February CTC test – fail

Perhaps I should have scheduled a rest day but this week’s work schedule works out better if I take the rest day on Wednesday. So I planned the Pete Plan waterfall for today.

Then I checked what this month’s CTC is: A 3x7min at 5 minutes rest, with standing starts. Decided to do that one. It’s shorter. 🙂 But, I don’t like time based intervals. 🙁

I wanted to try 1:49.0 pace but it was hard from rep 1. I managed 1925m so I decided to copy that for rep 2 and then max out in rep 3. I was naive. I managed rep 2 but it was harder than rep 1. Then I missed the start of rep 2 by 2 seconds, so I was looking at lousy average pace which I slowly tried to get back to 1:49.0.

Thousand meters into the third rep I almost HD’ed, then  dropped pace to 1:55-1:58 for 600m, only to take it up again in the last minute to at least get the distance over 1900m.

Unfortunately, my notebook went into sleep mode during the second rep. The reason, I discovered later, was that I didn’t push the plug into the power socket deep enough.

Here’s the data I have.

Some more pictures have surfaced from the race.

Also, the Czech rowing site Veslo.cz published an interview with our recordman Jiri Pfeifer:

I translate a few interesting bits:

How did the race go?

“The race in Pardubice went according to expectations. After a relatively fast 500m I found myself in second place behind Jan Vesecky, who started in a younger age category, so no stress. I tried to hold an average of 1:35, which I succeeded in at a stroke rate of 28-29spm. I expected that at this pace I would gradually come closer to Jan, just as in the December race in Hostivice. At the start of the last 500m  my average pace was 1:35.2, and I thought: You cannot spoil such a well opened race. I tried to ignore the pain and only concentrated at getting the average pace under 1:35. I felt tired from Tuesday, but I tried not to think abouot that. In the end it was more a question of willpower than fitness. In Hostivice, I didn’t know I could row 6:20.5, but now I really wanted to go under 6:20.

Your time was indeed faster than the 6:20.5 that you mentioned. Then, your time could not be an official record because of your birth year (1966). So did you look for a revanche? You must have been disappointed in December.

Yes, I was disappointed in December, because I was allowed to start in the 50-59 age class. I had no idea that I would not qualify for a record. If I had started in the 40-49 age category, then I would know I could not change the record (5:46.1 by Vaclav Chalupa).

[…]

My record will surely fall soon. Next year, Vaclav Chalupa will be 50, and we shouldn’t forget the president of the Czech Rowing Association, Dusan Machacek, who is also from 1966 and will definitely try to break my record.

[…]

What is your profession? Do you have other hobbies?

I own a transport company. I have no time for other hobbies. I train in the morning, then quickly to work, and if I don’t come home too late, I do another training before going to bed.