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

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)