Back on the ergometer

[rebeccmeister]

It's back to life as "usual" here in the Republic of Texasland, which means back to erging. The trip to Seattle gave me a 3-week break from the rowing machine, though I'd like to think that bicycling around was a good alternative fitness activity (and mental break!). I hopped back on the erg yesterday morning on the back patio, and for the first time in a very long time, I gave up in the middle of a piece and didn't finish the whole thing (finished 10km out of a 15km piece). Not even at a crawling-along pace. Even when it was ridiculously hot and scrottie's mom was in town for a visit and I was tired and grumpy in the afternoon, I still managed to finish a terrible half-marathon.

Yesterday, though. It was HUMID, to put it mildly. I can't leave the back door to the house open anymore, because pretty soon there will be a cat housed on the back patio, so miss Emma has to learn that the back patio is off-limits now (plus, while I was out of town there was some drama involving cockroaches in the back patio litterbox and then cat pee on some towels). That makes the limited air circulation even worse.

I'd erg inside, except with the thermostat set at 85 degrees, the air conditioning doesn't run much at night and then the indoor humidity creeps up, and most of the house is carpeted (with industrial carpeting) and I just don't want to sweat on it. Seriously, with the amount I sweat, it's a problem.

Things weren't nearly so terrible this morning at the Rec Center. Satisfactory performance, I'd say. It was on the humid side even inside of the Rec Center - whenever that happens, the staff set up a system of fans that blows through the locker rooms, to keep the locker rooms from getting all moldy. But I was able to complete a modestly-distanced piece at a pace that was comparable to what I was doing before I left for Seattle, which suggests no major fitness losses.

So maybe all is not lost. The thing is, rowing is a sport about consistency and hard work. The only way to best the erg is to get back on it, again and again.

I read an article not too long ago that showed that heat acclimation benefited athletes in both hot and cool conditions. It's made me wonder how worthwhile it is for me to struggle on the patio. Trouble is, I don't have a good system for deciding how to adjust my power output relative to the changes in temperature and humidity; the workouts I'm doing prescribe certain paces, but there needs to be a heat factor added to adjust the paces. I suppose if I trained with a heart rate monitor again I could use my heart rate instead, but I'd need to come up with some way to get baseline measures at the Rec (their ergs don't have HR sensors). Hmm. I sense a self-experiment - recording temperature, humidity, heart rate, and speed.

I am also concerned about the consequences of dehydration/overheating for the quality of my recovery between workouts.

For now, I'm going to continue alternating between workouts at the Rec center and workouts on the patio. I just need to figure out how to avoid discouragement and failure on the patio. One workout at a time, I suppose.

Comments

[scrottie.livejournal.com]

It probably makes sense to do some shorter pieces on the patio or in the back yard but I wouldn't torture myself with it. Jacob insists that a nice large fan on high (and he has one) makes it impossible for mosquitoes to land.
xox,
-s

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

I was thinking a more industrial fan might help tremendously. And yeah, I plan on being strategic about which pieces I do on the patio. If it turns into (utter) torture, I will just stop doing it, after all.

It was interesting, while bike touring, to hit the point where I went from "Hey! This is fun!" to "Okay, this isn't fun anymore and I want off." It tended to happen after about 65 miles of riding, when my shoulders would start aching from incorrect posture (caused by poor bike fit), and my feet would start aching if I'd been going up too many big hills or what-have-you (the hills were large enough and the gearing inadequate such that it wasn't possible to spin anymore). It made me think that I need to reach a point where more of the time on a brevet falls into the "Fun!" category.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I found heart rate monitors very useful for a while, until I somewhat internalized what they're telling me.

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

Yeah, with feedback from the rowing machine's monitor AND a HR monitor, I should eventually reach a point where I don't really need to rely on the HR monitor anymore. For training at the Rec center (air-conditioned), I'm fine with using just the computer. I just don't know how to translate the paces I can maintain in air conditioning to paces I can maintain on the hot and swampy back porch at home.