Week 25 (June 19 – June 25) – Juneteenth, Solstice, Half Marathon, Staines Day

Monday morning rowing, I decided to do the C2 Juneteenth Challenge today.

The required distance is only 1,900m which is less than my normal warm up, so I decided to add on some extra meters just for the hell of it.

2,000m (9:40.0) warm up (actually completed the challenge here), then 10 laps of the C2 Real Time Loop, alternating between fast and slow laps.

For the ‘fast’ laps, the aim was around 1:52/500m pace, the ‘slow’ laps usually started around 2:30/500m but as soon as I had recovered enough from the ‘fast’ lap were brought down to around 2:05/500m.

The ‘spike’ drop is where I stopped to wipe the sweat off my face.

Didn’t quite finish the 10,000m in under 40 minutes, but came close enough.

2,236m (10:33.2) cool down and stretching, I will take a rest day tomorrow, then a 1/2 marathon for the C2 Solstice Challenge on Wednesday.

Tuesday morning rest,

Wednesday morning rowing, C2 Solstice Challenge

The requirement for the challenge is 21,000m (or more) across one or more workouts on 21st June.

I chose to add 97m and do a Half Marathon Time Trial.

My current PB is 1:24:55.2 (2:00.8/500m) so I decided to set a pace boat for 2:00/500m.

The first 3 x 5,000m were all completed in under 20 minutes each and all was going well up to around 15,500m when the wheels sort of fell off.

I was up around 50m on the pace boat but my body was screaming at me, not wanting to maintain the pace for another 5,500m, so I stopped to catch my breath and wipe my face which allowed the pace boat to catch me.

I stopped a couple more times over the next 1,000m as I was struggling to regain the pace and dropped to 190m behind the pace boat.

I eventually managed to convince my body to play ball and carry on at something close to the original pace and then with 2,000m to go, forced the pace down to around 1:55 and dropped it again to 1:50 over the last 500m bringing it home in a time of 1:24:22.3, 140m behind the pace boat and just 0.1 seconds short of my PB!

Caught my breath for the next 5 minutes, then finished off with a 2,227m (12:04.5) cool down and some stretching.

I was actually surprised by the final time, as I was convinced I was way off, having effectively given up on the PB at around 16,000m.

I was happy with the pacing, I just needed to hang in there for that last 5-6,000m and win that mental battle.

Thursday morning in at work, 2,000m (9:44.2) warm up, then 10 laps of the C2 Real Time Loop, mostly around 2:10/500m pace with a couple of faster sections towards the end.

Thursday evening rowing, out in my single, the SpeedCoach recorded two sessions as it switched off part way through as I was having a conversation with one of our other rowers on the bank, 3,078m + 5962m

Friday rest day.

Saturday morning, 5,017m (23:36.6) warm up for masters rowing, 4-, stroke seat, warm up, steady state an race starts against the masters quad, 8,857m.

Walk into Staines for some Thai spicy chicken and rice then back for the leisure session.

Lumpy water, confidence building session in my single, 6,265m.

Sunday morning, today is my birthday, 5,018m (23:03.4) warm up, masters Men 4-, stroke seat, warm up, steady state then starts against a masters pair including a 55 stroke ‘birthday piece’ 8,763m

Today is Staines Day, so the club had a stall in town to try and attract new members, the stall has a couple of Ergs and they try to get people to have a go at a 100m piece for time.

On my first attempt, I fall off the slide and put in a time of about 18 seconds, I have another go, but am already a little ‘blasted, and don’t do much better.

The afternoon leisure session is some head to head ‘racing’ between a couple of the leisure crews, when I say ‘racing’, I mean that if one crew gets too far ahead they need to back off to make it look more like a race 3,271m.