Yay

Well, it has been a difficult day - I realised that JL's server was down and that this was dragging down the main site. I took steps to remove our reliance on his server, but this inevitably removed the real time statistics. Sigh. Now it is back thank goodness and I am sure that when JL is bakc we can hatch a cunning plan that will avoid this sort of performance hit in future when his site is down for whatever reason.

Anyway, I was due to do my second 60 minute piece today and I was keen to try for 15,000m again. The first time I achieved this distance was on holiday last August. On an old model C with PM2 I thrashed out 60 minutes in air conditioned comfort whilst the rest of the country sweltered. My heart rate that day was scary. I do not have the stats but remember it being over 180 for a long time - and counting every 11 strokes for nearly half an hour (11 strokes up, 11 strokes down and a minute had passed).

My main problem recently has been mental toughness. I was not too impressed in my sprinting the other day but I was feeling good about myself as I went out to the garage to row this evening. The cracking of my lips is still there, but getting better which suggests to me that I am slowly clearing the latest virus from my system. After the row I was sure that I have been suffering from a virus these last few days. That and not rowing on Easter day after a massive lunch with a glass of wine!

I set up two pace boats. One was my "warm down" row during the million metre 3 day challenge with a split of 1:59.7. The other was my row on Easter day. As I say, I felt good and was pleased to see my heart rate rise much slower this time. I enjoyed watching my Easter row blow up at 35 minutes and go backwards rapidly since by this time my heart rate was still under 170. I was rowing on "Watts" since this is a more granular view - 203 Watts was just over 15,000m and I aimed for that ever stroke with little success other than my average pace!

A funny thing happened after 45 minutes. My heart rate dipped and I started to feel strong. My split did not change but it was a very odd moment. I felt like I could take it up at the end, but was conservative and waited for the last 10 minutes. With 10 to go I started to increase my pace, and quickly overhauled the 1:59.7 pace boat. I still had more in the tank and started to "see". Although my target had been 15,000m it became clear that I would easily get that. I set my target on 15,100. I had one moment of weakness but that lasted only about 5 strokes. I kept going harder and harder and my last three minutes averaged 1:49. My Channinesque "banshee" finish was topping 350 Watts, which equates to sub 1:40 pace. I had managed 15,124m. Funnily enough, RowPro said 15,124 and the PM2+ 15,123. I am going with RowPro

I am stupidly happy with how this went. Really pleased that I can row hard again and enjoy it.

Metres today: 16,994