Monday morning rowing, I warmed up to Rowvember Day 15 ‘Equal-ish’ – 3 x 5:00@ 20spm, 2:00r, 15 x 0:30 work, 0:30r.
Nailed the splits on the 20spm part and aimed for negative splits on all of the 30 second pieces, but had a few where I fell slightly short.
Heart rate monitor was playing up so I took it off, and it somehow still managed to record a heart rate for rounds 6 and 7 before I disconnected it from the strap!
Next up was Rowvember Day 17 ‘Seeing Double’ 2 x 5:00@20spm, 4:00@22spm, 3:00@24spm, 2:00@26spm, 1:00@28spm, 1:00r.
Nailed every stroke rate, negative splits every round bar 1. Second round distances and splits all beat the first round by a decent margin.
A great exercise in finding your inner metronome and tweaking it slightly each round. 2,248m (10:43.2) cool down and stretching.
Tuesday is a rest day once again, no archery this evening as I need to attend a county committee meeting, which as usual turned into a 2 hour snoozefest.
Wednesday morning rowing, I warmed up to Rowvember Day 18 ‘Something Different ‘ 10 x 2:00, 1:00, 2:00r, 1-4@22,24spm, 5-7@24,26spm, 8-10@24,28spm with the intention of doing day 19 afterwards.
Nailed every stroke rate and increased distance on every round. 11,202m of warm up complete, a few minutes of rest and it is time for some sprints with Day 19 ‘Rowing the Specs’ 14 x 0:57w, 0:24r (RowErg Dimensions).
Started off a little too ambitious on the first 4 rounds, I was not going to be able to continue adding meters each round, so concentrated on not dropping too many from where I was.
Simply maintaining close to 260m was also became increasingly difficult and the rest time was simply evaporating way too fast.
I managed to pull myself together again for the last few and then went all in on the last one for 270m.
Spent the next 5 minutes catching my breath before doing a 2,246m (10:49.9) cool down for a daily total of 17,666m and finished off with some stretching.
Thursday morning rowing, first day of this year’s C2 Holiday Challenge, which runs from November 24 to December 24 (American Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve), row as many meters as you can for charity.
I decided to warm up to Rowvember Day 21 ’21’s’ 21:00 as 7 x arms only, 7 x legs and body, 7 x 7 second drill.
Took me a while to get the drills perfected, counting the required seconds and maintaining the stroke count on the 7 second drill was the hardest part.
Great warm up, 7 second drill allows the flywheel to really slow down, so each stroke felt like pulling an anchor up.
After a few minutes rest, I did Rowvember Day 20 ‘Derby Time’ 3 x 1976m, 0:45r (Kentucky Derby is 1976m and 45 years old).
Basically 3 x 2,000m back to back (all bar the last 3 strokes).
Started the first one a little too fast at 1:50/500m and decided I needed to back off a bit as there was no way I was going to maintain that pace for two more (initial projection was around 7:17).
Paced the other two about right at around 1:54/500m, although it was a bit of a struggle towards the middle of the last one, but I managed to put on a drive for the finish from about 500m out to bring the average pace back down.
Happy with the times and this is good practice for my 4,000m-ish race on the Tideway next month (Remenham Challenge).
As this is the first day of the Holiday Challenge, I finished off with a 30:05.1 cool down (6683m) and some stretching, this gave me a first day total of 17,367m.
Friday morning skiing, I still had the 5,000m to do for the C2 SkiErg Performance Series – November Edition
Requirement each time is 30 seconds, 1,000m, 2,000m, 5,000m, I did the 1,000m on 11/11/2022.
1,000m (5:20.5) warm up, then onto the time trial, PB to beat from September is 8:16.3 (2:04.1/500m), I set the pace skiier for 2:04.1 and off we go.
I passed 500m in 2:02.5, 6 seconds down on my 500m PB, but up by 6m on the pace skiier.
I passed 1,000m in 4:05.0, 3.9 seconds down on my 1,000m PB, but up by 13m on the pace skiier. I was starting to fade at this point, but so long as I kept at the pace skiier’s rate or better, it would not catch me.
I passed 1,500m in 6:08.5, a new 1,500m PB by 7.8 seconds and up by 15m on the pace skiier. Final push for the finish.
Passed the 2,000m finish line in 8:11.0, a new PB by 5.3 seconds and up by 22m on the pace skiier.
Tried to sprint for the finish, but had nothing left and was really only able to hang on to the 2:02/500m pace I had started with, despite upping the rating to 47spm.
I was initially hoping for my first sub 8 minute 2K on the SkiErg, but by the end was trying to hang on for a sub 8:10 and just missed out on that as well.
I am happy with the result and I paced it well, I just need to find that little extra bit of effort to get the average splits below 2:00 and I will have that sub 8 minute 2K.
I sat and recovered for about 5 minutes before doing Rowvember Day 22
‘Formal Attire’ 10 x 0:30 fast, 1:00 moderate, 0:30 fast, 1:00 rest, I was not looking to break any distance records, but was happy to go with fast and moderate rates.
Aimed at somewhere around 54-56spm and above 100m for the ‘fast’ 0:30 sections and 46spm and above 200m for the ‘moderate’ 1:00 sections.
The pace is not great on any of these, as I was tired from the 5,000m time trial, but as already mentioned, that was not my focus for this workout.
Finished off with a 2241m (12:26.6) cool down for a daily total of 13,802m and my Holiday Challenge total now at 31,169m.
Saturday morning masters rowing, 8+, stroke seat, steady state and power rowing, power pieces at 26spm, 3 pieces at 30+spm (13,596m).
Headed into Staines after a cup of tea and bought some Thai spicy chicken and rice from the market place for lunch.
Saturday afternoon leisure rowing, leisure 2x, bow seat steering, helping Ali with his first time in a double (4,383m).
Changed into some smarter clothes and then went for the leisure rowing Christmas meal at The Bells pub in Staines, A very enjoyable meal, and then back to the boat house for Secret Santa and some games.
Sunday morning masters rowing, 8+, stroke seat, steady state and power rowing, power pieces at 26spm, 3 pieces at 28spm (13,443m).
Headed into Staines after a cup of tea and had a cooked breakfast at Wetherspoons before heading back to the boat club for the AGM.