Stan's Blog

Reflections on BIRC

2007-11-20T12:42:00.000-08:00

A great day out and it was wonderful meeting so many Free Spirits either again or for the first time. It was particularly good to see Mike Channin and Tanya who unexpectedly turned up to spectate.
I am now glad that I chose to enter 2 smaller races at Evesham and Cardiff this year. The experience gained at these events was invaluable and helped me control my nerves. I had the good fortune to meet Anna Bailey just before my race and we had a quick chat about Malvern and a moan about the race being 5 minutes late.
The start went well for a change and I am sure Roger Bangay would have been happy to see I hit my target pace (1:49) within a few strokes. I found it difficult to maintain a consistent speed. Occasionally I would be hitting 1:47 which panicked me so I would then slow down too much and the speed would drop to 1:51/1:52. After 500m I became more settled but the dry atmosphere was beginning to bother me and at 1000m I was beginning to doubt whether I could finish. There was no way I was going to handle down at BIRC though so I just carried on. By 1500m I was looking at about 7:20 and didnt know if I had a sprint finish. At 250m to go the doubts disappeared and I started to crank up the pace hitting 1:37/1:38, finishing in 7:13.7 a pb by 1.2 seconds.
Rowing at about 1:50 for 1500m and relying on my sprint finish is not going to get me much further now and I really need to speed up the first 1500 if I am going to progress towards sub 7. So its back to the Pete Plan this week with the horrible 4x2000 planned for Thursday. I will then take Friday off and have another go at my seasons best 10k (40:12) and maybe even push for a pb (sub40).

its been a while

2007-11-02T16:10:00.000-07:00

I was browsing Thomas' and Max's blogs this evening and thought it was time to restart my burblings again. My last blog was just before Evesham back in July. A fabulous day out, meeting Thomas, Roger, Wolfie, Spamuel, William, and Philip. The training paid off and I removed almost 10 seconds from my mile pb to finish in 5:46.2 The most pleasing aspect was my finish where I momentarily hit 1:33.
Evesham was followed by a rather mediocre fortnight and diabolical August where I seemed to suffering from hay fever or dust mite allergy. Whatever it was my breathing was badly affected and it was disturbing listening to a "death rattle" in my lungs.
Things began to improve steadily in September which rather handily had 10k as the ctc. From an appalling 44 minute effort at the beginning of the month, I finished with a more respectable sub 40:30. I must have another go soon as I think I may be approaching sub 40 form again.
The improvement continued throughout October with my return to the Pete plan and culminated in a new 2k pb set during the Welsh Indoor Rowing championships in Cardiff of 7:14.9, a 6.4 second improvement. It was great to see Roger there and meet Brian Critchley for the first time.
My form has continued to look good in the week following Cardiff and I have finally broken my longest standing pb in the 30 minutes as well setting a new pb for 30r20, which I continue to hate with a passion. Hopefully this run of form will continue to BIRC in a couple of weeks time. I have tentatively set myself a target of 7:10 but that may be a little ambitious. I will need to get my start right and try and hold a 1:49 split and then hope there is enough left in the tank for a sprint finish. I plan to do a few 1500m sessions to see how holding that split feels

The build up to Evesham

2007-07-03T12:40:00.000-07:00

Well less than 2 weeks to my debut race and until yesterday I was pretty worried about it. Not in terms of winning and losing. I know I have no chance of winning and the chances are I will come last. I was worried about not doing myself justice - especially in view of all the handling down I did last month.
However in the last week I have felt that my form is beginning to come back and I have had several good sessions. Yesterdays 1500 time trial answered a lot of questions for me and allayed those nagging doubts. Now looking forward to it. I will come off the Pete Plan until after Evesham in favour of more specific speed work with a couple of longer recovery rows in between.

Cycle 1 of the Pete Plan complete

2007-05-21T10:47:00.000-07:00

Well the first 3 week cycle of the Pete Plan is now finished and tomorrow the whole thing starts again. It will be interrupted next week by a trip to China but maybe the rest will do me good. While I feel the intervals have been going well, the hard 10k on day 6 has been a real struggle. The last 2 have resulted in handling down, and although I tried again and did better later in the day its still a bit demoralising. Maybe at 43 it requires longer to recover from hard sessions and I need to substitute in a couple of UT2 sessions to aid that recovery. The PP07 seems to recommend steady sessions at pb+5-7 rather than pb+3.
To summarise the first cycle interval sessions:

8x500 @ 1:54.2 (too slow and I will be aiming for sub 1:49 tomorrow)
5x1500 @ 1:55.3
4x1000 @ 1:51.9 (horrible session)
4x2000 @ 1:56.4
Short pyramids @ 1:49.9
Long pyramids @ 1:57.9

The aim now is to do all but the last interval at the above pace and then go faster on the last one to set a new target.

End of week 2 of the Pete plan

2007-05-13T11:54:00.000-07:00

I decided to get down the gym early this morning so I skipped breakfast. Not a good idea and the hard 10k was curtailed to 4k. I decided to go home, have something to eat and try again later. Early in the afternoon I went to see 28 weeks later in the somewhat vain hope that it would be better than 28 days later. Wrong. On the way home I decided to try an all out 6k at 24 spm so thats what I did. I was very pleased with the time of 24:09.5 - a 16 second improvement on my first attempt. The row seemed easier as well - hopefully this a sign that I am getting stronger. The pacing was very even all the way:

1000 in 4:02.8
2000 in 4:02.2
3000 in 4:01.6
4000 in 4:02.0
5000 in 4:02.3
6000 in 3:58.6

Avg Pace 2:00.7
Next time I hope to hit 2:00 min splits all the way.

Cool down 10 minutes 2321. Days metres 12321.

Week 2 of the Pete Plan

2007-05-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

Week 2 of the Pete Plan begins with the infamous 4x1000 intervals which initially I thought did not sound too bad. Wrong again - it was complete torment. I am reminded of an old saying - that which does not kill you makes you stronger. Well I am still alive and currently feeling weaker. Hopefully that feeling will not last. This particular piece is meant to be completed at 2k pace which for me is 1:50.3. I managed an average 1:51.9 on this occasion but I guess the aim is to work your way towards the 2k average. Once you exceed it then its probably time to look at your 2k time again. To understand why this session is so difficult, my heart rate exceeded 156 on all 4 sets which is TR zone for me. The description for TR is gasping and sweating profusely. This is a pretty accurate description.
The next 2 days are meant to be steady rows of 8-15k which are unlikely to throw up anything interesting so I will probably report again on Friday with the results of the rather unpleasant sounding 4x2000.

More Pete Plan Musings

2007-05-04T14:35:00.000-07:00

Day 4 of the Pete plan and another interval session. This time 1500x5 with 5 minutes rest and boy did I need them. The first 3 intervals were reasonably but comfortable but it began to hurt on the 4th one. The 5th was very hard and I was unable to wind up the pace much. Nevertheless the target pace of 5k-1 was achieved and now I have a target of 1:55.3 to aim for next time I do this session. I came away feeling I had achieved something and looking forward to the next interval session - these interval sessions are great fun and make a welcome change from the long steady rows necessary for marathon training.
Todays session began with a 10 minute warmup covering 2345 metres and a 10 minute cooldown covering 2250 metres. Total distance 12196m.
It is good see other Free Spirits will be trying this plan and I look forward to comparing notes.

Beginning the Pete Plan

2007-05-03T12:41:00.000-07:00

Day 1: 8x500 3:30r
Well the new season has begun and its time to get faster for racing. I like the look of the Pete plan which should improve my times while still ensuring I can put in a lot of metres.
The first session was 8x500 so after a 12 minute warmup I set off. I was unsure of what to pace this at and decided on 1:54. Here are the individual splits:
1:54.5 Max HR 145 29 spm
1:54.6 Max HR 146 28 spm
1:54.5 Max HR 146 28 spm
1:54.3 Max HR 148 28 spm
1:54.6 Max HR 148 28 spm
1:54.8 Max HR 148 28 spm
1:54.4 Max HR 149 28 spm
1:51.9 Max HR 153 29 spm
This seemed easy and in fact I later discovered this session should be completed at 2k-3 or 2k-2. The pace should have 1:47/1:48, which certainly would have been more challenging. I actually feel this may be too quick for me as I am not used to interval training but its something to aim for and next time I do this session I will try it at 2k pace. I finished this session with a 15 minute cool down which took the total metres rowed to 10360.

Day 2 8-15k steady.
I decided to depart from this slightly and do the 6kr24 ctc challenge. This was quite a struggle to get the timing of each stroke correct and I finally finished in 24:25.7, almost a minute outside pb pace. Heart rate reached 153 which is AT for me. I rested for a few minutes and then rowed a further 30 minutes giving a daily total of 13032. This 2nd row was UT2 with a max HR of 135.

Day 3 8-15k steady
Not a lot to say about this one. A dull 10k in 42:12.9. Mostly UT2 merging into UT1 in the last 2k. Still a slight struggle though as my stomach muscles felt a bit sore - presumably due to the harder than usual pulling in yesterdays 6k.

Marathon success

2007-04-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

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 Confidence Builder

2007-04-18T13:46:00.000-07:00

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.

More of the same

2007-04-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

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.

Thats more like it

2007-04-13T15:47:00.000-07:00

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....

Getting better

2007-04-10T12:46:00.000-07:00

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.

A slight improvement

2007-04-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

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.

What went wrong

2007-04-08T11:42:00.000-07:00

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.

Hooray - my blog seems to work at last

2007-04-03T14:33:00.000-07:00

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.

Test post - edit this

2007-01-14T06:34:00.001-08:00

Testing Stan's blog