Saturday 2/27: After I managed to really blow up big time in my 2k attempts, I went downhill fast. Stomach cramps set in by around 6pm, and by 8 I was in bed shivering and strangely enough struggling with nasty leg and foot cramps. I was up and down all night
Sunday 2/28: pretty darn ill. Basically slept the entire day. Ate nothing. Manage to drink about one glass of water. This was worrying because I had a business trip coming on Monday.
Monday 2/29: dragged myself to the airport, and got through my meetings in Chicago, but was still feeling under the weather.
Tuesday 3/1: I had time to trading before my 9am flight to Minnesota, but decided sleep and recovery was the better choice. Another day of meetings large and small in our design center up there.
Wednesday 3/2: again, I had the time to get in a workout, but still didn’t feel up to it. Flew from Minnesota to Portland, Oregon. Another design center and another set of meetings. Started to feel ‘normal’ in the afternoon, and by dinner I noticed my appetite was starting to return with a vengeance.
Thursday 3/3 (today): today, I managed to get down to the fitness center for a very easy 30 minute session, 10 minutes on a cross trainer that seemed incapable of providing resistance, and then 20 minutes walking up an incline. (15 % grade, around 5 mph). This was good, heart rate right around 70% HRR. It felt good to work up a little sweat. Today, I’ll be in our second biggest design center in Los Angeles, for another day of meetings. Then I’ll grab the red eye back to Boston.
Tomorrow, I will plan on an easy erg session, maybe a 3×20 L4. I expect that the illness and training layoff has probably set me back a month in terms of fitness. It’s time to lay out objectives for the summer and map out a training plan.
This kind of stuff is frustrating, I need to work on making the overall training program challenging AND enjoyable on its own. I’m trying to find the balance. On one hand, setting goals to achieve certain levels of performance in competition is very motivating and enables me to really push harder workouts and not blow off training. On the other hand, I have higher priorities than competition, especially since my competition is against my own prior performance. I’m never going to set records or win big events. That doesn’t change the feeling of satisfaction that comes as you reel in and pass someone in a head race, right at the edge of your capabilities.
Enough philosophy. Time to go talk to some engineers!
Quantified Rowing 
The present tense is strange considering the dates. Forgot to hit the post button?
I am sure you will find a way. All this training and competing thing is – in the end – playing (with expensive toys). You will find a way to change the rules of your game and make it interesting again.
I personally would not be able to do my job without regular exercise/play. I never understood the chain smoking workaholics. Of course I believe the exercise makes one more productive but it may just be a story I make up to justify the enormous amounts of time I spend on rowing.
I know many Masters rowers who had a temporary drop in training intensity or frequency because of work, family, building a house or other things. None of them has completely given up exercising. I personally had a ten year running intermezzo with relatively little rowing. Kids were small.
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Yeah, I discovered it orphaned on my iPad this morning. I thought I had posted it on Thursday, but the upload had failed. I’m gonna edit the title to make it a bit clearer.
I’m starting to get a bit more philosophical about this. For a long time, I worried about slipping back to being my old self. I managed to go through most of my adult life to about 45 without regularly exercising, and I was quite heavy and unhealthy. Since I started to row, my health has improved, my weight has dropped, my mood has brightened, and my career has gone very well.
Engaging my hyper competitive side into exercise was a key part of making this change stick. Now I need to find a way to keep it sustainable and find new challenges.
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You hit all the points why I love being active. For me it’s easier, because although I was a relatively untalented kid, sports-wise, and more “intellectual”, I ended up joining a rowing club at age 12 and got sucked into competing for a place on the Juniors national team. Somehow, that changed me and I cannot imagine living without exercising.
You just discovered it later, but I would say you have made enough changes in your life so that this will stick.
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