Monday still felt like death from the head cold, so did no exercise other than walking the dog for an hour (5.4km).
Weekdays always start at 06:00 with a 30 minute dog walk and finish with a dog walk ‘around the block’ before bed.
Weekends and Bank Holidays start at 07:00 with a 1 hour dog walk.
More progressions for Tuesday’s calisthenics, and started using some of my new equipment.
- Straight Arm Plank – 3 x 1:00
- Inverse Bent knee Row- 3 x 5
- Full Squat – 3 x 10
- Bent Knee Row – 3 x 5
- Scapular Pull – 3 x 0:10
- Inverse Pull Ups – 3 x 1
- Inverse Chin Ups – 3 x 1
- Asian Squat 1 x 5:00
I struggled quite badly with the scapular pulls, pull ups and chin ups.
Tuesday evening archery – clout shooting with longbows – scored 1 point with each longbow, looks like I still need to build up some strength.
Wednesday rowing started off with a 10 minute/2.2km warm up, then was supposed to be a 10km watching an episode of Doom Patrol, but my Plex server was playing up so that was off the table.
I decided to do the 10km anyway and go for a ‘blow the cobwebs out’ time trial and managed a new PB by nearly 2 minutes.
Unfortunately I just failed to break the 40 minute barrier because I had gone too slow on the first 2km at 2:23 and left too much to claw back despite 3 back to back 8 minute 2km sections and a strong 7:53 last 2km, I finished with a time of 40:17.9.
On the plus side, I proved to myself that I can maintain a 2:00/500m split for 10km so sub 40 minutes is definitely possible for next time.
Thursday’s calisthenics, I did 3 rounds of Al Kavadlo’s ‘Zero Experience’ workout which covers the first 5 exercises listed.
- Incline Push Ups – 3 x 10
- Full Squat – 3 x 20
- Hip Bridge – 3 x 0:30
- Assisted Bent Knee L Sit – 3 x 0:10
- Assisted Frog Stand – 3 x 0:10
- Lying Knee Tuck 3 x 30
- Lying Alternate Knee Tuck 1 x 40
- Bar Support Hold 3 x 0:20
- Band Assisted Dip 3 x 5
I struggled with the straight arm exercises, hence the assisted versions being listed.
Friday rowing was a 10 minute/2km warm up, leisurely 10km (48:37) watching Doom Patrol S02E02, 10 minute/2km cool down.
Saturday morning involved a 5.4km walk with the dog, 5.4km ride to Northala Fields, 5km ParkRun, 5.4km ride home again.
I had set myself a goal of beating my previous ParkRun time by about a minute and managed to complete it with a new PB of 28:54, so just inside my target time, largely due to better pacing.
They switched to their ‘Summer route’ which involves slightly more elevation. I placed 114/235 overall, 76/113 male runners, 14/21 VM50-54 and 52.31% by age grade.
Felt much better after arriving back home, having some toast and peanut butter after the walk definitely helped.
One challenge running 1 – 15 May is the Concept 2 Marathon and Century Challenge, where you can row a full or half marathon or century (100K).
On Sunday decided to do my first half marathon of the new season as a time trial and see if I could finally break an hour and a half.
I set the pace boat to a split of 2:08 and settled in to watching Resident Evil: The Final Chapter.
The pace was bearable and I kept up with the pace boat well for the first 3/4 of an hour, at which point I was getting too hot and had to get up to open the patio door to let more cold air in.
I was then playing catch-up with the pace boat for the next 30-40 minutes, even though I had only dropped to an average of 2:08.8 my boat had dropped off the screen and did not reappear until my average pace was back below 2:08.4.
I had to take many single stroke breaks to stretch my glutes, which were in agony from about an hour in, by lying backwards in the seat, before continuing on.
I switched the display back to the estimated finish time with just over 2km to go and the average still showing as 2:08.2.
I then concentrated on upping my pace to around 2:00 for this last section and from 1000m out ensuring that my finish time remained under 1:30:00.
My last 10 strokes were at about 1:50 pace crossing the line with a time of 1:29:48.1, mission accomplished.
This also completed the first half of the challenge.
