5 reasons to exercise in the very early morning

Admittedly, I constructed today’s blog title as click bait. Hopefully the content will satisfy you.

Here are my five reasons:

  1. You get to see the sunrise
  2. Less wind, which is a big deal on our lake.
  3. You have the lake for yourself (or just share it with other rowers). No swimmers. No ferries. No paddle boats
  4. On hot days, the temperatures are better
  5. It energizes me for the working day. One positive thing done first thing in the morning sets the direction for the rest of the day

Today was a shorter session than on Wednesday. For logistics reasons, Saturday’s session of 2x3km at head race pace had to be moved to Friday. The problem is that that is just two days after another heavy session, so would I be fully recovered? I wasn’t sure, but I figured the negative effect of not doing a session is stronger than the negative effect of doing a heavy session when not fully rested (and potentially not doing it as hard as it should be done).

I did an interesting experiment with myself. I promised myself to focus strongly on technique whenever my stroke pace would be higher than the average pace. So on the first 3k I set out at 2:03, and take a glance at the SpeedCoach every few strokes. If I would see 2:05 or 2:06 (or worse) I would focus on tap down, back swing or length at the catch instead of pushing harder with the legs. So just focus on technique, not working harder, especially not in the first part of the stroke.

It worked! Either the wind gods played with me and increased the tailwind (or decreased headwind) slightly to bring the desired outcome, or it really worked. I am going to settle for the second explanation.

Stroke rates were still only at 25 spm, but that will be the focus a couple of weeks from now. First, I need to build a good basic head race stroke.

download-6


Work Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|03000| 12:28 |02:04.7| 25.0| 173 | 181 | 9.6
02|03000| 13:16 |02:12.7| 25.7| 177 | 182 | 8.8
Workout Summary
--|06000| 25:44 | 2:08.7| 25.4| 175 | 182 | 9.2

During the tailwind interval I thought that I was rowing very well in what I thought was just a very light tailwind. It was a bit disappointing to see my pace hovering around 2:13 / 500m in the headwind interval. In that one, pace drifted to 2:16 when I didn’t focus on technique and I managed to get it back to 2:09-2:11 when I did.

Both 3km intervals went by much faster than I thought they would. Actually, they were rather enjoyable. Painful they were of course, but no thought of giving up. I guess the technique focus kept my mind focused on something else than the pain.

Follow me in social media