Monday morning rowing, The C2 WoD Week Challenge is on for this week, the requirement is to complete 5 of the 7 daily workouts on the day it is announced.
I was recently discussing what was worse, 1-6 or 6-1 minutes of intervals, well today’s C2 WoD was a combination of the two:
Wod Week Day 1: 1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1 minute pyramid of intervals with 2 minutes rest between each.
2,000m (9:32.5) warm up and then after a few minutes of psyching myself up, off we go.
Pretty brutal workout, I tried to match my pace from the way up on the way back down but was off by about 0.05/500m on each of them.
Those 2 minute rest periods fly by so fast, after the first 3 minute interval, I was spending the first 30 seconds just catching my breath before picking the handle back up to row out some of the lactate in my legs.
6,801m in total, I was hoping for a little closer to 7K, but after a heavy weekend on the water, I am still happy with the result.
One of the newer members of our club (59) who is just as obsessed with training as me and does most of the C2 WoDs, beat me by 29m, he did slightly better on the short pieces, largely helped by the amount of Skiff racing that he does, we both congratulated each other and agreed there was basically nothing in it.
This placed me 97/2038 worldwide, 9/253 for 55-59, 19/317 in the UK and 4/61 for 55-59 in the UK.
Finished off with 2,233m (12:09.1) of cool down and some stretching.
I suppose it could have been worse and started at 6, gone down to 1 and then back up to 6.
Tuesday morning Skiing, WoD Week Day 2: Triple Tabata, 3 rounds of 8 sets of 20 seconds hard followed by 10 seconds easy. Rest for 4 minutes between each round.
As September is another SkiErg Performance Series month, I decided to do this one on the SkiErg as a change from the RowErg.
1,000m (5:22.7) warm up, then spent 15-20 minutes waiting for the Tesco delivery to arrive as I didn’t want to be interrupted in the middle of the workout.
Another brutal workout, the 10 seconds ‘easy’ is a joke, you would almost be better off just powering through as the flywheel slows down so much during that short period and then needs to be spun back up at the start of the next work piece.
If I had done ths on the RowErg, I would probably have just rowed straight through, maybe letting off very slightly in the 10 second rest pieces, it is just short of 4 minutes ‘stright through’ per round, which is no worse than 3 of yesterday’s intervals and then a 4 minute rest before the next one, slowing to ‘light’ for 5 strokes is almost not worth it, the lactic rush will be worse than just powering through.
On the RowErg I would be looking at around 12-13 strokes at 36-40spm for the 20 second pieces, on the SkiErg I was doing around 20-22 strokes at 60+spm, die for 5 seconds and then immediately start ramping up for the next round.
Unfortunately I don’t have the strength/stamina on the SkiErg to continue at that rate/pace for 4 minutes straight.
First interval:
Last interval:
Round 1 – 89, 90, 87, 83, 82, 81, 80, 76 = 668m
Round 2 – 87, 84, 82, 81, 79, 78, 78, 76 = 645m
Round 3 – 81, 80, 77, 77, 78, 78, 78, 79 = 628m
Total 1,941m C2 shows it as 1,939m, either way, just short of 2,000m and I am happy with the result, 60m off an 8 minute 2K is on par with my current SkiErg PB of 8:11.0, so again happy with the result.
This placed me 65/126 worldwide 6/17 55-59, 22/33 in the UK and 2/6 55-59 in the UK.
In hindsight this one may have been easier on the Rower
Finished out the session with 1,126m (7:14.2) cool down and some stretching.
Wednesday morning rowing, WoD Week Day 3: 5 × 1000m, 1:00 rest.
I was still feeling the effects of yesterday’s SkiErg Triple Tabata with most of my upper body feeling a little tender, that combined with a bad night it did not exactly bode well for today’s challenge.
This one is potentially more in my comfort zone than the recent sprint pieces of the last two days.
2,000m (9:59.9) warm up, then onto the WoD, the plan was to aim for somewhere around my 5K pace of 1:50/500m.
Well the plan held out for about one and a half rounds before my body started to feel fatigued, the previous 2 days of brutal workouts are certain to have been a big factor here.
First round felt good
Second round I started to fade
Third round I had already given up on trying to maintain 1:50/500m and was just going with what I could get out of my body.
Fourth round I was starting to recover a little, although still slower than the third.
Last round, gave it everything left in the tank.
Second round onwards the ‘rest’ minute was spent with me picking my lungs up off the floor for the first 30 seconds and then desperately trying to row out some lactic from my legs before ramping up for the next round in the last 8-10 seconds.
Final time was 18:36.6, 10 seconds down on my 5K PB of 18:26.6, easing off/stopping after each 1,000m kills your momentum and the lactic rush is hard to recover from with only a minute of ‘rest’ time, 5,000m straight through is potentially an easier mental/physical battle.
Finished off the session with 5,558m (27:46.7) cool down and some stretching, took a good 3,000m or more to feel comfortable again after rowing out all of the toxins from my legs.
Not my best effort, but happy with the result considering the beating my body is receiving during this week.
This placed me 142/2367 worldwide 12/283 55-59, 34/321 in the UK and 5/58 55-59 in the UK.
My rowing colleague did much better than me today, going 20 seconds quicker, but he did not do yesterday’s workout, so I am still calling it even, his 5K time is currently 10 seconds faster than mine as well.
Thursday morning rowing, C2 WoD Week Day 4, Today’s workout is the latter half of Monday’s pyramid: 5,4,3,2,1 minutes work, 2:00 rest.
In at work this morning so doing this one in the work gym.
2,000m (10:02.0) warm up, then a few minutes for that to ‘soak in’ before starting on the WoD.
- Interval 1, aiming for around 1:47
- Interval 2, aiming to maintain 1:48
- Interval 3, whatever will stick
- Interval 4, back to 1:47
- Interval 5, give it everything
4,152m, happy with the result and the 1:48.3 average, but a little disappointed with round 3 that I let the pace drop, I was hoping for 1:48 or better on all of the intervals.
Not as brutal as some of the earlier workouts this week, downward ladders are definitely preferable to upward ones, decent recovery period as well, especially once the rest period is closer to or greater than the work period.
This placed me 110/2406 worldwide 9/286 55-59, 9/286 in the UK and 4/64 55-59 in the UK
My rowing colleague managed 4,263m (1:45.5 average), this doesn’t really surprise me, this is entirely inside his comfort zone, power sprints is what he trains for.
Finished off with 5,566m (27:36.7) cool down and stretching, shower, breakfast in the canteen and then up to my desk for an 09:00 call.
Thursday evening rowing, I had an enjoyable 6,630m in my single on the water, one complete loop top to bottom and in, not much wind but quite a few cruisers chopping up the water, it was a lovely evening, about 30C (86F) and suitably humid, so quite a sweaty one.
Friday morning rowing, C2 WoD Week Day 5, 8 rounds of 2 minutes work, 1 minute rest.
Another not so great night waking up due to overheating.
2,000m (9:58.8) warm up, then after a couple of minutes ‘soak’, then onto the WoD.
I decided on trying to maintain an average of 1:48/500m, I would have liked 1:45, but knew that wasn’t going to happen today.
I was hoping to sprint in the last 10-15 strokes, but my body said “NO”, I settled for keeping the distance above 550m.
Looks like I picked a good average, I was able to maintain it and not blow out, but at the same time still drained by the end of the workout and a total distance of 4,437m for an average pace of 1:48.1 and average distance of 554.625m per interval.
With my current levels of fatigue and tiredness I would have blown out after about 2 or 3 rounds at 1:45, so glad I didn’t push for it.
This currently places me 22/341 Worldwide 3/50 55-59, 6/77 in the UK and 2/12 55-59 in the UK.
Of course my rowing colleague managed an average of 1:45, just to ‘needle’ me, but he does the C2 WoDs most days and this is right inside his comfort zone, he then goes on to tell me that his PB on this workout is a 1:43.9 average, just to rub it in.
Finished off the session with a 5,565m (27:23.6) cool down and stretching.
That completes the WoD Week Challenge five from seven requirement.
Although I may yet do the other two workouts on the weekend in-between On The Water rowing sessions, depending on how I feel.
Saturday morning masters rowing 5,018m (23:29.1) warm up.
I had agreed to ‘road test’ our new member Toryn in a fine 2x, I rowed us across the river and then had him start to warm up, but after about 5 strokes I had him stop and turned the session into a ‘learn to scull’ session.
I sat the boat whilst he rowed arms only square blade to get a feel for oar heights, I was constantly having to tell him to pull harder with his right oar as within 10 strokes we were in the middle or wrong side of the river and I had to reset us before we could head off again.
Eventually we progressed to body lean, half and then full slide before I allowed him to feather the blades, but by the end of the session I was rowing with him, albeit with both of us keeping blades on the water for stability. (5,685m).
Wandered into town for my usual Thai spicy chicken with rice before heading back to the boat club.
Saturday afternoon leisure rowing, 8+ #7 seat, more bow side practice for me, this was mainly a technical session, we just about had the boat balanced by the end (4,403m)
Sunday morning masters rowing, 5,014m (23:58.4) warm up, then out in a 4-, stroke seat, mainly steady state at 20spm concentrating on balance and good stroke form (10,972m).
Wandered into town again, stinking hot day, I decided to have two punnets of grapes for lunch, not sure how sensible a decision it was, but I really didn’t feel like anything heavier.
Sunday late morning and afternoon, Leisure rowing and part of a personal session beforehand, both in my 1x ‘Dark Horse’ so I just stayed out.
Top to bottom piece at around 28-30spm, stopped a few times when the swell from cruisers became too much, swamped by one of them, the rest was concentrating on trying to lengthen my stroke at the catch (10,935m).