Sunday, 30 July:

Most of the morning, I had work to do.  Getting ready for a big presentation that is coming up later in August.  Around 1 in the afternoon, I got bored and decided to go explore Macau.

There are two main parts of Macau.  My hotel is in Cotai, which is on the southern island and has been developed quite recently.  Cotai is basically Las Vegas, all hotels, casinos, and glitzy shopping malls.  The other part, across a wide a shallow waterway is Macau proper.  Today, I took a cab to the Ma Temple and walked through a lot of the old city.

The streets were pretty confusing, but my path was something like this.

There were some really old churches, and Temples.  It was also incredibly crowded.  It was also very hot.  I was embarrassingly sweaty.  Here are a few pictures from my walk.

Ma Temple – Incense cones

Ma Temple – Incense Cones

Ma Temple – Budda

Narrow Streets with lots of wires

St. Laurence Church – Delightfully decaying

Intimidating numbers of people

The Ruins of St. Paul

A delightfully narrow crack to walk through in the Camoes Garden

By the time I had made it through the Camoes Garden, I was done.  I wander down to the main road and flagged down a cab back to the hotel.  I peeled off my sweaty clothes and took a shower.

A couple hours later, I was ready to hit the gym.

The plan was a 5 x 1500 / 5′ rest.  Target pace 1:55, with a faster last.

I warmed up with a 1500.  I rowed at about a 2:05 pace, with 10 stroke bursts at 1:55 to 1:50 every 250 meters.  That felt pretty good.

Then a 5 minute paddle to contemplate what I was doing, then into the first interval.  I started a bit fast and then bled off speed to try to hit exactly 5:45 seconds, which would be a perfect 1:55 pace.  I missed by a tenth.  I also felt great.  I decided to see if I could negative split each rep.

Rep 2 – target 1:54 pace.  Again, I started hot, and around 500m, I backed off and used the predicted finish to try to nail 5:42, again, I missed by a tenth.  Still feeling pretty good, but wondering if I can keep it up through all 5 reps.

Rep 3 – target 1:53 pace.  This one I started even faster.  I backed off at 500m, but I was still having trouble holding on to the 5:39 predicted finish.  This one was a full 0.4 seconds off.  Now, things were seeming a bit more doubtful.  My HR was getting pretty high and I was starting to feel some cramping in my calves.

Rep 4 – Target 1:52 pace.  I figured the strategy of getting a bit of cushion at the beginning was working so far, so I tried to hold 1:50/1:51 through the first 500m.  Then I eased up and aimed for 5:36.  This one was within 0.2.  And I was very gassed at the end.  But only one more rep left.

Rep 5 – Target 1:51 pace.  Time to empty the tanks.  I tried to keep the avg pace below 1:50 through the first 500m and it was hovering around 1:49, but I was starting to get a bit shakey.  At this point my predicted finish was around 5:28.  I tried to ease off to 5:33, and that gave me a new lease on life.  By the time I passed 1000m, my avg pace was just a little bit above 1:50, maybe a 1:50.5.  I decided to see if I could nail a 5:30.  I did, right on the nose.  Peak HR was 183, my maxHR is about 186.

I paddled a bit to cool down and staggered to room.  Mission accomplished.

Tomorrow:  80 minute L4.