A hard 10000m

Monday

Enjoyed a rest day. Tactical rest day before a hard threshold row.

Tuesday

A 10k row on the schedule. A threshold row. Thinking of a PB, but I knew it would be hard. Rowing PBs is never easy, but on a working day, rowing it in the evening, after a meal, is hard. My 10k PB of the 2014/15 was rowed with people standing around. At 1:53.5 pace, in a time of 37:52.8. In a vacation, with nothing else on my mind.

So I gave myself a second target. Good training effort would be to row this in 1:55 pace (or faster).

Warming up: A 2k with 10 stroke “pieces” in the second 1000m, at 1:57, 1:53 and 1:45 pace. Strange enough, the 1:45 felt more doable than the 1:53. Strange intermediate pace … unknown territory.

Fired up RowPro, after a long time, but I wanted to have a good pace boat. To be sure, I set up two pace boat, 1:53.5 and 1:55.0. That’s how uncertain I was.

The  plan was to divide the row in 4 pieces of 2.5km, and row them 1:53 / 1:54 / 1:54 / 1:53. First 2.5km went by easily. I struggled a bit to find a good rhythm, but once that was found, I just watched my pace boat fall behind, by about 2 meters per 500m.

4000m rowed. 6000m on the display.  This was a first desperate moment. I had been going for some time, but still a full 6k in front of me.

Past half way. It became a bit harder to gain the 2 meters per 500m interval, but it kept me busy. I was thinking of finishing around 37:42 …

The pain started with 3km to go. I did a quick calculation, and with 2500m to go I knew that I could hold 1:55 and end up finishing before my pace boat. Between 2000m and 1000m I was really struggling and slowed down a bit. Now I was looking at a predicted end time of 37:47, and counting strokes.


Workout Summary - Mar 15, 2016
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|37:45.4|01:53.3|240.8|26.1|176.3|184.0|10.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-|Comments
01|01000|03:46.0|01:53.0|242.5|25.0|153.3|166.0|10.6|
02|01000|03:45.6|01:52.8|243.9|25.3|170.5|173.0|10.5|
03|01000|03:46.3|01:53.1|241.6|25.2|174.1|176.0|10.5|
04|01000|03:46.1|01:53.1|242.1|26.0|176.1|178.0|10.2|
05|01000|03:46.3|01:53.1|241.6|26.0|178.0|180.0|10.2|
06|01000|03:46.0|01:53.0|242.7|26.0|180.2|181.0|10.2|
07|01000|03:46.3|01:53.1|241.7|26.5|181.2|183.0|10.0|
08|01000|03:47.1|01:53.6|239.0|26.9|182.1|183.0|09.8|starting to feel it
09|01000|03:48.9|01:54.4|233.6|26.7|182.3|184.0|09.8|fighting
10|01000|03:46.8|01:53.4|239.9|27.8|182.9|184.0|09.5|end in sight


I did a very slow 2k cooling down, took a shower and then started the pleasant task of updating my signature, nonathlon score, writing my blog etc …

Planning wise I had a little set back. My boss called me to tell me that he has to go to the Middle East next week, and wants me to be at a meeting in Brno instead of him. That’s normally fine as I am based in Brno, but I planned to be in Račice next week with Romana and the girls, on the canal, and work from our Prague office (or from the canal).

Well, I’ll drive back to Brno on Wednesday afternoon, and return to Prague on Thursday afternoon. I will miss just two workouts. Just 5 to 6 hours of driving … or 8 hours by train.