Overview

Overall Winter Plan:

We’ll do two sequential 8 or 9 week sessions beginning in early November.  During each, we’ll build up our time spent at race pace and we’ll throw in a few short, sharp, high VO2 max efforts to keep from getting stale – but not enough to peak or overtrain us.  We’ll start out with a basic plan to get the ball rolling, then we’ll add in some creativity later.  The goal will be to maximize the power-endurance type of muscular stress while not overdoing the cardiovascular stress.   If you can do weekly 3 hour aerobic pace erg sessions, that would be preferable, but alas, I start to squirm after about 45 min on the erg.  Therefore, in lieu of the preferred regular 3 hour long off-season base-building sessions, we’ll focus our energies on what we can accomplish in an hour or so on the ergs.

Because this is the off-season for us northern hemisphere paddlers, and because we do NOT want to overtrain over the winter, it will be important to limit the time spent above LT pace and to allow for adequate rest periods between high effort intervals.  Therefore I suggest refraining from doing too many max effort intervals.

We’ll use meters for distance and “500 m pace” for speed.  If you have an erg that doesn’t register meters, use 9 or 10 min as a 2,000 m equivalent.

I recommend that you use a GYM fan setting of 7-9, 7 for the smaller folks and 9 for larger folks.  In my opinion, you want the GYM resistance to feel a 5-10% more “drag-gy” than your racing boat during both the aerobic sessions and the LT sessions to shift the stressors from the heart and lungs to the muscles.

Also, consider taping about 2 ounces to the ends of the paddle shaft to simulate the swing weight of your real paddle.  Adjust the paddle length so that your cadence and feel feels similar to what you use on the water.  As a reference point, I use a 208 cm paddle in the surfski and I use a 63 1/2″ shaft on the GYM.  I do 2 km intervals on the water at about 80-85 cadence and have the same stroke rate on the GYM.

Consider aiming a fan at yourself to help cool you during paddling.  I use an iPod (Shuffle or other) to help pass the time.  I find podcasts more interesting than songs.  I also hang my iPod from the ceiling so that it hangs about 1 ft above and 1 ft behind my head.  This keeps the sweat from dripping down the headphone cord into and ruining the unit.

Definitions:

LT = lactate tolerance, anaerobic threshold, or marathon race pace.  These terms are defined separately but for all intents and purposes for our training group, we’ll assume they are equivalent.  This pace is about 85-90% of max heart rate in most athletes and we’ll refer to all those terms as equivalent for our purposes.  This is the pace just below where you would be if you were to time trial for an hour nonstop.  It should feel uncomfortable, but endurable.  The easiest way to find this pace is with a heart rate monitor.  If you have / already know / can get the heart rate data from a 1 hour race, look at your average heart rate from about 15 minutes into the race to about 45 minutes into the race.  Your heart rate will naturally settle at a level just above your LT pace.  As an example, my heart rate at about 30 minutes into a 1 hour race will be about 170 (max heart rate about 176).  My LT pace will be at about heart rate 165 and in training, I’ll do my LT intervals at about 162-168 bpm.  Why just below LT?  Much less stress, with arguably the same training effect.  At this pace, our blood lactate levels will be at a moderate level.  If you have a blood lactate monitor, look at the FACT Canada website for instructions on how to do a lactate test.  With that test data, you can accurately find your LT heart rate.

Max VO2 = 100% effort = as fast as you can go over the required distance.  At this pace, you’ll be gasping for air, your arms will burn and ache, and you’ll hit near max heart rate if the race is long enough.  The key here is that your speed should not fall during the interval, i.e. you hit a max sustainable pace and hold it there until the end.

Aerobic pace = considerably slower than LT pace.  You’ll be at the point where you might struggle to “nose breathe” only.

HR = heart rate.  Max HR = maximum heart rate.

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