First order of business today was to get a GOOD baseline power level for steady state training.  So, I reset my training power down to 176 and did a 20′ lactate test.  It finally did the trick.  Average HR for the last 5 minutes was 134 (64% HRR), and the lactate measurement was 1.5mmol/l.  And it felt very easy.  Now, I can start the process of climbing the lactate ladder a watt at a time, keeping my levels below 2.0.

After that I did the March Concept2 Cross Team Challenge.  This month’s challenge is 3×250/2′ rest.  I increased the drag factor to 150, and did with the erg on slides.  I really botched the start of the first interval, which probably cost me a second or two, but all the reps were pretty close to all out efforts.  End result was 2:09.0 total time, or a 1:26.0 pace.  Looking at the names around me, it looks like about what I should have expected.  With practice, I think I can shave a second or so off the average pace.

To turn it into something more closely resembling training, I did 2 more sets of 3×250/2’rest, albeit at a slower pace.  This was good practice for rowing at higher rates.  I think this might be a good pick for short interval training this month, maybe increasing the number of reps even further.

Tomorrow:  Steady State at 177W, with lactate test at 20′