Today should have been a rest day. Unfortunately, I only found out 6km into the session.

I had a meeting-free gap in my calendar between 3pm and 6:30pm, so I used it to

• Drive through the peak hour traffic to the lake
• Row steady state in the single
• Bring kids home from rowing club and have dinner with them
• Drive back to work for the 6:30 to 9pm teleconference block (which I could have done from home, had I not forgotten my notebook at work)

Yes, when I turned after 5.5km I noticed that my legs were quite empty after the sprinting on Saturday and the head race simulation on Sunday. I even felt a little light in the head. So on the way back I took down the intensity even more and just focused on making nice strokes.

According to RIM (Rowing In Motion), I succeeded:

Check factor and stroke efficiency values are among my season’s best for the 18-20spm range. Catch duration and Catch efficiency are similar to my usual values.

Looking at the heart rate graph one may wonder if this “Extensive Steady State” or “Compensation” but I would say it was the second best thing to do after taking a complete rest day:

The steering practice in the twisty bit was pretty good given the conditions:

This was entirely steered in the rear view mirror, which was not easy today because the sun was already low and the water was nice and flat, and thus a perfect mirror. Combined with the green and gold of the tree leaves both the real part and the mirror in the water, I was having trouble seeing the water surface in the rear view mirror, let alone finding the point to steer to. Basically my entire field of view was filled with very beautiful autumn colors, but that makes it impossible to distinguish between the right bank inner turn point I want to steer to and the left bank outer turn in the background.

Perhaps on the race, coming Saturday, it will be easier, as the river Morava has grassy banks.