My past weeks training is below in reverse order. In case you’re wondering why on the harder efforts I have set odd looking split lengths for the 30min and 10k efforts, the simple reason is to split each row into 8 equal length splits. Why 8? Because that is the most you can display on the screen at once when you look back at your session, and I record the sessions by taking a photo of the screen with my mobile phone. So because of this I have been using 1250m splits for 10k rows, and 3min45 splits for 30min rows. For easier 30min efforts I stick to my usual 5min split lengths, and don’t record them here anyway.
18th May:
30mins = 8403m / 1:47.1 / 27
3min45 splits: 1:49.5, 1:49.2, 1:48.5, 1:47.9, 1:47.1, 1:46.8, 1:46.2, 1:41.5
It has been a hot couple of days here, so this was a sweaty effort, and feeling somewhat fatigued from yesterdays 10k. On this type of effort I feel nice and comfortable at the start, then it starts to feel tough around half way and I wonder if I can keep up the negative splits. But when I approach the final split and have a round number target in mind there is never any trouble increasing the pace quite markedly to achieve it. So here I saw 8400m as a nice target and simply aimed for that in the final split.
17th May:
10k = 35:58.3 / 1:47.9 / 28
1250m splits: 1:46.2, 1:47.9, 1:48.2, 1:48.7, 1:48.7, 1:48.9, 1:48.8, 1:45.6
Late in the day, really hot and humid. I had a target of sub 36mins going into the row, but really wanted to be pushing closer to 35:30 in reality. After a fast start I dropped to cruise pace, but had to readjust the cruise pace and just do enough to keep myself within reach of the sub36 target.
16th May:
6250m = 1:48.0 / 28
I had spent 3 hours out in the sun, up a ladder, trimming the trees in my back garden. I was tired and sweaty before I started, but figured I may as well row. Target was a sub 36 for 10k, but it wasn’t going to happen. This was the reason I redid the same row the following day.
15th May – rest
A long meeting up north followed by a 4hour drive back home in the evening yesterday, so this was a much needed rest day.
14th May:
30mins = 7895m / 1:53.9 / 23
Away staying in a hotel due to a work meeting. This was a 6:30am session on the one erg in the hotel gym. Really not like me to miss out on sleep and train straight out of bed, but it meant I didn’t need to train in the evening, and could take the following day as a rest day if I wanted to. Which it turned out I did want to!
13th May:
30mins = 8106m / 1:49.9 / 26
As well as getting straight out of bed and into the gym the following morning, the first thing I did after checking into the hotel was to head to the gym and do a steady 30mins on the erg. Although I’m not doing any truly hard sessions at the moment, I have got into a good consistent training routine, and training has become habit. It is therefore not hard to get the motivation to do something every day when I have the opportunity.
12th May:
30mins = 8453m / 1:46.4 / 28
3min45 splits: 1:48.8, 1:47.9, 1:47.2, 1:46.9, 1:46.5, 1:46.3, 1:45.9, 1:42.1
This was just slightly slower than the best 30mins I have done for some time (only by 0.2sec), so a good positive effort. At some point soon when I feel good I will warm up properly and do a proper hard attempt at either the 30mins or 10k and push one of them under 1:46.0. My ultimate target for this year is still to put in a sub 35min (1:45.0 split) 10k. I am confident I can achieve this.
11th May:
30mins = 8002m / 1:52.4 / 23
So overall 8 days where I trained 7 times with only one rest day, another good week overall. Not much variety, mainly fairly hard 30min or 10k rows, but all good fitness work.
By back to the grind as the title of this blog entry I am referring to the grind of post graduate university work. Tomorrow is the first day of term for the last taught class of my masters degree. So about 10weeks of hard work to get this last class out of the way and I’m nearly there. Unfortunately this means that all of my free time is gone for this period. It’s been a nice break having not had a class since Christmas, but now it is time to get back to it…..