The Prodigal Returns
Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2017 6:20 pm
Hi,
It's been a while. Although I have been regularly lurking on the forum, I haven't been posting much.
My life has gotten quite hectic over the past couple of years for generally happy reasons. I was promoted at work and my wife and I bought a nice little vacation house near the beach. I like my new job, but it has more travel and a bit longer hours. Learnig how to manage two places has been a bit of a challenge, but being on Cape Cod makes me incredibly happy.
These changes have disrupted my routines, reduced the amount of time I have to train, and made it harder to prepare for competitive rowing in the methodical way that I had. I suspect that the chaos led to some bad training and that resulted in injuries.
Some of you might recall that I started doing some open water rowing last year and planned to enter a 20 mile open water race this past July. Well, it turned out that a business trip to Shanghai conflicted with the event and I ended up scratching. It was a big disappointment because I had done about 6 months of training focused on longer distances and I thought I was ready to go. After that, I started to try to shift my training to get ready for head races (4-6km OTW rowing events), but more travel, and then a lower back injury basically interrupted training for 5 weeks from mid-August to mid-September. You can see what happened to my fitness from this cool tracker on Strava.
May-June: Good regular workouts, getting ready for open water race
July: Heavy work travel
August: doing OK, getting back into head racing shape. Injury 8/29.
September: injured, just a little cross training until 9/17. First rowing session back. Decided to NOT scratch from the Head of the Charles.
9/17 to 9/22: Training for HOCR. On 9/22, the rigger of my boat broke.
9/22 - 10/6: Mostly erg based training. Borrowed someone boat twice to try to get some OTW time.
10/6 to 10/20: Boat is finally repaired. Final training for HOCR. 14 days to work on rowing my boat at head race pace and rate.
10/21: HOCR. I was disappointed in how I did, but not surprised. I was much slower than I was in 2015. This was a big blow to my fragile male ego. It's taken me a few weeks to get my head around it.
Since the 21st, some good things have happened.
1. I finally got to see the Physical Therapist I wanted to see. This is someone who works with all the rowing clubs down on the Charles River and understands exactly how to treat master age group rowers. My back is still nagging at me, and he has already helped me out. I have imbalances in glute strength that were twisting my pelvis and causing weird stuff to happen at the catch. He gave me specific exercises and stretches to try to correct this stuff.
2. I got a coach. I'm going to work with Marlene Royle, who provides remote coaching services. I've read her books and I like her point of view. She's done great work with other masters rowers. I'm hoping she can help me work on my on the water technique.
3. I did a set of fitness assessments so now I now exactly where I am. This will let me plan out how to go forward.
So, anyway, if anyone is still reading by this point...thanks. I look forward to sharing how things go from this point forward.
It's been a while. Although I have been regularly lurking on the forum, I haven't been posting much.
My life has gotten quite hectic over the past couple of years for generally happy reasons. I was promoted at work and my wife and I bought a nice little vacation house near the beach. I like my new job, but it has more travel and a bit longer hours. Learnig how to manage two places has been a bit of a challenge, but being on Cape Cod makes me incredibly happy.
These changes have disrupted my routines, reduced the amount of time I have to train, and made it harder to prepare for competitive rowing in the methodical way that I had. I suspect that the chaos led to some bad training and that resulted in injuries.
Some of you might recall that I started doing some open water rowing last year and planned to enter a 20 mile open water race this past July. Well, it turned out that a business trip to Shanghai conflicted with the event and I ended up scratching. It was a big disappointment because I had done about 6 months of training focused on longer distances and I thought I was ready to go. After that, I started to try to shift my training to get ready for head races (4-6km OTW rowing events), but more travel, and then a lower back injury basically interrupted training for 5 weeks from mid-August to mid-September. You can see what happened to my fitness from this cool tracker on Strava.
May-June: Good regular workouts, getting ready for open water race
July: Heavy work travel
August: doing OK, getting back into head racing shape. Injury 8/29.
September: injured, just a little cross training until 9/17. First rowing session back. Decided to NOT scratch from the Head of the Charles.
9/17 to 9/22: Training for HOCR. On 9/22, the rigger of my boat broke.
9/22 - 10/6: Mostly erg based training. Borrowed someone boat twice to try to get some OTW time.
10/6 to 10/20: Boat is finally repaired. Final training for HOCR. 14 days to work on rowing my boat at head race pace and rate.
10/21: HOCR. I was disappointed in how I did, but not surprised. I was much slower than I was in 2015. This was a big blow to my fragile male ego. It's taken me a few weeks to get my head around it.
Since the 21st, some good things have happened.
1. I finally got to see the Physical Therapist I wanted to see. This is someone who works with all the rowing clubs down on the Charles River and understands exactly how to treat master age group rowers. My back is still nagging at me, and he has already helped me out. I have imbalances in glute strength that were twisting my pelvis and causing weird stuff to happen at the catch. He gave me specific exercises and stretches to try to correct this stuff.
2. I got a coach. I'm going to work with Marlene Royle, who provides remote coaching services. I've read her books and I like her point of view. She's done great work with other masters rowers. I'm hoping she can help me work on my on the water technique.
3. I did a set of fitness assessments so now I now exactly where I am. This will let me plan out how to go forward.
So, anyway, if anyone is still reading by this point...thanks. I look forward to sharing how things go from this point forward.