Monday, 30 minute dog walk, then set up the RowErg for a 2K (9:48) warm up, then see if I can improve on my distances for challenge A and B.
Challenge B – 878m, started to fall off the pace at around 1:33, really tiring around 2:30, but held on for a total of 878m, 27m up on Wednesday, but 9m short of my best distance which was in week 2.
A few minutes rest then 10K (47:58.8) while watching Battlestar Galactica S01E05, HR mainly below 120 and 2:28 pace, pushed it a bit more in the last 2K, 2:11 pace, but HR still stayed below 140.
A couple of minutes to recover then challenge A – 233m, better technique today meant the Erg did not move around too much, only a 4m gain on Wednesday, 9m short of my best distance which was in week 1.
Sprints still need work to ensure I can get the power down without throwing the Erg All over the place and wasting energy.
2.2K (9:42) cool down and some stretching.
This brings my weekly total up to 5606m and a 4 week total of 22406m, which is about 300m above what I estimated for myself at the start of this challenge, although that estimate included higher values for the A and B challenges than I achieved and a lower C value than I achieved.
This proves my point I made to myself at the start that a good C distance will more than make up for average A and B distances.
My A distances have been sub optimal pretty much every week, they should have been much closer to 250m. My B distances were OK, although I would have preferred at least one to be above 900m. My C distances all exceeded my estimate of 4400m to the point that I was actually hoping for 4600, although I never quite made it. In all I am happy with my results.
Tuesday calisthenics, a repeat of last Wednesday’s rings based pull workout.
- Inverse Knee Rings Row – 3 x 10
- Rings Row – 3 x 5
- Rings Scapular Pull – 3 x 0:30
- Band Assisted Rings Pull Up (Purple) – 3 x 6
- Band Assisted Rings Chin Up (Purple) – 3 x 6
- Angled Rings Row – 3 x 10
- Static Rings Hold – 5 x 0:10
- Various Isometric Rings Holds – 0:10 each
Tuesday evening archery, more practice at 50m and 30m and helping the newer archers progress to 50m.
Wednesday rowing, 2K warm up (9:30), 10K row while watching Battlestar Galactica S01E06 (45:30.2) and 2.2K cool down (10:03). Forgot to put my HR monitor on for the warm up, forgot to connect it to the Erg for the 10K, finally connected it for the cool down – ah well, it all felt good anyway, also forgot to put on my various sweat bands – obviously somewhat distracted this morning.
Looks like I came second in the Dark Horse June Challenge – Anthony Lovato Jr beat me by 267m with a combined total of 22673m, he had me on the 45 second A challenge by 187m, on the 3 minute B challenge by 175m, but I had him on the 17 minute C challenge by 95m (he is also 10 years younger than me, so I will claim an age/weight adjusted consolation victory ;o). He also managed personal best distances on all 3 challenges this week, so fair play to him and congratulations on the win.
The rules stated that the winners from each week are automatically excluded from winning in the subsequent weeks so there will be new people winning each week.
There were 20 entrants in week 1, Tamsin Brew (5056) and Anthony Lovato (5681m) for the win, 18 entrants in week 2 (3 dnf), Elaine Heasley (5035m) and myself (5654m) for the win. 14 entrants in week 3 (2dnf), Jennifer Rowe (4743m) and Jonathan Haff (5382m) for the win and only 12 entrants for week 4 (1 dnf), Linda Thornton (4357m) and Thorsten Thau (5306m) for the win, with Tamsin Brew (20003m) and Anthony Lovato (22673m) picking up the overall distance wins, Jennifer Rowe (18714m) and myself (22406m) for second with Linda Thornton (17172m) and Jonathan Haff (21557m) for third. Congratulations to everyone who took part.
As a side note, it is still a pretty poor showing for a community with over 1000 members that less than 2% actually took part in the challenge, and as expected people dropping out after realising they were no longer in the running for the overall win (this was pretty much a foregone conclusion by the end of week 2) and/or unlikely to win that week (winners could be easily predicted from the previous week’s results).
Thursday calisthenics, a repeat of last Friday’s rings push workout.
- Knee Push Ups – 3 x 10
- Bent Knee L Sit – 3 x 0:45 – dip station
- Hollow Body Hold – 3 x 30
- Lying Knee Tuck – 3 x 40
- Bar Support Hold – 3 x 1:00
- Band Assisted Dip (Purple) – 3 x 7
- Leg Raises 9cm – 90 degrees 3 x 30
- L Sit – 3 x 10
- Rings Bent Knee L Sit – 3 x 10
Friday skiing, I had signed up for the Concept 2 SkiErg Performance Series, this is a quarterly set of tests to track your progress: 30 seconds for distance, 1000m, 2000m and 5000m for time.
It is not intended as a competition, but more as a set of lines in the sand for seeing how you are progressing, although they do have an honour board for anyone who signs up and posts times/distances during the test months.
I decided to do the 5K which I did in 24:45.4 and the 30 seconds (132m) just to set some baselines, I also did a 500m (2:04.9) but that was before I realised it was not one of the distances in the challenge, ah well, it is another workout that can be ranked for tracking progress.
Any new distance/time is a new baseline for me at present as I have only had the SkiErg a few weeks and this was only my third time of using it.
My form was much better this morning, having watched a few more videos, so less squatting and quad ache, more power and lats engagement, this meant that my pace actually improved over the duration of the 5K after an initial drop off while finding my form.
I did an additional 30 second workout later that morning as my 16 year old son had decided to try it as well and put in a distance of 131m, I obviously couldn’t have him that close to my distance, so had another go and this time managed 140m.
Saturday, 4 laps of the park for a morning walk with the dog, then loaded up the car for a 4 hour drive to North Wales for a 10 day break with the family.
Sunday morning took the dog for a walk along the beach that ended up being a loop just short of 6km, later that day we also took a walk in the opposite direction for about 2.5km.
During the month of June I managed a total of 84 hours of exercise, walked 128km climbed 222 flights of stairs, cycled 11km, ran 5km, rowed 186km and skied 3km.
By the end of the month my weight was 14 Stone 8lb (204lb/93kg), 1lb loss.