In California.  At Precision Crossfit in Agoura Hills.  Once again, I was delighted by the experience dropping into a crossfit box.  The ergs work, there are lots of people around, and everyone is really friendly.

I picked my erg and set it up off  to the side so I wouldn’t get in the way.  I didn’t have time for a full 80 minute session because I needed to be in a meeting by 8:15 and the box opened at 6am.  So, I decided on 3 x 20′ + 2 x 1′.

I could tell almost from the first pull that today was not going to be a good day.  There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the erg, but it seemed to take a LOT of effort to pull 180W.  Sitting on the erg, my HR was normal before I started, but it climbed fast, and it didn’t stop.  I hung in with 180W through the first interval.  I brought it down to 175W in the second interval, but it didn’t help.  Then in the third, I decided to go as slowly as I needed to so I could keep my HR below 157bpm.  Strangely enough this was 157W.  30W lower than I could hold at this HR yesterday.

Then I setup for the 2 x 1’/1′.  This was equally ugly.  I pushed the first minute hard, but this was still a lot more feeble than the hard minute I did a week ago (319m vs 330m).  And I was pretty shattered.  I tried to do the second rep, but I bailed out about halfway through.  I paddled out the rest of that rep, took another minute rest, and then did a less aggressive minute (304m).

Bad days happen, my wife has a pretty nasty cold.  In the past I have seen cases where I have lousy training results before I show any illness symptoms, so that might be it.  It could also be jetlag, or some other mysterious reason.

Tomorrow, I fly back home during the day.  I guess we’ll call it a rest day.

Edit:  I just did a quick check of my training log.  This is the first week after my the fitness tests, and it represented a strong shift toward long duration, low intensity work.  The volume increase was pretty dramatic.

Maybe I’m just tired!