Day 40 - 8 weeks done and a birthday

2 lots of 30 minutes to end week 8 and the 2nd of the 4 week rotations in the Eddie Fletcher Marathon Plan - 2:28 for Anita, 2:04 for me, 3R

I woke up 1 year older this morning (now 32) and to celebrate Anita and I went to lunch with my prospective father-in-law, Paul, at a lovely Thai restaurant in Witham.

Before this we did the 2 30 minute pieces, Anita describing it as a warm up, then warm down, whilst watching Saturday Kitchen on the monitor in the Gym.

We are now both rowing fit, after 1.2MM together in 8 weeks, so these saturday pieces feel very easy, which is good considering we'll row about 14 (me) and 18(Anita) back to back in  March,

I'm a Management Information Analyst by day, so below is a graph of what the Eddie Fletcher Plan looks like, plotted by Metres  Rowed/Day:

Smooth this out and it would almost resemble a heart beat trace :)

Challenge Series 6344m tomorrow - Looking forward to it :)

Anita: 12167m - 565781m cumulative (351.6 miles)
Andy: 14519m - 676477m cumulative (420.4 miles)

Total - 1242258m (772 miles)

The Journey:
Start: Topnotch Gym, Colchester CO4 9ES
Via: La Tzoumaz (Our Honeymoon Destination :))
Finish: Riddes, Martigny, Valais, Switzerland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riddes

Day 35 - Another week done, another week closer to the 100km

2 lots of 45 mins to end week 7, the second intense week of the 14 week cycle; 2:28 for Anita, 2:04 for me, 4.5R

The Saturday row is a nice long, relatively low-intensity row, but its still 90 minutes worth of rowing, so it's more a psychological test than physical now.

Anita is finding her physiology is changing - she always used to suffer from overheating during exercise. Now she perspires (no, sweats :)) more, but is regulating her body temperature much more efficiently than before, a sign of improving fitness. She also used to lose her breath during exercise, this doesn't happen anywhere near as much as before, only during intense (Sub 2:00) rowing. Psychologically she deals with the time aspect better than I do, and his happy with her music.

After every session now (1 hour being the shortest) I'm absolutely drenched in sweat, but within an hour (After we've got home and showered) I get the endorphin rush, which usually tides me over for about 2 hours before food energy kicks in. One thing I'm starting to realise through experience is the food choice prior to exercise is massively important - I need lots of Carbs/Natural Sugars. Today I had Scrambled Egg./Toast for breakfast, and suffered in the last 15 minutes (75 to 90 minutes) because of it. High carb breakfasts or lunches always allow me to exert myself to the fullest in rowing sessions, but low carb meals afterwards (high protein) are seeming to be the way forward for weight loss.

Lastly, I passed 1MM lifetime today (601018m since October 3rd this year), and expect to go past 2MM in February 2012. Anita has another couple of weeks to her first MM :)

Anita: 18249m
Andy: 21780m

Cumulative:
Anita: 502019m (312.3 miles)
Andy: 601018m (373.5 miles)
Total: 1103537m (685.8 miles)

Journey:
Start: Topnotch Gym, Colchester CO4 9ES
Finish: Chavannes-de-Bogis, Vaud, Switzerland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavannes-de-Bogis