Reflections

Today (Wednesday) was my first day back on the erg after the race at Evesham. Sunday (family time then travelling back from the West), Monday (after school retirement party), Tuesday (my normal day off - I get the kids to bed) got in the way.

Evesham was a fabulous event. I really, really enjoyed the day. My row, (dead heat with my PB!) was a surprise and gives me hope. The race was a bit of a blur. My warm up was pretty bad, and did NOT fill me with confidence. So, the plan was to hit 1:42s until 1000 to go then accelerate through the rest of the race. I remember being last at the start, but sticking to plan and seeing that I was creeping through the field. At 1000 I kicked on and found that I could! I was aiming to be at 1:41s until 500 to go and then accelerate again. To my amazement this worked too. When Spamuel called "one minute to go" I found that strangely heartening and kicked on again. I used to go for home from 100m out but learned that you can go for home from far further - I pretty much did from 220m. How do I know this? The excellent indoorrowing.org.uk site has the full replay. The last 200 odd metres hurt. The video shows me pretty speechless! I am really happy with the video. It took very little time to do (I am getting faster) and I like the freeze frame bits!

I have been reflecting on my training so far. A long chat with Mike Channin confirmed what I have been suspecting - that I have not been doing enough high intensity work because of all the missed sessions. I need to kick back to a plan that has more high intensity sessions. I think I will step down to the level 3 C2 plan and if I feel like rowing on an day off I will do something long and slow just to burn calories.

Rowing today felt good. 2 x 9' AT (172/26) turned out 2,468m and 2,314m. The pace was not fantastic but I will take feeling good about my rowing.

Metres today: 7,404