I spent most of Sunday trying to avoid doing this workout.  It was a good thing, really.  I got some good work done on a presentation I need to get ready, I shoveled the walk to the front door, and I think I did at least two crossword puzzles.

But finally, around 4, I mustered  the courage to go down  to the basement and confront my demon.  I blew up last weekend on this workout, and I’ve failed at it even before my target paces got faster.  Today, I really wanted to make it through, and I was going to try to be as careful as possible to maximize my chances.

The plan:

• 6 x ( 3′ @ 28, 7′ @ 18) / 1′ rest
• r28: Cat III, Pace target: 1:48
• r18: Cat VI, Pace Target: 2:05
• The goal is smoothly transition from the r28 to r18 sections over a few strokes

I decided that it would be OK if I wanted to underrate the r28 sections by a little, if it helped me hit the target pace and felt a bit more comfortable.

I did my PT exercises.

I did a 2k warmup with 20 stroke bursts at target pace and rate.

Workout Summary - media/20180107-2131090o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|02000|07:45.0|01:56.5|229.5|22.0|138.2|154.0|11.7
W-|02000|07:46.0|01:56.6|223.3|21.4|137.5|154.0|12.2
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|154.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00300|01:13.2|02:02.1|175.1|17.1|102.6|121.0|14.3
01|00200|00:43.6|01:48.9|265.3|24.9|128.7|136.0|11.0
02|00300|01:13.8|02:03.0|195.2|19.0|139.6|141.0|12.9
03|00200|00:43.0|01:47.4|276.6|26.2|140.2|144.0|10.7
04|00300|01:14.0|02:03.3|196.2|19.4|146.5|148.0|12.5
05|00200|00:42.5|01:46.1|286.5|26.9|144.7|149.0|10.5
06|00300|01:13.5|02:02.5|198.7|19.0|152.9|154.0|12.9
07|00200|00:42.7|01:46.8|284.5|26.7|151.3|154.0|10.5

I was doing this warmup with 10 stroke bursts and I think it’s better to do it with 20s.  I was a bit more winded at the end, but I felt a lot looser.

I had a drink of water, and went through the labor of setting up the PM for variable intervals, and off I went.

The 3′ of hard rowing wasn’t so bad in the first couple of intervals, but the rate of recovery while rowing at 2:05 was quite slow.  The first couple of minutes of each r18 section was a real battle to stick to the rate and pace.  The r28 sections always felt great in the first minute, tough in the second and brutal in the third.

I was pretty happy to make it through the fifth interval, since I blew up a minute into it last time.  But, by the end of the 7′ section of  the 5th one, I felt like I didn’t have the oomph to do the last one.  I decided that I would give myself a bit of a break and do it at as Cat IV (r24 and 1:52).  When I got going, I felt a bit stronger than that and I ended up at r26 and a bit faster than 1:50.

That was a good workout.  I felt it the rest of the day in my legs and lungs.

Monday:  4 x 20′ / 3′ Cat VI.