Day 92 - The 100k!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And here we are - Training is Over, 100k day is here.

My best Man James McCullagh came over at 7:15am to pick us up and take us via Tesco's to the venue.

Setup was nice and quick, and I was on Rowpro by 8:10, but a very up and down Oarbits server was a bit of an issue.

Anita set off 8:30 on the dot, I set off in the end at 8:36 and the Oarbits connection, where I was rowing with my buddies from C2TweetCrew Wim Oosterveld (NLD), Abdul Southam (CAN), Johan Hoeke (NLD) and Borut Hafner (SVN), with Stu Thorp a non-starter due to a poor connection. I knew Wim was going the full 100k, but was unaware Abdul was too until afterwards, making it 4 C2TC members doing 100k's today, with Borut putting in 50k and Johan about 17k. All in all an amazing turnout, with Abdul starting at 0430 in Ontario!!!!

We also had a number of friends visit us during the row today, which was really good of them, and provided some much needed distraction from the aches and pains :)

James acted as general ddogsbody today - We both had a range of gels and drinks (Protein, Isotonic, 2:1 Fructose, Electrolyte and Water) which we both took on every 30 minutes, and without his help this would have been nigh-on impossible.

Anita rowed very steadily through the first 50k, passing the FM in 3:24, only 4 minutes outside her PB, but started to suffer at 60k, where she went into a maintenance mode, and toughed it out. PITA was the main issue. She finished just before 1640 at 8:19:20.2, an amazing time that puts her Top in the world this year for the 40-49 HWT ladies for 100k

I also went through 50k strongly, FM in 2:57, 3 Minutes outside my PB and 50K in 3:31, so 7:02 pace, but 50 to 60k was an absolute nightmare, with really bad PITA in my right glute. This subsided with Ibuprofen though, and I got back to a nice pace for the majority of the rest of the row - Finished at 7:17:07.7, which puts me 3rd in the 30-39 HWT men :)

It only remains for me Anita and I to thank everyone who has donated, helped, given advice and been positive during the last 6 months - It feels weird now we're done but the sense of achievement is slowly seeping in - I'm proud of you Anita :)

Cumulative distance : 3320095m (2063.4 miles)

Start : Topnotch Health Club, Colchester CO4 9ES
Finish: Hoshcha, Rivnens'ka, Ukraine (http://www.worldcities.us/Hoshcha/)

Days 90 & 91 - The taper....

The last week of prep before the big day.

Tuesday - both did 10k's, Anita at 2:22.4, Me at 2:00 (Or 1:60 as it shows on the Facebook Concept 2 App :)), both at relatively low spm (Anita @ 19, Me @ 20, 1st 5k @ 18) but both felt really good. Except for afterwards, where the back of my head started to ache, and I felt a bit light headed. When I lookmed this up Hypoglycemia kept popping up (I had a couple of handfuls of Raisins afterwards), but when Anita tested my blood sugar it came up at just over 6, so no real problem.

The ache got worse, and has only really subsided today, so I imagine I strained my neck on the really low spm portion of the 10k, where I was really leaning back in the stroke. Something to think of in the future.

Tonight - Anita did an OCD 12345m online with Stu Thorp and Mo O'Kane, who are both in training for a World Record Tandem longest duration row attempt @ approx 50 hours at the start of May (http://www.justgiving.com/mauriceokane-stuartthorp) - She agreed to do a 2:20, ended up doing a 2:17.4, taking 56 and a bit minutes, and got a bit of a wrist-slap afterwards as we are supposed to be winding down for saturday :) Anita says she sleeps better after exercising/going to the gym so hopefully this helps tonight :)

I messed about with the PM3 monitor and played a game of Fish (http://concept2.co.uk/monitor/games), which is 4 minutes of trying to catch fish and avoid be eaten by bigger fish by changing your stroke rate - I got 860, which wasn't too bad, but translated to only 2:24 pace for the 4 minutes, so it was little more than a quick game.

One more post before the 100k tomorrow, then the 100k itself :)

Cumulative Metres: 3110095m (1932.9 miles)

Start: Topnotch Health Club Colchester CO4 9ES
Finish: Velyki Pidlisky, L'vivs'ka, Ukraine (http://www.panoramio.com/photo/35532066)

Days 88 & 89 - RowPro & Photoshoots

Day 88 - Saturday 10th March - Consisted of HM's for both of us, followed by a 4 mile walk and a quiz night.

Day 89 - Sunday - was a photoshoot for the local papers at the gym, followed by 2k's all round (Anita, both her sons (Tyler(20) and Ben (19) and I)

Anita did her HM on Saturday at 8:30am with a number of online buddies, rowing a beautifully steady piece for what was her 3rd ever HM to come in in 1hr 38min (2:20.2 av), feeling great at the end of it.

One of our friends Wim, from the Netherlands, is doing the 100k online with me on the day, and after a 20 minute break from doing the first HM with Anita at 2:15 pace did his 2nd HM of the day with me, looking for 2:00 pace. After some rough periods for him he had enough in the tank to sprint for the last 1k (<1:41) to come in at 2:00 exactly, with me in 1:59.9 (1:24:20). I was amazingly enjoyable to be able to row with someone online, and to try and help them through the bad times in their row. What also made it a lot more bearable was my newly made bubble-wrap seat pad :).

Take one ordinary C2 seat pad, take 5 layers of bubble-wrap and wrap/attach to the seat. Absolute genius :) even though I had the usual ache in my left glute it was nowhere near enough to stop me rowing. This single thing will make the 100k much more doable for me now :)

We then had a lovely walk around the local countryside, through Wrabness and Copperas Woods and along the River Stour and ended the day participating in a quiz night for the HACT charity ( Helping the homeless back into the community) - Our team came a very respectable 3rd.

Earlier today Anita and I had a photo-shoot at Topnotch Health Club with the Colchester Gazette - Shall be seeing something cringe-worthy in the week no doubt - Then both of Anita's sons came over, and we all ended up doing 2k's.

Firstly I helped to set a pace for our friend Borut from Slovenia to a big new PB for him, whilst Bill from North London also set a new PB. Tyler next had a go at his first 2k ever (He's been doing a bit of rowing at the gym he works at) and set a very impressive 7:17.6 (1:49.4) - Sub 7 for him sometime soon. His brother Ben then had a go. He's never had a go, so had no baseline to go from but did brilliantly to complete his first 2k without handling down. Lastly Anita broke re-positioned her PB to 8:07 from 8:23!!! All in all it has been a very busy but constructive weekend!!!

Cumulative Distance: 3077750m (1912.8 miles)

Start - Topnotch Healthclub, Colchester CO4 9ES
Finish - L'Viv, Ukraine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lviv)

PS. http://www.justgiving.com/Anita-Wells if you would like to sponsor us for Saturday's 100k of pain :) :) - Pretty please :)

Day 87 - A little Cross-Training

We did 20' Rowing, 25' on the Treadmill and 15' on the Cross-Trainer last night.

The rowing was 20' with 10 Power Strokes as fast as possible every 2' (@ 18', 16' etc.). The base pace was 2:25 for Anita and 2:00 for me.

Anita's lowest pull was a 1:39, mine a 1:16; Anita finished with 4383m (2:16.9), me 5243 (1:54.4), and it was a nod to what we will be doing after the 100k, more interval training to try an help our sprint times.

The Treadmill was interesting - 6km/hr at a max incline of 9% got my HR to 140, but I could still have a chat with one of the instructors (Phil Munro @ Inspiring Fitness, see on Facebook Groups) for the last 5 or so minutes before the cooldown. Anita was in a very similar range.

Lastly the X-Trainer really shows where we have come from. Anita had a target Cardio of 143HR, which she had to maintain at around 60rpm - She would have been up in the 160's before October, so that's a difference of 20 beats for the same power output in 5 months!!. I struggled to keep my HR at 150, and it involved me going up to 90-100spm every minute or so for 20s to do so. I would have been between 160 and 170 at 75spm 54 months ago, so about 20 beats difference for me too (At the top end nearer 40, as I wiould have been approaching 190BPM at 100spm on the X-Trainer) - It really shows our base fitness improvement to date.

We are both doing HM's online today at a modest pace, so will report on these and cumulative distances later

Day 86 - Another milestone

A single 1hr piece tonight, Anita at 2:25, me at 2:00.

Anita completed the time at 2:25, 18spm!!!! Really nice arm workout after last nights r20 interval nastiness for C2CTC.

I decided to do a r stack (<r20 10', r22 5', r24 5', r26 5', r28 2.5', r30 2.5', and repeat) and finished with a 1:59.3 pace overall.

Firstly my machine at the gym was knackered (Seat Judder) and squealing so it was a harder workout than the pace suggests. The <r20 between 30 and 40 minutes completed was really nasty to keep at a decent pace, and from 10 left I decided to do 45s at r22, 15s @ 1:40 pace every minute just to change it up.

A good session overall, and the aforementioned landmark is together Anita and I passed 3 million metres since the start of this madness, 3rd October 2011 :)

Anita - 12418m
Andy - 15083m
Cumulative - 3012930m (1878.1 miles)

The Journey:
Start - Topnotch Health Club Colchester CO4 9ES
Finish - Nakonechne Pershe, L'vivs'ka, Ukraine (http://www.svajdlenka.com/travel_maps.php?country=up&region=15)

Days 84 & 85 - A new era......

Firstly Monday - A different workout as I received my new PM3 retrofitted monitor before work, ready to fit to my Model C rower.

Once I'd fitted it (With the help of a hacksaw, as one of the bolts holding the PM2+ arm to the rower had slipped a thread) I also purchased a RowPro account for Anita and me (http://www.digitalrowing.com/Oarbits/index.htm).

Then after a bit of configuration Anita christened the new Monitor with a 20' piece, placed online as a test.
She rowed 4593 @ 2:10.6 25spm

RowPro allows a really analytic approach to exercise which I'm sure I will find motivating, and hopefully it will help Anita too going forward. The picture above shows a really strong piece, 2:13 1st half, 2:08 2nd half with a 2:01 last minute!! 25spm is quite high for Anita to, so it was very strong, and a brilliant piece to do after a week of having a very nasty cold.

I did a 500m test piece, messed it up by going out too hard (1:17-1:20) and ended up with a 1:28.2 (0.1s off a PB) - 1:23 paced is a possibility, but will hurt a lot:

Tonight we both did the C2 Team Challenge for the month - 5,4,3,2,1,2,3,4,5 minute pyramid, 30" rest per interval - 29 minutes total rowing at a restricted 20spm.

I went first - started hard at 1:48.5 for the first 5 minutes, settled into a pace, but suffered in the last 9 minutes (4 & 5 min intervals), finishing with 7830m @ 1:51.1. Quite pleased overall on what was my first variable interval training session, and also my first restricted stroke rate session (Same for Anita). Quite a tough one.

Anita then went and smashed it up - 6752m @ 2:08.9. Putting this into perspective my best 30' piece is at 1:50, so tonights piece was 1.1s below my 30' PB. This was 6.1s BELOW Anita's 30' PB (2:15.1). This may be a bit false (I reckon it should be about 2:12) but tonight's piece would still be 3s below this even.

She followed the pyramid with her pace, doing a 2:02 for the minute in the middle before finishing the last 2 intervals in the 2:11's - Very Strong rowing indeed.

Anita : 11544m (4593 & 6951)

Andy: 8700m (500 & 8200)

Cumulative: 2994429m (1861 miles) - 3MM tomorrow evening :)

The Journey:

Start: Topnotch Health Club Colchester CO4 9ES,

Finish: Zaleska Wola, Poland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaleska_Wola,_Podkarpackie_Voivodeship)

Day 83 - End of a sickly week

Just me rowing today - 15446m in 58:47.7 (1:54.1) to get to 2 Million Metres lifetime, taking 105 days to the the last 1 million.

Both Anita an I have been unwell over the last week - I started coming down with a headcold very soon after the 4hours we did last Saturday, was pretty bunged up until Wednesday but started getting better pretty quickly after that. Anita unfortunately caught it, and has been bunged up since Wednesday - Hopefully it will start clearing pretty soon so we can put a decent weeks prep in next week - Just two weeks to go now :)

Also we are less than 1 hour (Both of us rowing) away from 3 million metres together since the start of training in  October 2011 :)

We have a charity day at work on Monday, so hopefully this will swell the coffers for the fundraising somewhat (About £250 pledged and collected so far), and from there its time to get ready for the 100k :)