I decided to start over this week, nothing but strength training.  I decided that I would simply ignore the sprints until I got my head back in the game.  First day - a 20 minute session at just over 2:10 pace for 4582  meters.  Second day and aother 20 minute session - a bit faster for a total of 4538 meters.

Then came Snowmageddon!  I spent the next two days shoveling snow instead of rowing.  Then I took a day off  - no exercise at all.  The last day of the week brought another 20 minute session, faster than the first day and nearly as fast as the second day - 4607 meters.

I think that I will keep this up for another week before I try to do another sprint.  The race is coming up in just two weeks!!!  I don't think that I will be racing to match my last years' time - I'll just be setting a personal best time to start the year.

My training routine completely collapsed this week.  My body AND mind said "Screw this..."   Sprint times were not improving and on the 1st, I couldn't even complete the sprint at full power.  I decided that the next day I would just do a 2K piece, but fast, to give me back some confidence.  Probably a bad move, in hindsight. 

I gave up at 1k when I could barely hold a 2:00 pace. (... And I wanted to hold a 1:42 for the 1K race!!!)  I stopped rowing completely for the rest of the week and sulked around the house, feeling sorry for myself because I was really growing old instead of ROWing old.

I didn't get my times down to where I wanted this week, but I still have four weeks before the race so I will continue with a 600 meter race-pace segment next week instead of increasing to 750 meters.  Instead, I think that I will increase the warmup piece back to 1000m at high SPM. And I'll probably extend the 5 minute rest before the race piece to 8 minutes.   I would very much like to see a 1:42 pace over the 600 meter race before I move on to a longer piece.

I've been experimenting with SPM this week and I think that I actually do better when I can keep my legs moving in the low 30spm range - even if I feel like they will fall off.  Perhaps it is my back and arms that are giving  me the grief.  Or my lungs.  Or...  But it seems to be my legs that burn first.  Once I hit the wall, I start throwing my head back early, my breathing goes to hell...  Perhaps I really just need more endurance training - UGH!!! Anything but that!   Well if I can't hit 1:42.0 next week, I'll have to increase the strength piece, maybe double it up or more.

2,000m	08:34.6	02:08.6	1/29/2010	33spm. maybe I do better at low 30s spm??
600m	02:04.6	01:43.8	1/29/2010	better, but not what I want
500m	02:06.5	02:06.5	1/29/2010	41spm(!!)
2,000m	08:46.6	02:11.6	1/28/2010	28spm
600m	02:04.9	01:44.0	1/28/2010	full bore, but died at end
500m	02:05.5	02:05.5	1/28/2010	36spm
2,000m	08:46.6	02:11.6	1/25/2010	strength training - but not as good as yesterday
600m	02:11.3	01:49.4	1/25/2010	tried to be at race pace, but nooo
500m	02:01.3	02:01.3	1/25/2010	warm up at 38spm
2,000m	08:34.7	02:08.6	1/24/2010	28-30 spm - full slide. Twice as long for strength / endurance.
600m	02:06.0	01:45.0	1/24/2010	extended distance - couldn't complete in one stretch.
500m	02:02.0	02:02.0	1/24/2010	39spm - change in routine. Warm up only

Holy Mergatroid!

I did a 500 meter warmup piece at a very high rate - 38-40spm - and pulled hard enough to keep the pace around 2:02,  Then, after a 5 minute rest, I started a 600 meter race.   This is an increase of 1/3 of the previous week, from 450m.  I thought that I would get through the first 450 and then barely be able to finish that last (new) 150m but surprise, surprise - my brain had a different idea!

At about 175 m, My brain said "Nope, we will never be ale to finish this piece so stop!" and I did.  After thirty seconds or so, I  finally convinced my body to continue albeit at a slower rate than I wanted.  Still, I was able to complete the piece and (ignoring the 30 seconds off for bad behaivour) I averaged 1:45.  I know that no one else will accept that math, but I'm willing to do so.  I'll have to see if tomorrow is better.  Perhaps, the shortened warmup had something to do with it.  Maybe it was just the fear of the longer race.  I don't know.  The mind / body / conciousnous connection is an unknown area for me at least.

Throughout this week I did a three part workout:  a warmup of 1000 meters at a very high stroke rate to get my legs used to working that fast, then a 450 meter, full-out race piece (up from 300 meters last week) still aiming for 1:40/500 pace and low 30 spm.  Finally, another 1000 meters at about the same spm as the race piece.  Hopefully, this will condition my leg muscles to the quick cycle times that will be required and exercise them enough to build the required strength.  My actual times are in a table below.  Note that I was able to get the race pace ALMOST to the target.  The first several hundred meters are faster, down around 1:38, but then I start to die and the pace slows down to about 1:42/500 meters.

                Distance      Time            Pace            Date

1,000m	04:04.3	02:02.1	1/22/2010
450m	01:30.6	01:40.6	1/22/2010
1,000m	04:18.4	02:09.2	1/22/2010
1,000m	04:21.5	02:10.7	1/21/2010
450m	01:30.9	01:41.0	1/21/2010
1,000m	04:17.4	02:08.7	1/21/2010
1,000m	04:20.3	02:10.1	1/20/2010
450m	01:30.6	01:40.5	1/20/2010
1,000m	04:09.0	02:04.5	1/20/2010
1,000m	04:16.6	02:08.3	1/18/2010
450m	01:31.9	01:42.1	1/18/2010
1,000m	04:13.9	02:06.9	1/18/2010

Next week the race piece gets extended to 600 meters (Adding 150 meters per week) and I'll start a longer strength piece at the end of the workout.  I think that I'll drop the warmup piece from 1000m to only 500m.  The rest between pieces will stay the same for now - 5 min between warmup and the race, then 8 min between the race and the strength piece.

Yes I know that I should be doing LOTS more strength training but I'm lazy!  Give me a break!  I don't expect to complete the first of the longer race pieces on Sunday within the target time but I will force myself to finish it...

After deciding that the whole game this year is to seriously step up the strokes per minute, I've embarked on a foolish method probably guaranteed not to work, but what the heck - it's easier that actually training!  This week I did 1K at a high rate, rested five minutes, then did 300M at a high rate AND a low split time - my target is 1:40.  Here are the results:

                Distance            Actual Time        Rate/500m        Date                Comments

300m	00:59.9	01:39.8	1/14/2010	@34spm
1,000m	03:59.0	01:59.5	1/14/2010	around 34spm
300m	01:00.3	01:40.5	1/13/2010	@32spm
1,000m	03:53.5	01:56.7	1/13/2010	around 30spm
300m	01:00.0	01:40.0	1/12/2010	@33spm
1,000m	03:59.6	01:59.8	1/12/2010	above 30spm
300m	00:59.6	01:39.3	1/11/2010	@34spm
1,000m	04:05.6	02:02.8	1/11/2010	always above 30spm
326m	01:09.0	01:45.8	1/10/2010	34spm, full bore...
1,019m	04:27.9	02:11.4	1/10/2010	30SPM. Starting to train for Armageddon

I'll take two days off and then start with a harder routine - 1K / 450m / 1K.  I'll add 30 seconds of high rate/low split each week to the fast piece and more distance to the strength pieces.  Within four weeks - if this works - I'll be rowing nearly an entire race each session.  ...Or my legs will fall off, my heart will give out, or my head will finally tell the rest of me that I'm an old man and don't have to do this crap!

Two weeks off after the Holiday Challenge and I'm already out of shape!  I hurt when I'm training hard and ache when I don't do anything so it's time to do something again.  This time, with the goal of "Participate in the Erg Armageddon", I'm going to concentrate on getting my legs used to moving that fast.  Thirty strokes per minute is the minimum that I think I can get away with during the race so that's what I'll train at - with bursts up even higher.  It's only 1000 meters, but it has to be the fastest 1000 meters that I do all year.  If I can do it at the same speed that I did last year (and the year before, and before, and before...) I am beating the age handicap incease so I'm actually speeding up in my old age! 

This morning (yes, the hated morning!) I only did a thousand meters - but at 30spm and about 2:08 pace - before I tried a 'base' race piece to give me something to test my progress against.  This base was 300 meters at 34spm and a pace of 1:43/500.  At 300 meters, my head told my body that "Yes, we could continue, but WHY??? So quit!!!"... and I did.

From here on out I'll keep the SPM up and the rate down and just try to continually extend the length of the race piece.  If I can eventually do 1000 meters - at that rate - in practice, then I'm sure that adrenalin during the event can kick me down another few seconds.

I'm finished with this challenge! 

I ended up with 202K rowed (that's 126 miles) and now have the ability to order and pay for a zip up hoodie ($41) or a ceramic travel mug ($19) with the challenge logo on them.  On the other hand, I could just download a design that can be printed on a transfer sheet and placed on my own tee shirt.  My final choice is to simply post the image here to show off that I actually completed it - not that anyone would reall recognize what it means...
                                
Today's rows (only two instead of three BECAUSE THAT'S ALL I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO DO!) - #1 - 4303 meters and #2 - 4246 meters...

Next on the RowingOld menu - some time off, about a week, then the Blue Moon Challenge on Dec 31st - two 5,000 meter rows on the day that the final Blue Moon of 2009 appears.  After that, I have to decide whether I'll really participate in the Erg Armageddon in February. 

I can't believe that I've ALMOST finished with this challenge!  Tomorrow is the last time I'll have to row for an hour... now that doesn't sound like someone who intends to keep rowing forever, does it?  Oh well, I'll be glad to see it finished.  Tonight's row wasn't bad - the first row was 4356 meters.  The second was 4409 and the last was 4293 meters. 

At the very end of the last row I pushed my rate down to 1:40/500 instead of the 2:18/500 that I usually do.  Why 1:40?  because that's what my target speed is in the February Erg Armageddon race at Bucknell University.  How did it feel?  It felt like there is no way in Hell that I can do that for a thousand meters!  Oh well, that's what I have to do in January and early February before the Armageddon - ramp up my training for speed instead of for endurance.  Joy,  joy, joy!

ONE MORE DAY!!!

This morning broke frigid, snowy, grey, with worse forecast to come.  I was not thrilled to get out of a perfectly nice bed to go exercise.  And looking forward to driving to Pittsburgh in the 'worst snowstorm in a decade' to pick up my daughter and bring her home for Christmas.  Four hours is good weather, who knows how long in bad conditions.  At least I had plenty to think about while I was erging - what emergency gear to pack, which route to take, how long to plan for.

Being focused on something other than rowing makes the time go by faster, but the intensity of the workout suffers as you can tell from the distances.  I still tried to pick up the pace at the end of each row and was able to make each one faster than the one before.  Today's distances are: 1- 4223 meters, 2 - 4274 meters, and 3 - 4283 meters - low, but still over my daily target distance.

Turns out that the weather in Pittsburgh is even worse than here.  But their storm should be over by 6am tomorrow.  If I leave here in the morning, the Pittsburgh roads will be cleared before I get there and my daughter can drive home.  Ten hours in a car with my daughter - priceless.