There was the slim chance of a RowPro 666m today. The on-line event did not happen, but I thought that I would go for a 666m today anyway. I stopped (for no reason) after 200m. I simply cannot explain why I stopped. I was not in pain, I was going well.
I then rowed gently for some time and thought I would do the scheduled 2 x 10' AT (172/26). Normally I find HR pieces relatively easy up to AT. I stopped after 2 minutes. Again, no reason. I started again and stopped after one minute! By now I was getting desperate. I called in to MBH for moral support at this point. Suitably bolstered I tried one more time to do one 10' AT piece at 172hr. I managed it pretty well. I was relieved. I then had a long rest and started the second one. I stopped again when my heart rate was about 140! Again, I am clueless as to the reasons for this, it could be:
- The fact that I have missed more than 50% of my sessions in the last three weeks. (I suspect that this is most likely);
- The half marathon PB took more out of me than I think;
- End-of-term-itis. Life gets very fragmented at this time of year. Although I am teaching less there is far more on and I am getting distracted from the rowing;
- I am coming down with something (don't think so);
- Hayfever (don't think so - it is under control);
- Can't think of anything else.
Science in Society
On a brighter note, I had a brilliant day yesterday in London. I was on a conference for AS Science for Public Understanding (soon to become Science in Society). I'll be teaching it (again) next year in a one year guest appearance. The speakers were fascinating. One eureka moment about "the middle world" in a talk by Mark Haw was fantastic. This revelation was that it is that everything in our cells is driven to react by Brownian motion. Now, I probably knew that if I had been pressed. But his tying together of physics, chemistry and biology was riveting. The whole "middle world" is where our cells exist. Everything in them is driven by the random motion of atoms. The atoms are driven by the left over energy from the big bang itself. Mark Haw is a very interesting man and I had a long chat with him.
The second speaker was Dr Ben Goldacre of badscience.net. Fresh back from Glastonbury he was a little tired to say the least but gave us a lot of insight in to how science is reported in the news and how "lies are peddled by pill pushers". Again, he was a fascinating man and it was actually his site that prompted me to write to the Independent the other day. I had a brief chat with him too.
Metres today: 9,049
1 comment:
Hello Thomas
My rowing gets like that sometimes, where I'm stopping for no reason . What I do is call it a day (or do some different exercise or a novelty row), and try an easy row the next row, and use that as a base . I try to build myself up again .
I would guess your lack of rowing and upset routine would have had a much bigger effect then the HM PB . It would to do to me anyways .
On the eureka moment, I love when that happens and you can join a chunk of knowledge to a different field and then use that info to look at the joined field in much greater detail and understanding then before . Makes me feel like even more of a genius :D
On the Brownian motion in the cell's, I knew the protein's moved/floated in a random manner in the cell, and joined up like that, and that it was just a matter of time that the desired combination's arose (but of course at that scale things happen much much faster) . I hadn't realized the random movements were Brownian motion though .
My sister's a microbiologist and gave me a pop science book on the Human Genome a few years ago, I found it very interesting, I will find out it's name at the weekend . I think you might find it interesting .
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