Happy New Year everyone.
Several Concept 2 challenges are starting today, Virtual Team Challenge and January Revolutions, both challenges run from the 1st to 31st of January.
The Virtual Team Challenge is simply row as many meters as you can for your chosen team.
January Revolutions is 6 different challenges:
- The Stretch: Row, Ski or Ride for 20 days in January (min 500m each day)
- The Long Stretch: Row, Ski or Ride every day in January (min 500m each day)
- The Haul: Row, Ski or Ride for 15 hours in January
- The Long Haul: Row, Ski or Ride for 30 hours in January
- The Burn: Row, Ski or Ride for 10,000 calories in January (at 2:30/500m pace this is about 15 hours)
- The Big Burn: Row, Ski or Ride for 20,000 calories in January (at 2:30/500m pace this is about 30 hours)
Last year I opted for the Big Burn, but actually aimed to complete all 6 challenges, and successfully completed all 6.
This year I have opted for the Long Stretch, and will use a spreadsheet to track the calories.
Monday morning ‘rest day’ took the dog for a long walk, then 1,012m (5:10.5) on the Ski Erg, this will be my go-to exercise on my ‘rest’ days
Tuesday morning morning at the work gym, 15,015m (1:06:35.2) for the Virtual Team Challenge (workout failed to save)
Shower, breakfast and up to my desk for an 09:00 meeting.
Tuesday evening rowing, nobody else was signed up for this evening so I decided to do a half marathon time trial
Headed over to the boat house after work, a gruelling 1 minute drive from the office, and let myself in. There were supposed to be two others coming this evening, but both cried off, the leisure circuits session was cancelled due to the coaches being double booked, so I was on my own for the rest of the evening.
I would normally sit and row a 15km UT2 piece while waiting for the others to arrive, but as nobody was coming I decided to do a half marathon for the January Virtual Team Challenge.
Almost immediately I decided this would be a time trial and was determined not to blow up this time.
I settled into a 1:59/500m pace at around 24spm making sure I did not rate any higher than 26 and keep the pace between 2:00 and 1:58.
- 5,000m in under 20 minutes, heart rate around 153bpm, feeling good
- 10,000m in under 40 minutes, heart rate approaching 160bpm, still going strong
- Half way in almost exactly 42 minutes sub 1 hour 24 is on the cards
- 15,097 in one hour, 24 minutes or less to go, still holding the pace, I can do this
- 2,000m to go and I start to wind up the rate and pace, nothing under 1:57 and up to 28spm
- 1,000m to go, finish in sight, rate up to 30spm and pace up to 1:54
- 250m to go and I have the pace at 1:50 sprinting for the line, time to empty the tank
- Cross the line at 1:47 in a time of 1:23:39.7, a new PB by 1 minute 15.2 seconds
C2 ErgData app crashed as I crossed the finish line, so I have lost all the stroke data.
Caught my breath, stopped shaking long enough to find the workout in the PM5 history and take a picture, which I then thought I uploaded to our team group chat, turns out I uploaded the screenshot of the morning workout, I was wondering why hardly anyone was commenting.
Drank my electrolyte hydration drink in an effort to re-hydrate, blew my nose, then felt a drip from my nose, oh dear – nose bleed, handkerchief over the nose and head for the bathroom, fortunately only a brief one (my nose bleeds can last for hours).
Cool down some more, some light stretching and then go and change before heading home, I will upload the workout from the PM5 on Thursday when I am next in at the boathouse.
Logged a support call with C2 for the crashing app – they suggested deleting and re-installing the app which seems to have done the job.
Wednesday morning ‘rest day’ took the dog for a long walk, then 1,016m (5:21.7) on the Ski Erg.
Thursday morning at the work gym, 30 minute spin class, then 10,015m (47:43.0) ‘cool down’
Shower, breakfast and up to my desk for an 09:00 meeting.
Thursday evening rowing, 12,011m (53:00.3) while waiting for everyone else to turn up, still feeling the after effects of the half marathon, plus for some reason I though the session started earlier than it did.
1,009m (5:14.8) ‘warm up’, then 2 x 20:00, 2:00r, UT2 @ 20spm, UT1 @ 24spm.
Core session 1:00 V-Sit, Plank, Dead Bug, Side Plank Left and Right with 30 bicycle kicks between each exercise, finished off with some stretching (33,034m for the day).
River is getting high and the carpark is flooding due to the rain
Friday morning ‘rest day’ took the dog for a long walk, then 1,012m (5:17.1) on the Ski Erg, this will be my go-to exercise on my ‘rest’ days
Saturday morning rowing, 6,016m (27:59.8) while waiting for everyone else to arrive
1,475m (6:57.9) ‘warm up’, then 12 x 18:00, 2:00r rate pyramids, 20-28-20spm, 22-30-22spm.
This was followed by a weights session:
- 3 sets of 12 weighted squats (20Kg)
- 3 sets of 12 weighted leg raises (50Kg)
- 3 sets of 12 weighted lunges (6 per leg) (20Kg)
Stretching and then core session 1:00 V-Sit, Plank, Dead Bug, Side Plank Left and Right with 30 12Kg Russian twists between each exercise.
The river is now very high, 4.2m and flowing at over 300m3/s, one of the members, Mark G, lives about 1500m down from the boat club he has been away, he lives in the USA and went back for Christmas, he came back to this:
That’s his son kayaking in his back garden!
Sunday morning rowing, there is a function on at the boat club at lunch time today, so those who have their own ergs have been asked to do today’s workout from home.
2,251m (10:08.0) warm up, then 3 x 2,000m, 1:30r
I couldn’t quite hold my desired pace for the third round, still managed an average of 7:21.6 over the 3 rounds.
Water is even higher today at 4.4m and flowing at 323m3/s, all the steps for the landing stage are now under water and the car park is starting to flood.
Totals so far for the various challenges are 7 days, 7 hours 18 minutes 05.9 seconds, 6,203 calories and 99,818m.