March 23, Thursday:  I last posted on Wednesday of last week, with a monster journal entry.  Around 4:30, I headed off to the airport to catch a 6:30 flight to San Francisco.  I arrived around 11:00 pm and by the time I had picked up my car and driven down to San Jose, I didn’t get to bed until around 1am.  I needed to be on conference calls starting at 7am, so I decided to get a bit more sleep instead of working out.

I went to an all day conference, and then headed back to the airport to take a red eye home.

I guess you’d call it a rest day?

March 24, Friday:  I slept pretty badly on the plane.  I was crammed in coach in row 37 (almost all the way in the back), and felt pretty claustrophobic, I probably managed about 3 hours of sleep.

Working from home seemed to be the most intelligent thing to do, so I did.  I had meetings from 9am to 1pm.  At that point I jumped on the erg for an easy endurance session to work the kinks out.  With that little sleep, I had low expectations.

It was a pretty lousy workout, but I felt better after than before.

Later Friday evening, my wife and I took off for the cape.  It is a significant  understatement to say that I was really eager to go.

I slept like a log for ten hours Friday night.

March 25, Saturday:  I lazed around in the morning, and hung out with my wife in the afternoon.  There never seemed to be a good time to go workout, so I didn’t.  I felt a little guilty, but only a little.  This was a real rest day.

March 26, Sunday:  I slept another 10 hours.  I felt great when I woke up and I lazed around some more.  I was just sitting around doing crossword puzzles.  This was the view from the couch.

Beautiful sunny day, but cold for this time of year.  Around 38F, with the water temp about the same.  I think I have about another month before I really want to do much open water rowing.

In the afternoon, I headed down to the basement and did an 80 minute session.  Getting started was frustrating.  First, I discovered that I had forgotten the strap for my Wahoo Tickr.  Then, I discovered that the battery in my Polar H7 had died.  So, I decided to go without a HR monitor.  Then I discovered that the batteries in the PM5 were dead, and I needed to steal batteries from a flashlight to replace them.  Finally after about 20 minutes of faffing around, I was finally ready to settle down.

I decided to do a 4×20′ session.  Since I didn’t have a HR monitor to keep me honest, I immediately decided to row faster, targeting 2:05 instead of 2:08.  It actually went really well.  I felt strong and relaxed through the whole workout.

The little peak at the end in the power curve was caused by me seeing that I was within striking distance of getting over 20km for the whole session, so I rowed the last 1 minute rest hard enough to roll it over.

March 27, Monday:  Back to the routine.  Up at 5:15.  Email until 7:15.  Hit the gym.  Today, I decided to do 2×30’/2′ rest @ 175W.  This was a bit slower than Sunday, but still faster than last week.  I was curious if the early morning or the 80 minute session from Sunday would cause me to push the HR to high.

Nope.  It was a good session.  HR plateaued nicely at 175W.  I think working it up to 180W over this week will be the plan.

Tomorrow:  2 x 40′ / 2′ (If I have time, otherwise another 2×30.

This pace of workouts is basically maintaining fitness, not improving it.  But my fatigue level is nice and low!