It was foggy and windy this morning so no coastal rowing for me.  Probably a good thing.  I have a lot of issues to work on right now, but threshold fitness is probably the biggest one.  It’s probably easier to focus on fitness on the erg compared to a coastal row with a lot of wind, chop and other distractions.

Plan:

• 5 minute warmup with 10 stroke bursts at 22/24/26/28
• 30 minutes hard
  • rate target: 24
  • pace target 1:55
  • HR limit: none

Workout Summary - media/20170923-1750570o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09631|39:00.0|02:01.5|209.7|23.5|163.3|181.0|10.5
W-|07749|30:00.0|01:56.1|223.0|24.0|169.4|181.0|10.7
R-|01885|09:00.0|02:23.3|155.4|21.3|139.2|181.0|08.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01300|05:00.0|01:55.4|232.5|23.8|152.5|162.0|10.9
02|01301|05:00.0|01:55.3|228.9|24.0|164.9|168.0|10.8
03|01286|05:00.0|01:56.7|220.5|23.9|169.2|172.0|10.7
04|01284|05:00.0|01:56.8|219.5|23.9|174.0|175.0|10.7
05|01275|05:00.0|01:57.7|214.7|24.0|176.3|178.0|10.6
06|01304|05:00.0|01:55.1|222.1|24.6|179.8|181.0|10.6

I held onto to 1:55 as the target through the first 10 minutes, but I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to keep it up the whole way.  I decided to let the pace drift up to 1:57.  That got me through the next 5 minutes.  At the halfway point, I decided to try to play a little visualization game.  I tried to remember the rough spacing of bridges in the HOCR.  I was pretty sure it was about 5 minutes from the Eliot bridge to the end.  It was probably a little more than 5 minutes from the Anderson to Eliot, and another 5 minutes from Western to Anderson.  So, I tried to visualize the different parts of the course as I did them.  I was really struggling at 10 minutes to go, and I was picturing myself going around the long turn from Anderson to Eliot.  I pictured the Cambridge Boat Club coming into view with about 2 minutes left and focused to trying to stay close to the buoy line.  I let my pace slip a bit slower than 1:57 because I wanted to save a little for the last stretch beyond the eliot bridge.  With 5 minutes to go, I split it up even more.  First was about 25 strokes to get me to the BBN docks.  Then 50 strokes to get around the last turn.  Then a final 50 strokes to the finish.

It was pretty satisfying to get it done.  I was really losing hope in the middle.  I am not pleased at all about the time.  My best 30 minutes is 1:48.8 pace back in 2013, and my best hour is at a 1:52 pace late in 2015.  Hell, my best half marathon is faster at 1:53.6 (also in 2015).  So I am more than 7 seconds off my best pace for head race distances.  All I can do is work on my tolerance for pain and do my best.

Tomorrow:  Hopefully an easy coastal row.