Returning from the slopes

Well, sadly I was pretty under the weather most of the week at Courchevel. In more ways than one. It rained! I have never seen that in a skiing resort. It was our snow! At higher altitudes it was snowing but this made visibility pretty poor. Eventually the sun came out and it did snow but by then I was laid up in bed feeling sorry for myself. In the end I did get a fantastic afternoon's skiing on the penultimate day, but then my wife finally gave in to the inevitable and spent the last day in bed herself. My best skiing was with the older kids (6 & 4) on the last afternoon when for both of them something clicked and they bombed down the mountain with great confidence. This was fantastic fun and what skiing is all about. So I probably sound like an old misery guts but in the grand scheme of things the holiday was fun and a success. Dad arranged the whole thing and whilst nearly everyone was ill in some way or another we came through smiling (just about) in the end. I had some enjoyable skiing with my father, sister, brother-in-law and nephews too.

Back to rowing.

Well, the last row I did was a disaster and ended on the toilet, literally. I carried that illness with me through the week and only today performed optimally in that area! My programme suggested quite a long hard piece (15,000m with 5km in the middle at 10km pace) but I felt that was a big ask and decided to do 5km at 2:00 and see what I felt like. The answer was "not very good". My heart rate was fine really, but the legs felt weak and ached. I find it hard to see how I could possibly have been pulling what I was before I was ill. The power and, in all honesty, the enjoyment just is not there. Of course it will come back, but I hope it does soon. Today felt like a big drudge. I stopped after half of my allotted metres.

Metres today: 8,548