Monday morning rowing, took it easy this morning, had a bad night due to some back pain, possibly caused by sleeping in a draught.
2,000m (10:15.6) warm up, back seemed OK with the rowing, so continued with 10,000m at low intensity.
Felt like I ached all over like I was possibly coming down with a cold, so took some paracetamol and ibuprofen afterwards and started feeling a lot better.
Tuesday morning rowing, feeling a bit better, 2,000m (10:01.7) warm up, 10,000m ‘fat burner’
2,246m (11:33.3) cool down and stretching.
Tuesday evening archery, longbows and flat bows, took all 3 of my longbows and a couple of flat bows along and had fun shooting them, and out shooting several of the recurve archers.
Wednesday morning rowing, 2,000m (10:11.3) warm up, a slower 10,000m ‘fat burner’
2,247m (11:11.6) cool down and some stretching.
Thursday morning – Grand Teton National Parks pop-up challenge – 1 hour for distance, this is a C2 rank-able item that I have not done before, so that’s a bonus.
I had decided to come in to work today and do this in the work gym, as there was a good chance of an OTW session later on, however when I arrived, my pass had expired as nobody had told security that my contract had been extended and they wouldn’t let me in!
No worries, I walked across the road to the boat club, let myself in, changed and sent a text to my manager to let him know the issue, but that I was in no rush as I had a workout to complete before I try again.
I checked my various times and decided 15,000m was a good target, so set the pace boat for 2:00/500m, aiming for 7 and a half 2Ks all at 8 minutes per 2K or better.
No warm up, straight in, a couple of strokes to settle into a rate that feels comfortable (28spm) for holding this split and start counting down the minutes and 2Ks
5,000m in 19:56.0, 4 seconds up on the expected time, 33m up on the pace boat.
10,000m in 39:57.7, 2.3 seconds up on the expected time, 19m up on the pace boat
15,000m in 59:45.5, a new PB by 3 minutes 20 seconds.
1 hour complete and 15,065m covered, 65m ahead of the pace boat for an automatic PB.
last 2,000m in 7:47.1, last 1,000m in 3:51.3, last 500m in 1:54.1 and 33spm, desperately chasing down an additional 100m, however, that was just not meant to be.
Pace dropped a bit during the 30-50 minute section, however the pace boat never came closer than 10m.
Pacing was good, never felt overly stressed, asked another member of the boat club who had come in to clean the windows to open one of the sliding doors at around 40 minutes.
One of the Dark Horse coaches mentioned a 30 minutes at 30spm workout on BWTC, this was 1 hour at 28spm.
Took a few minutes to catch my breath and cool off a bit, then 2,247m (10:38.8) cool down to work out the lactic build up from the ‘sprint finish’.
Showered and then walked back over to work where they finally decided to let me in the building.
Fingers crossed for some OTW rowing this evening.
After this morning’s issues with work I had to do the 1 hour pop-up challenge at the boat house.
This probably worked out for the best as the club has no heating and opening one of the sliding doors lets in even more wind, which meant I had less chance to overheat, the work gym would have been much warmer.
The main reason for coming in was the chance to finally get out on the water for a session.
The weather had been lovely all day, if a little windy, however come 18:00 it started to rain. The leisure coordinator arrived and decided after looking at the river that even though it was ‘yellow boards decreasing’ she determined it too fast for a first outing in the leisure boats when nobody had been out for a month and by now it was also raining hard which was probably the final nail in the OTW outing coffin, so Ergs it is.
I had already started my warm up, but joined in with everyone else setting the pace for the warm up, arms only, body lean, 1/4 slide, 1/2 slide, 3/4 slide, full strokes and finally a little power, 8 ergs in a line all rowing as one.
The warm up was called to an end, but I carried on until I had completed just over 2,000m.
Next we had a bit of a discussion about the monitors, and I explained the difference between damper settings and drag factor.
It was then decided that we would do a 2,000m piece ‘NOT a time trial’ (yeah right!) although it was suggested that I give them all a bit of a head start.
I gave them about a minute, rolling back and forth on the slide before picking up the handle setting off.
Of course I got a little carried away, ego started to be a major factor and about 10 strokes in I decided this WAS going to be a time trial after all.
I paced it well, realised sub 7 wasn’t happening today at around 700m but decided to hang on and see what I could do bearing in mind I had already held 2:00/500m (8:00 2K pace) for an hour that morning.
I was quite surprised with the outcome of 7:11.5, having knocked 2.9 seconds off my PB from nearly a year ago, which made me wonder what I could have done if I was fresh.
I spent the next 5 minutes catching my breath and cooling down before working out all of the lactic acid with a 2,242m (10;01.7) cool down and a load of stretching and heading home.
Friday morning rowing, 2,000m (9:57.6) warm up, 10,000m ‘recovery row’
Didn’t feel like a cool down as my heart rate had not gone over 108bpm
Saturday morning masters rowing, 5,018m (23:09.7) warm up, Masters rowing fine 4x, #3 seat, mainly steady state rowing, struggled with oar depths, partly because we were overweight for the boat and partly because I am about a foot taller than all of the others, I was practically having my oars on my knees with a very uncomfortable angle for my arms 7,523m.
Back at the boathouse, preparations were underway for the Remenham dinner dance next Friday and the club dinner dance next Saturday, I helped clear all of the gym equipment out f the way before heading off into Staines to buy some sausage rolls from Greggs for lunch.
Leisure rowing, leisure 2x, bow seat, somehow pressed the wrong button and started an 8 x 500m piece, stopped after the first 500m to reset the SpeedCoach, followed this with more general rowing for 3,330m.
Sunday morning 3,015m (13:59.8) warm up, masters rowing 8+, stroke seat, steady state and power pyramids 13,068m.
Walked into Staines and had McDonnald’s for ‘brunch’, came back and sat on the erg for a while 3,353m (15:57.8) as a warm up for leisure rowing – leisure 4x, stroke seat, multiple bridge to bridge ‘race’ pieces 4,949m.