Yesterday evening I had a very satisfying row – my technique is improving, my efficiency is increasing, and the boat was running well.  In just over two weeks I’ll be racing at the Head of the Charles in the Club 1x event, and will hopefully put together a solid performance based on the work I’ve been doing in the past months.  I have a very good training program, given my schedule, which is very well suited to where I am right now physically and mentally, and I’ve definitely made progress in terms of strength, endurance, technique, and overall fitness.

Today I had a great row, and very tiring – 20km of steady state rowing, very solid mechanics, very consistent.  And it was  a beautiful morning – flat water, cool, sunny.

This past Saturday, I rowed 24km for the first time in almost 3 years, just long, low, easy.  Today, I rowed 20km, the first time during the week that I’ve rowed 20km in almost 3 years.  My body is getting more used to the distance – it was only a few weeks ago that rowing 16km pretty much wiped me out.

I’ve achieved a technique that makes rowing miles and miles very satisfying – clean, relaxed, and efficient.  I’d like to get to the point where I can row 16km-20km six mornings a week, maybe on a mountain lake in Tuscany.

Last Saturday the track was not accessible, so I did 60′ on the road at a brisk pace – I was pretty beat by the end.  Today, I did 2×200m, 2×400m, and 1×800m.  I was planning to do 2×800m, but I was pretty beat by the end of the 1st one and I thought I would go much slower on the 2nd.  Today was a blah day – I was tired and uninspired.

Times:

1.  :37  (200m)

2.  :36  (200m)

3.  1:18  (400m)

4.  1:17  (400m)

5.  2:37  (800m)

I was hoping to do 2×800m in 2:36, but not today.  Looking at past posts, I figured I’d have to run 6×400m in 75 seconds, and 2×800m in 2:33 with minimal (4′) rest to break my PR of 5:14.  That’s probably right, and I’m a ways off from that.  The good news is that I went 7 seconds faster on the 800m than I did about a month ago.  I think my legs are shot from this week.

Next week I’ll be in DC Saturday morning, so I won’t do a track workout, so I’ll have to plan my workout for 2 weeks from now.  I think I’ll do 2×200m, 2×400m, and 1×800m with the goal to hold a 78 second 400m pace on all pieces.  Once I can do 1×800m at goal pace, then I’ll go up to 1000m.

This morning I Bench Pressed 205 lbs. for 1 rep, absolutely destroying my old PR of 200 lbs.   Getting stronger!

This morning I pressed 140 lbs. for 1 rep.  Getting stronger!

This morning I did 4×400m with lots of rest.  Last week, my goal for this week was to run the 400s in 72-74 seconds.  My goal this morning for this workout was to go sub-70 seconds each piece, or 8-10 seconds faster than my goal pace of 78 seconds per 400m.  My times:

1.  1:09  (400m)

2.  1:10  (400m)

3.  1:11  (400m)

4.  1:11  (400m)

The first piece was hard, but I was hoping that I would be warmer and looser for the successive pieces so that I could stay under 1:10.  I’m pleased with my consistency, though.  I think I could have done 1 or 2 more at around 71-72 seconds, but my goal for this workout was 4×400m so I stuck to that and will probably do more reps when I repeat this workout in a few weeks.

So, not bad but not great.  There is a BIG difference between running 400s in 78 seconds and running them in 70 seconds.  I did this workout in about 45 minutes, so I had about 10 minutes rest between pieces – a huge amount of rest given the duration of work.

As always, to put things in perspective, the world record in the 400m is 43.18 seconds, set by Michael Johnson in Seville in 1999.  In these videos, it’s hard to appreciate the speed when viewing the runners from ground level.  But when Michael Johnson (and the rest) crosses through the 300m mark and the camera is almost directly overhead, you get a better sense of how phenomenally fast these guys are.  I think if I were 100% prepared to run a 400m, at my current level of fitness I think I could run it in about 63 seconds.  I just counted 20 seconds (the difference between Johnson’s time and my own) – that REALLY makes me appreciate just how fast he is.  20 seconds is an eternity.

Today I was feeling a little lethargic, so to get the workout over with without much pain, I decided to run on the track for an hour, just doing steady state (solidly aerobic work).  Once I was there, I was motivated to check my speed by doing 1×1200m.  Based on my 800m time last week, I thought I could do it in 4:00, holding a solid 1:20 400m pace the whole time.  My time, starting from a stop:

1.  3:59.62  (1200m)

I crossed through 400m in about 1:18, then through 600m in around 1:58, then through 800m in about 2:41, so I picked up the pace in the last 400m and beat my goal time.  I was very tired, but had I been 100% fresh, fully warmed up and stretched, and wearing shorts and track spikes, I think I could have done a mile (1610m) in about 5:24, which puts me about 12 seconds off my goal pace.

Next week, I think I will do some speed work, going well faster than goal pace.  I think I’ll do 4×400m at a 72-74 second pace, with lots of rest in between (3 laps, probably).  This will help to get my body used to a faster-than-pace speed, so that race pace feels slower.

Oh, the world record for the mile is 3:43.13, set by Hicham El Guerrouj (Morocco) in Rome on July 7, 1999.  This means that he would have lapped me in my 1200m run during his 1610m run, and had time to stop, turn around, and watch me cross the finish line.  Had I run a mile, he would have been able to pace me for my last lap, since his post-race catch-his-breath speed is probably the same as my all-out mile speed…

This morning was another good workout on the track.  My slowest 400 was faster than my goal pace, and my fastest 400 was the fastest I’ve done in the last two weeks.  My times:

1.  1:17  (400m)

2.  1:16  (400m)

3.  1:16  (400m)

4.  1:15  (400m)

5.  1:15  (400m)

6.  1:13  (400m)

7.  2:44  (800m)

I’m quite pleased.  In the middle of the first 400, I thought I was going at a slow pace, and I felt a little tired; coming through in 1:17 was a surprise.  Then, I just kept getting faster and faster, each time thinking in the middle of the piece that I was getting slower.  I felt pretty good during the rest laps, but I still kept them at a slower-than-walking pace; I’m sure I look pretty funny bumbling along like a 90-year-old man trying to jog.

Going into the 800, I was excited because I was pretty sure I could do a 2:44.  Coming through 200m, I was at 39s and needed to do a 41s.  I came through 400m in 1:19.  I was surprised how much I slowed down during the second lap, though.  I didn’t realize that I slowed down that much, and I actually thought that I could possibly hit 2:40.  This is no big deal, though; I hit my pace and I’m quite satisfied.  This was at a 5:28 mile pace, now “only” 16 seconds slower than my goal pace.

It took me 52 minutes to do the whole workout, so longer than last time and thus a little more rest on the rest laps.  But not bad, especially since I felt much better on these rest laps than last week’s.

It’s very good to have rowing and ballroom dancing to balance the real estate.  Right now real estate is tough, so it helps to have small victories or progress in the other two to keep my spirits up.  Sometimes it’s the other way, and I’m making progress in real estate and ballroom, but the rowing is not great.  Something I tell myself often when things are tough (quote from Rocky Balboa):

“It ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep movin’ forward.  How much you can take, and KEEP MOVING FORWARD.  If you know what you’re worth, go out and get what you’re worth, but you gotta be willin’ to take the hit.”