I woke up nice and early on Sunday and quickly downed my porridge. I arrived at the gym just before 9.00 and hurried to the one rowing machine with a pm3. The aim was to try and complete the marathon as close to 3 hours as possible and I duly set off pulling 2:07 to 2:08. The heart rate steadily rose to 128 where it held for about an hour. The half way mark was reached in just over 91 minutes which was slightly slower than intended but I felt comfortable with a heart rate at 132 - still below my UT1 threshold. This is a considerable contrast to the Paul Sims charity marathon last October where my heart rate had exceeded 140 within 10 minutes forcing me to slow down. The next 10k passed fairly quickly and the predicted time was hovering around 3:02. At 35k I was still fairly comfortable with none of the usual burning pain in my backside by this stage. My heart rate had risen to 137 (just above my lower UT1) reflecting dehydration. I started to wind up the pace but then things began to go wrong. I started feeling sick and had to stop while dry heaving. This happened three times more over the final 7k including a 20 second stop with just 600m to go. It had been really frustrating watching the predicted time dropping from 3:02 to 3:04. I finally limped home in 3:04:25.5. This was 2 minutes inside my previous best which was really pleasing but also disappointing as I felt I could have done better. Oh well there is always next time !

A slight departure from this weeks plan to row 3 1 hour sessions at marathon pace prior to Sundays attempt. However having finished work late I decided to cut the time down a bit and do another ctc. I started off very strong and worrying that I might fade later eased back a bit and held between 2:01 and 2:02 all the way before speeding up at the end to finish in 48:23.0 I felt comfortable all the way and its a big confidence booster before my marathon as its answered any doubts I had about the state of my fitness after last weeks disappointing relay. As an added bonus I am back in boat 6 in the ctc although that will probably change as more people post their times.

Todays stint for the 24x7 started off well and felt there could be an outside chance of getting a pb but after 20 minutes I realised that was not going to happen although I was still going quite well. Things began to go wrong again just after the half way mark. I almost think this is psychological - I am expecting to mess things up at this stage so I do. Again the splits dropped from 2:03 to 2:07 during this period before picking up again with 10 minutes to go and finished slightly further than yesterday on 14535. Just one more to do tomorrow.

After a days rest yesterday I felt I should be able to further improve from my frankly awful performances earlier in the week.
I can usually tell within a minute of starting how a session will go and I realised quickly that a pb performance was not on but I could improve. Managed to hold 2:03 to 2:04 for 35 minutes before things went pear shaped for 10 minutes or so when the splits dropped to 2:06 and it looked like I would finish around 14400. I then remembered Alastairs finishing time earlier in the week and decided to try and beat him, which I think I just about managed finishing on 14507.
Overall fairly pleased as this represents almost a 500m improvement on Sundays catastrophic effort but I would still like to break through 14800. Oh well 2 more sessions to go....

Today was my 3rd slot for the 24x7 relay. I decided to set off at a similar pace to yesterday but felt so good that I increased speed to slightly lower than pb pace. I was able to hold this for almost half an hour before realising it wasnt on. I slowed down but it became increasingly hard work - I wonder how much this was mental rather than physical. The 4th 12 minute split was total torment and I handled down for a few seconds. Finally came in at 14343, still 500m down on what I think I am capable of. Trying to dwell on the positive though so I am happy with the first 30 minutes and happy that I have been improving since Sundays disaster. If I can keep improving maybe I can record a decent row before this relay finishes. Watch this space.

Woke up this morning determined to improve on yesterdays effort in the 24x7 relay. My resting pulse was lower though still not as low as normal. Its usually low 50s (lowest seen is 46) but it was low 60s this morning. I set off at a more conservative rate of 2:06 which was reasonably comfortable for 30 minutes. The pace slipped a little during the 2nd half hour but I was able to pick it up again towards the end, finishing on 14253, still some 600m short of my target. Heart rate average was 135, lower than the 139 average yesterday despite the faster splits so I seem to be recovering.

Ok - first rowing related blog and it doesn't make for happy reading. The FS 24x7 relay began today with the idea being to get a new pb. Within 20 seconds of starting I knew it was not going to happen. My heart rate rapidly rose to 140 well into my UT1 zone despite slowing down. I wanted to handle down but there was no way I was going to do that but it turned into a very uncomfortable 1 hour. Oh well there are 5 more slots for me so hopefully things can only get better.

Updated my firewall and reinstalled it in the hope this would fix the incredibly annoying log in problem I have been having with this since January. Hopefully I can now bore everyone with the details of this fixations I have with rowing.