Monday rowing, 10 minute 2K warm up followed by another go at Dark Horse challenge B (3:00 for distance). Managed 885m for an increase of 17m over Friday’s effort. 10K watching Battlestar Galactica S01E01 and then another go at Dark Horse challenge A (0:45 for distance). Only managed 231m, a drop of 11m from Friday, but not surprised based on fatigue levels.
Tuesday calisthenics, repeated last Tuesday’s workout, but increased some of the reps and times a bit more.
- Straight Arm Plank – 3 x 1:45
- Inverse Bent Knee Row – 3 x 10
- Reverse Plank – 3 x 1:45
- Bent Knee Row – 3 x 10
- Close Squat – 3 x 25
- Scapular Pull – 3 x 0:30
- Band Assisted Pull Up (Green) – 3 x 5 (on new pull up bar)
- Band Assisted Chin Up (Green) – 3 x 5 (on new pull up bar)
- Knee to Floor Lunge – 3 x 30
- Asian Squat – 3 x 3:00
One large superset running down the list 3 times, added in the lunges this week.
Tuesday Evening Archery. slightly inclement while setting up, but held off for the actual shooting, spent the evening obtaining sight marks for 70m.
Wednesday rowing, new baselines for week 2 of the Dark Horse challenge. Opted to do them in reverse order this week, so 17 minutes, 3 minutes then 45 seconds.
10 minute 2K warm up, then straight into challenge C. I managed 4532m which was an improvement of 51m on last week.
This would have been my Week 1 C distance, however, I do my workouts at 07:00 and did a half marathon last Wednesday morning before these challenges were posted, so missed a day and did not want to mess with my workout regime. (It would only have bumped me to second place anyway).
Had a rest for about 15 minutes, then into challenge B, I managed 866m, this was 19m down on last week, but considering I had just done challenge C, I was happy with the distance.
Another 10 minutes rest and then challenge A. I managed 226m, I never came close to my goal pace (HR monitor looks like it needs a new battery) not happy with the distance at all, despite being tired.
Did my 2.2K cool down which took about 11 minutes and then decided to have another go at challenge A, this time I managed 233m, still not at goal pace, but happier with the distance relative to my level of fatigue and only 9m down on last week’s distance.
So overall I am up 23m on last week already, despite A and B being down at this point, I am happy with the new baselines.
Also I much preferred doing them in this order (C, B, A) to how I did them last week (A, B, C).
The Saguaro barefoot shoes I had ordered from Amazon arrived, they are almost like ‘swim shoes’ but much better made, I will have to wait and see just how well I adapt to wearing them.
Thursday morning, first long dog walk in the new barefoot shoes, the walk around the block the previous evening did not really count.
Needed to adapt my walking style to shorter paces with less of a ‘heel strike’ or I was going to be in some serous pain. I never realised quite how hard I hit the ground with my heel when walking fast.
Adapting to more of a ‘mid strike’ walking pattern whilst also leaning slightly forwards made for a much more pleasurable experience. Running in them will definitely require a mid to front strike or my heels will be in agony in a very short time frame.
Calisthenics, repeated last Thursday’s workout, but increased some of the reps and times a bit more.
- Incline Push Ups – 3 x 12 – parallettes and knees
- Close Squat – 3 x 30
- Bent Knee L Sit – 3 x 0:30 – dip station
- Hip Bridge – 3 x 3:30
- Frog Stand – 3 x 0:10
- Lying Knee Tuck – 3 x 40
- Bar Support Hold – 3 x 0:50
- Hollow Body Hold – 3 x 30
- Band Assisted Dip (Green) – 3 x 10
- Straight Bridges – 3 x 30
- Leg Raises 9cm – 90 degrees 3 x 30
One large superset running down the list 3 times, swapped alternate leg tucks for a hollow body hold for time.
Friday rowing, first day rowing in barefoot shoes, 2K warm up with 5 sets of ’10 strokes hard’ to prepare me for the retry of challenge B.
I managed 887m, a 21m improvement on Wednesday’s baseline, 2m improvement on last week. I started well, 900m was easily on the cards until about 2 minutes, then fatigue started to take over, HR jumped at 2:37 and spiked to 188, I was just hanging on from there, pace dropped to 1:46.
After recovering, I had another go at challenge A this time I managed 232m, 1m less than Wednesday, still 9m down on last week, I will give this one a proper go on Monday.
Finished off my workout with a 10K watching Battlestar Galactica S01E02 at a steady 2:23 pace and 26spm (47:45.9), kept my HR below 130, then finally some stretching.
The new shoes worked well, I had to raise the foot stretcher up a notch, which was to be expected, they promoted a more heels down drive which is good, the only bad point was some slight numbness in the back of my heels where the foot stretcher pressed against them.
Saturday, Harefield Fête ‘Have-A-Go’ archery, loaded up a van with equipment from the Academy at 09:00 and headed over to the field to setup. All ready by around 10:30.
A lovely day and plenty of people wanting to give archery a try at £2.00 for 4 arrows. We raised a total of £360.00, a portion of which will be donated to the church who run the Fête and had a good deal if interest from people looking to start a beginners course.
Sunday I had booked a trip to the local recycling centre to dump a load of rubbish for 10:00, after which I headed off to Kingston-upon-Thames to collect a Concept 2 SkiErg I had found on Gumtree.
The round trip took over 3 hours even though it is only about 16 miles in each direction, most of the roads have 20mph speed restrictions on them, so even though the traffic was not that heavy, you could still not really make any decent progress.
A new SkiErg is £700.00 direct from Concept 2 and an additional £220.00 for the floor stand. This one was advertised with the floor stand for £550.00, so nearly half price and it only had just over 250K lifetime metres logged on the PM5, so practically brand new.
I chose to wall mount it as this requires less floor space, but I will keep the floor stand in case I relocate it or move house at some point in the future.