1st May is the start of the new C2 ranking season and it kicks off with the Marathon and Century Challenge for the first 2 weeks – HM, FM, 50K and 100K pieces are all worthy of extra certificates during this time.
I was contemplating a full marathon on 1st May as it is a Bank Holiday in the UK, however I was still feeling beaten up from the weekend’s OTW rowing, so I decided to have a rest day instead, although I did still take the dog on a nice long 1 hour walk.
2nd May (today), on my morning walk with the dog, I decided that I had enough time for a half marathon before work, and since I had managed to hold 2:00/500m pace for an hour last week, how hard could it be to keep that up for another 25 minutes and complete a half marathon at that pace?
So now I had a plan and a pace, I just needed to execute it, no warm up for HM or FM, just straight in and use the piece as its own warm up.
I had opted for a slightly lower rate of 26spm rather than the 28spm from the 1 hour piece of the previous week, I am unsure if this was a good idea or not, I certainly felt it in my glutes.
I was able to hold the required pace for the first 15,000m without too much issue, however the remaining 6,000ish meters were a different matter, fatigue was setting in and I was struggling to hold the pace.
I wasn’t close enough to home for a push, so I concentrated on counting down the strokes in each 1,000m (approximately 100 strokes) to keep me focused and try to get back to my required pace.
With 2,000m to go I could finally see the finish line and was determined that this was all going to be at the required pace or better.
I couldn’t quite chase down to 1:24:23.0 (2:00/500 pace) but I did get pretty close and I was determined to finish in under 1 hour 25 minutes.
I finished in a time of 1:24:55.2, a new PB by nearly 3 minutes – very pleased although for about the first hour, sub 1:24:00 had been on the cards.
This also completes the half marathon aspect of the Marathon and Century Challenge.
I finished off the session with a 2,238m (12:22.6) cool down and some stretching.
A few more OTE meters for #TeamEitherOar.
I will probably do the marathon on Monday 8th May as this is also a Bank Holiday in celebration of the Coronation of King Charles III on Saturday 6th May before heading down to the boat club for their Celebration Barbeque.
Wednesday morning rowing, my glutes were still feeling the effects of yesterday’s half marathon, so I decided to take it easy today, 2,000m (9:48.6) warm up, I had to finish quickly as the Tesco delivery had arrived.
10,000m UT2 workout, HR kept below 110 BPM.
Decided against a cool down as it would just be more of the same, but finished off with some stretching.
Thursday morning rowing, 2,000m (9:12.4) warm up, 10,000m UT1 workout, HR kept mostly below 140 BPM
2,240m (11:08.1) cool down and stretching
Thursday evening rowing, 5,825m (25:42.1) warm up, then out on the water with the Desborough crew for another training session in the leisure quad (6,825m).
Friday morning rowing, 2,000m (10:15.6) warm up, 10,000m UT2 workout, HR kept below 110 BPM.
No cool down as it would just be more of the same.
Saturday morning rowing, this morning was supposed to be a master’s mens session, I had been assigned #3 bowside seat in a 4-, (I have not rowed bowside in 40 years, so this could be interesting), but nothing was set in stone as extra people had expressed an interest and crew assignments were subject to some ‘flex’.
I arrived at the boat club nice and early at around 07:20, the session does not start until 08:00, and sat on the erg for a ‘muscle soaking’ 5,022m at 24spm and 2:21/500m pace keeping my heart rate below 130 BPM.
I had been making noises that I was interested in making myself available for rowing with the senior men, partly because one of them had told me that my 2K times on the erg were currently faster than the two of the usual crew and partly because I was fed up waiting for masters to get their act together and enter some more races.
Turns out that this morning all of the juniors were supposed to be ‘seat racing’ for positions in boats and as such the mens crew was a body short (they regularly pick from the older juniors) and so my name was put forward.
They checked with the master’s mens co-ordinator that I could be made available and so I was now #2 seat in the senior mens 4- for the morning.
The warm up in pairs was somewhat different to what I was used to, master’s mainly do square blade arms only, body lean, 1/4 slide, 1/2 slide, 3/4 slide, full slide and finally feather starting from backstops. The senior mens crew do square blade ‘dipping’ at the catch, 1/4 slide fixed arms, 1/2 slide fixed arms, 3/4 slide fixed rms, full slide fixed arms, full slide and body lean fixed arms, full stroke and finally feather all moving back from the catch position. This took a little getting used to especially as I had missed the fact that they were keeping their arms fixed until we were at 1/2 slide and the guy at bow pointed it out to me.
Finished warming up as a full crew all the way to the top by the motorway bridge, a steady state row to the the bottom (about 3,500m), then back up to just above the island with a couple of fast pieces thrown in for good measure.
Next up was a 2,000m (ish) piece at ‘race pace’ to the bottom, the first of two for the session.
This involved a ‘race start’, a fast piece at about 38spm, then settling into a steadier pace of around 32-34spm for the remaining 1500m.
The full piece was actually closer to 2200m, but I am only showing from the start to just over 2K.
Round 1 done in 6:58.6, this was with the stream, which today was a relatively sedate 56m3/s
Turn around, then back up for round two
Same start, although the ‘fast piece’ was just a ‘mess’ and things did not really settle down until we hit the steadier pace.
This one was completed in 7:16.8, slightly slower, but to be expected due to the attrotious start and some tiredness creeping in.
Back up and in for a total of 16,909 OTW meters.
I managed not to disgrace myself and hopefully proved I am just as good as any of the current squad and look forward to possibly being selected for some future races, although being between 20 and 30 years older than the other crew members, I seriously drag the average age up, although this hardly matters in the full ‘Open’ category.
I walked into Staines to buy some lunch from the market, watched the Coronation of King Charles III on the big screen in the shopping centre and then headed back for the leisure session.
The afternoon session with leisure was more training for the Desborough Challenge, so we did 7,434 OTW meters at around 24spm in our heavy leisure quad.
The course distance is about 6,000m, two laps of Desborough Island, involves an OTW crew swap (usually cox and stroke), and last year’s winners completed it in 40 minutes.
We did a 6276m piece with 4 stops to turn around, swapping our bow pair on the first one (our cox has a medical pass so gets to stay put) and managed that in 35:47, so we should be in with a chance.
It all depends on how much of a handicap they give us because I am apparently not considered a ‘true leisure rower’ as I am actively training for open competitions and have already raced once this year.
The ‘race’/challenge is next Saturday at 14:30, so I will still do my morning session with the masters (or seniors) as usual beforehand.
Sunday morning masters rowing, 4,012m (19:01.5) warm up, 4- stroke seat, warm up, steady state, a few 30 stroke pieces and finally practicing starts (10,934m).
Wandered into Staines, decided I needed a full English breakfast at Weatherspoon’s Pub before heading back to the club house where I proceeded to fall asleep for 10-15 minutes, waking up just in time to go out with the leisure crowd.
Sunday afternoon leisure rowing, leisure 4x stroke seat, mainly slow steady state pieces but finished off with a couple of power pieces between the bridges.