provoke the necessary physical responses to make boats fly across the water. That?s what training is?targeted stress to provoke specific physiological adaptions. I?ve never been lucky enough to row under someone this knowledgeable. But ouchies!

Mondays are endurance days, which despite the term doesn?t mean putting up with as much as you can for as long as you can. It refers to the low-intensity and long-duration aerobic work that builds endurance over the long term by ?teaching? your body to metabolize fat, rid itself of lactic acid, and to increase oxygen-transport capacity by laying down more capillaries. It?s long, slow, and boring. It?s also what will allow me to crush people?s rowing dreams later this year and hopefully in less than a month at the Golden State Indoor Rowing Championship. Last year, I dusted most of UC Davis?s men?s crew. I might be a little competitive.

Wednesdays are aerobic capacity days, which means interval work done up at the higher end of my aerobic zone, 80-85% of my maximum heart rate. They?re not a lot of fun. My coach has an experimentally determined training pace for each of us, so the bulk of this kind of work is done at or slightly below this training pace. The last one I did, for example, was five 8-minute pieces at the training pace, with 1:36 minutes of rest between each piece. I have no idea how she determined that 1:36 minutes would be a physiological beneficial interval, but then, that?s why she?s the coach.

Fridays are a treat. Smell that? That’s sarcasm. Fridays are V02 max day. V02 max is a measure of just how much oxygen you can pull and use from a given lungful of air. The workouts feature short, brutally intense pieces on either side of the aerobic-anaerobic threshold with the intent of raising the latter. It works. It?s just not fun. Fun fact: world-caliber rowers, which I?m not and will never be, have among the highest V0s max of anyone. Yep, rowing?s that intense.

As much as I hate the high-intensity stuff, it pays off. At least year?s Gold State Indoor Rowing Championships (2000 meters of hell on a Concept2 ergometer) I took second in my age division at 6:40.1 minutes, faster than a lot of collegiate rowers half my age. I?m not sure what I?ll pull this year. I?ve been training since last year and have added strength training to the mix. Obviously, I hope to get below 6:40.

Then there?s the on the water practices three days a week, and we won?t even go into CrossFit right now. Yeah, I work out form time to time, although not this morning. I hit the wall. I just did some yoga. Maybe I?ll do the assigned erg workout later this afternoon. I added the picture at the top of the post for incentive.

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