Finally I sit down to reflect on the EIRC event last week. It has been a manic week. My form have their reports being done, the head is on the prowl in the science department, I had the last chance to see a film I was desperate to see (it was GREAT) and to cap it all there was a parents' evening on Wednesday.
In order.
The English Indoor Rowing Championships
This was a blast. Plummy very kindly put me up for the night just down the road from the velodrome. It was a long drive and I was pretty exhausted when I got there but we still nattered on about, er, rowing for some time. He laid the seeds for my later PB by telling me about some coaching he'd had with Tom Kay. I had been planning negative splits but Tom had suggested to plummy that this was not the way forward when you are aiming for a PB.
The premise he used was that at our speeds we are not going to win, so why not give yourself the best chance of a PB by going off hard. If it works you PB and happy days. If not you blow up and the worst that can happen is that you are 11th rather than 10th. This seemed very sound advice to me! I ended up lying awake until 1am pondering racing strategies. I was very nervous too and this probably added to my wakefulness.
Race day dawned and I felt good. This was the first time I had felt good on race morning since BIRC 2006. I was healthy, had a month of solid training behind me and had prepared well. Confidence was up with a 500m PB on the Friday.
First to race was plummy. He had admitted to me some time ago that his target was sub-7 and was clearly very up for it. There was a false start on his race but once he got going he flew for the first 300m and I knew he felt good and the sub-7 was on. Unable to see his average I watched each stroke on the board and as he cranked it up for home I was pretty confident that he would make it. He finished strongly but didn't celebrate so I wondered whether he had missed it but in the end his 6:58.4 was a cause for massive celebration and really inspired me.
My race came much later. By then there was quite a troupe of Free Spirits members present. It was fun - and a real bonus when non-racers came to support - Wolfie was there as were numerous waves and the odd daughter. I met Clive (greenman) - he'd also PB'd in the first race but I had completely forgotten to film him, so intent was I in catching plummy. I found that for £10 (£10!!) I could get a day's access to BT openzone using my iPod and was posting results on the Free Spirits web site. I love my new iPod. It has made the podcasts I listen to (SGU, nakedscientists etc.) a joy to find and use. I listened to them all the way up and all the way back. Excellent.
After plummy's fantastic row I was feeling very confident and very "pumped" about my race and dipping under the 6:40 barrier. The intention was now fully to row a "bathtub" or fast-slow-slow-fast. I went off like a train - normally I ease back to race pace but this time I aimed to stay at a comfortable pace for the first 500m without easing off at all. The first 500m took 1:38.6s and I felt good. The middle section I aimed to pull 1:40s the whole time without seeing 1:41 for more than one stroke. The idea was that the average split would ease back to 1:40.0. When it got there hopefully I would be in sight of home and would be able to accelerate back in to the 1:30s. Again this worked with 1:40.6 for both the 500m in the middle section. This meant that I was still under 1:40 with 500m to go, and no force on Earth was going to stop me from getting my sub 6:40 time. I had been in 7th all the way with the guy behind staying right on my tail, about 7m back. I wanted that 7th place! But I also wanted 6:40 and was pretty tired. I kept grimly to the 1:40 pace and watched the split creep up to 1:40 overall. When that happened (400 to go?) I started to crank it up. I was confident that 8th could not take 7m out of me if I accelerated. I'd decided to go full on for the line with 300m to go, pushing every 100m. It hurt, but it was a nice hurt because I knew I had the sub 6:40 in the bag and it was just a matter of by how much.
I think I stopped with one stroke from the end (0.1 seconds?) with a roar of triumph. I love this sport. I was nowhere - 7th and over 30 seconds behind the winner but I had overcome my own demons. The 6:40 monkey on my back was gone. I wondered at the time if my celebration was a reaction to my uncertainty about plummy having done it. There was NO doubt that I had! Anyway, video evidence is below. I think it was truly sheer delight about a job done.
I was on cloud nine for the rest of the day. Several others rowed brilliantly- Woj, Stan closer to sub 7, Mark Evans (bronze), Bangers (gold) all did really well with only Brian having a bad row. He's still got that awful 6:40 monkey on his back and said his row didn't feel right.
I had the 500m race to come and was excited about that because I had a chance to medal - seeded 3rd (out of 5!). I managed a snooze at one point but was still very tired when it came to the 500m race. I started well, but fell apart. It hurt. I was 2 seconds outside my PB but still 3rd - and a bronze medal. Sadly only 3 entered in the end. I have still yet to medal when I actually beat anyone.
The final event of the day was the team relay. I had been getting overexcited about this and trying to persuade Mark Evans to row. Stan had nobly said he would stand down but Mark rightly declined and the original team stood. 15 strokes each was the plan and we did really well. Changeovers were pretty slick for the most part. Our average split (incluging changeovers) was in the region of 1:33 which means that we were probably all rowing at sub 1:30 throughout. Great effort. It was fun - we had 8 Free Spirits involved what with the entire bangers family holding down the erg on the front, and Clive and Mark doing the feet. This is what it looked like:
To say I was shattered at the end of the day would be somewhat of an understatement. 2k pb, 500m flat out and four (five?) sets of 15 power strokes is enough for anyone. I had a four hour drive ahead of me. Only when I was 2 miles from the velodrome did I realise that I had forgotten to give out the banana boat beer from Evesham. I had carried it all the way there for nothing. Ah well, I guess I will have to drink it all now. I wisely stopped for a long dinner at about half way home and was in the bath by 10pm.
3 PBs in Eight Days
I did not row again until Thursday. I then tried to improve my CTC score but was annoyed to get exactly the same time as my last effort. I resolved to do a hard 30 minutes tonight, and set a CTC 7777m time as I passed that mark. Initially the plan was to set off at 1:52.5 and see, but I felt so good as I set off I tried for an even 1:50 split. I was 1:49.7 through the first 10 minutes, then 1:50.0 through the next 10 minutes. I thought I would accelerate at this point but had nothing. I hung on until the last two minutes when my sprint brought me home in a massive PB - 8,205 vs 8,043 and a new PB on heart rate too - 197 sustained at the end of the row. I have not tried a hard 30 minutes for nearly two years because in the 8,043 I had heart pain. I was close today but managed to avoid it. Really pleased with that time - my average split was something like 1:49.7 and it puts me in the top 7% on the C2 rankings, the same as my 2k PB. This is where I should be. I guess I will target the top 5% now that the top 10% looks possible.
I am deliriously happy with EIRC and the row today. I had such a bad run in to Christmas with illness - I was not progressing at all - at best standing still. But four weeks of health and quality training on the Pete Plan has turned things round. I feel I am progressing well. I'll do some more rounds of the Pete Plan and then have another pop at the 2k. I would be really pleased to do a sub 6:40 at home - which is so different to competition. The Pete Plan is very simple and very clever. It gives a lot of confidence - if you can sustain 1:39 for 1,000m after a lot of work in the previous 10 minutes then you are certain that you can get to 1,000m at 1:39 with something in the tank.
If you have got this far - I'm impressed. Happy rowing.
Metres today: 9,779
No comments:
Post a Comment