Monday morning rowing Rowvember Day 24 – ‘Thanksgiving Throwdown’ 15,000m
I decided that I did not feel like doing this as a time trial, so did it as steady state instead.
For reference, this was 6 minutes down on my PB time, that was set as part of my 1/2 marathon PB back in May.
My back was hurting a bit from the weekend’s sweep rowing, so I was not pushing the pace too much.
I must have zoned out a few times whilst watching R.I.P.D. since while the stroke rate remained pretty constant, I dropped off the desired pace a few times, which meant I just missed out on my desired finish time of under 1:10.00, despite picking it up towards the end.
Finished off with 2,248m (11:44.5) cool down and some stretching.
17,246m for the day, current Holiday Challenge total stands at 48,417m, unfortunately the weekend’s 31,442m OTW don’t count.
Tuesday morning, rest day, so I decided to take the dog on a nice long 1 hour walk of about 5.4km.
I was supposed to go to archery in the evening, but I lost track of time and before I knew it, it was already 19:00 and I was supposed to be there already. In the end I decided not to bother this week.
Wednesday morning rowing, I decided to do Rowvember Day 25, ‘Catching it Right’ 10 x 2:00@24spm, 0:10 hold the catch, start with 0:10 at the catch as a warm up
I was going for negative splits of about a second every round.
Nailed the stroke rates as always, decided to go for a bit more than 1 second off the split on the last two.
I waited a minute or two then moved on to Rowvember Day 26 ‘Warm Apple Pie’ 300 Calories (280c for an average slice, plus a bit of ice cream to round it up).
The original intention was to hold somewhere around 1:55/500m, although I started off a bit fast at 1:50 – haven’t we heard that before?
The 1:50/500m pace would have had me finishing in 15 minutes, but I was pretty sure I was going to struggle to maintain it for the full 300 calories.
It was struggle enough to try and bring it back to 1:53, every time I dropped to 1:58 or 2:00.
In the end I could not quite bring it home in under 16 minutes, but I am happy with the average pace and the distance covered.
Looking back at the csv file from C2, I see that I actually set a new PB for 4,000m of 15:16.9, beating my previous time by 13.5 seconds.
Spent the next 5 minutes catching my breath and then went for a 1:00:19 (12,223m) cool down whilst watching episode 4 and part of episode 5 of Andor.
Total for today: 21,311m, total for the Holiday Challenge now stands at 69,890m.
The main reason for the extra long cool down was to pass the 4 million meter mark.
I really wanted this today, hence my 12,233m (1:00:19.3) cool down session – I actually went over by just under 1,000m.
This is my slowest million to date, taking 167 days, compared to around 106 each for the previous 3.
This is mainly due to adding in two OTW days and a Ski day on Friday’s, thereby removing 3 RowErg days each week.
The skiing accounts for an extra 252,980m to date and the OTW rowing 399,307m both since about August this year which was when I was roughly in the middle of this million.
Thursday morning rowing, I warmed up with Rowvember Day 27 ‘Ramp it Up’ 6 x 4:00 @ 18,22,26,30spm, 2:00r.
A few minor ‘wobbles’ on the stroke rates, nearly always on the last stroke.
Negative, or equal splits all the way for every stroke rate.
After a few minutes rest I then did Rowvember Day 23 ‘Espresso Time’ 10 x 160m max effort, 0:30r.
Tried for negative splits, but settled for being within a ballpark of under 34 seconds.
The 30 second recovery felt shorter every round, ended up being about 20 strokes firm, 10 strokes light.
Finished off the session with a 5,571m (25:21.1) cool down watching the rest of Andor episode 5 that I started yesterday and some stretching.
Total for the day is 15,352m, running total for the Holiday Challenge is 85,687m.
Friday morning skiing, I warmed up to Rowvember Day 28 ‘Strong is Sexy’ 20:00, 3 power strokes on the minute every minute.
Slowly building the pace up over the 20 minute piece.
Another great warm up, after a short rest I moved onto Rowvember Day 29 ‘Going Up’ 100-800m, 0:30-4:00r, increase by 100m, 0:30r each round.
After the rest on round 3 reached an end the ErgZone app disconnected from the PM5 monitor and was no longer recording.
I tried to reconnect, but it just kept generating 11m and 22m exercise sessions.
Ultimately I had to abort and start again.
My aim with this one was to beat the next rest period time by an increasing amount, since there was no way I was going to hold the same pace.
For the 100m, most of it was skiied at about 1:54, however with a standing start and only around 20 strokes that does not reflect in the finish time, the pace shows up better from about 200m onwards.
With each distance I settled on a pace I felt I could maintain for the piece in question, which naturally increased each time with the increase in distance, although I started to buck the trend on the last two as I could see the finish.
I pulled the aborted session off the PM5 after I finished all my workouts and uploaded it manually via the C2 app on my Mac.
I then thought since there was only one left I may as well do this one as well and be finished before the weekend – Rowvember Day 30 ‘And Done’ 4 x 2:30@40spm, 2:30r (stroke rate converted from 22spm row).
Aimed for negative splits and distance increase on each one, went all out on the last one and still managed to nail the stroke rate.
Finished off the session with a 1,131m (6:08.1) cool down.
Total for the day 15,456m, total so far on the Holiday Challenge 101,143m, which earns me the first certificate.
Saturday morning masters rowing 8+, stroke seat, Remenham crew, steady state and power rowing, power pieces at 26spm, 2 long pieces at 30spm (13,668m).
My left shoe became detached from the foot stretcher during the steady state piece, so we had to stop at the club on the way back up to the motorway bridge and find some replacement screws before we could continue.
Tea and bacon rolls in the clubhouse for £2.00 each as a fundraiser by the Juniors, then a walk into Staines.
Saturday afternoon leisure rowing, leisure 4x, stroke seat, mainly technique and slow stroke rates, down to 6spm at one point!
Back home to put up the Christmas Tree.
Sunday morning masters rowing 8+, stroke seat, Remenham crew, steady state and power rowing, power pieces at 28spm, 2 long pieces at 28spm (13,470m).
28 spm is a better rate for the crew as the boat has a decent run between strokes and we can get the power down, raise it to 30 and the power drops off and we start fighting the boat.
A cup of tea at the clubhouse, then a walk into Staines for some lunch at McDonnald’s.
Sunday afternoon leisure rowing, leisure 2x, bow seat, technical drills, then 2 power pieces at 28+spm with Claire, good solid rowing session.
During the month of November I managed a total of 125 hours of exercise, walked 234km, climbed 273 flights of stairs, skied 33km, rowed 202km on the Erg and 144km on the water.
By the end of the month my weight was 14 Stone (197lb/89kg), no loss, therefore maintaining my goal weight.