Weather: Cool, upper 50s. Wind very light 0-4mph from the north.  Head wind heading down river, but almost non-existent.

Plan: Now tapering down for this weekend”s races.  The theory of the taper is to maintain intensity, but reduce the total durations during the week.

1. Warmup:  Standard Rojabo
2. Practice some starts
3. 1K TT
4. Cool down

Start_|_Dist_|_Split_|_Pace_|_Strks__|_Rate_|_DPS_|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
00020_|_3736_|_18:35_|_2:29.3_|_391___|_21.0_|_09.6_|_142___|_warmup
03756_|_0512_|_03:08_|_3:03.6_|_060___|_19.1_|_08.5_|_139___|_starts
04268_|_1325_|_07:36_|_2:52.0_|_151___|_19.9_|_08.8_|_133___|_technique
05593_|_1007_|_03:59_|_1:58.8_|_128___|_32.1_|_07.9_|_164___|_1K TT
06600_|_3930_|_21:22_|_2:43.1_|_440___|_20.6_|_08.9_|_139___|_Technique & cool down

I started with drills: King of the Mountain, Top Quarter, arms only, arms and back, half slide.  Then just some steady state out to and through the cut.  Then I was going to go into my warm up.  I looked over my shoulder and about 200m ahead there were three weed harvesters heading down river.  Weed harvesters are BIG and my river is narrow, so I elected to paddle out until I could maneuver around them and then I started to do the power bursts for the warmup.

The warmup went great.  I was hitting nice paces and I felt nice and relaxed.  Here’s a plot of the paces and rates for the last 4 20 stroke bursts.

Here are the RIM analytics for the couple strokes in each of the bursts.

So, as expected, I haven’t fixed the double hump overnight, and the 37spm stroke looks mighty ragged, but heck, its 37spm.  And look at the boat speed, I was going faster than 1:45 pace for about 10 strokes.  8)

After that, I spun the boat and setup to try a few starts.  The first one was OK, the second was abysmal, so was the third.  I tried to refocus and take it a bit easier on the first stroke and then the next 2 were OK.

After that, I rowed the 1300m back to the start point of the 1K with square blades.

Then it was time to do the 1K.  I was really nervous.  I was determined to not bail out, but just slow down if I needed to.

The start was OK.  I was conservative on the first couple strokes, and managed to get the split down below 1:50 by the fourth stroke.  I pushed very hard through the 10 strokes and was still rowing at a 1:50 split.  Then it was time to settle, and in retrospect, I don’t think I shifted gears crisply enough.  My rate dropped from 36 to 31 over 5 strokes, and my pace drifted down to about 2:00 over 10 strokes.

Anyway, from strokes 20 to 40, things were fine.  Around stroke 40, I started to really feel the effects from the surge of lactate.  It started as a strange sort of tingle all over, then a wave of nausea, then the feeling that I might lose control of my bowels (sorry for that).  Fantastic!  That’s what this training is for.  To recognize these feelings and learn strategies to manage them.  I eased up on the pressure and tried to bring the stroke rate further down.  It only took a couple strokes before the feelings started to subside and I started to really focus on breathing.  Hard exhales at both the catch and finish.  And I kept on counting through the 60th stroke.  Now I have finally learned that to get through 1K takes more than 120 strokes, so I didn’t celebrate the halfway point yet, but it was definitely time for some steering.  So a couple of quick glances over my shoulder and then I lined up a new point to stay in the best part of the lane.  That got me to 70, which was definitely over the hump. I was in some definite distress.  For some reason, my heart rate was unnaturally low today, and it felt like I didn’t have another gear to shift into, but I just sort of kept plugging away through sets of 20 strokes.

At 100 strokes, it was time to line up another point to get into the narrow cut for the finish of the 1K.  This cost me a bit of speed because I needed to turn a bit more sharply than the ideal line.  I tried to up the stroke rate and bring down the split for the last 30 strokes and managed a feeble sprint that brought the split back down below 1:55 for the last few strokes.

End result was 3:59 for 1007m, a 1:58.8 pace.  Basically the same pace I held for 950m with a tail wind in the sprints last year.  I’m OK with that, especially looking at the HR plot.  Normally a much steeper rise and higher plateau than today.

Here is a comparison of 8 strokes in that magic section from 20 to 30 strokes before all hell broke loose, and then another set of 7 strokes as I cranked up the rate for the last 20 of so strokes.

There is a remarkable level of consistency.  The purple is at a higher rate, so the initial peak in the drive is a bit higher, and the finish blivet is a bit bigger, but I was expecting it to look much worse since I was really tired at that point.

After that, I did a long cool down with some 10 and 20 stroke bursts to flush out my legs and headed back to the dock.