Thursday was miserable.
I woke up with what seemed like food poisoning, couldn't eat, drink, or really do anything. I lay in bed for a couple hours before I FINALLY had the urge to vomit!
I barely ate for the rest of the day until I had a small bowl of pasta at dinner time. So since that day, I have been slowly getting back into training. The main difficulty was to rehydrate and refuel from a day of not eating or drinking. I did some easy rowing on Friday and felt progressively better throughout the day as I drank and ate more and more.
I rowed 17k in the morning and 10k in the afternoon. The morning row was fine, but my HR was incredibly high and my splits slow. Just one week ago, I had done that same distance 12 minutes faster at a lower HR. That is just comical.
I had a good bungee row in the afternoon which really helped reintroduce some power and hang back into my rowing. Dan mentioned that we would be doing 1k pieces in the morning. I knew I would not be feeling great for them but I was excited to compete after a day out of the boat and MISSING the Head of the Hosmer...it was tough missing out. Its the highlight of the Craftsbury week. You are only as good as your last Head of the Hosmer and well, I MISSED IT, so I am nothing right now. Its the premier rowing series of the summer and I want to miss as few as possible in my lifetime.
On Thursday everyone kept telling me, in passing, how fast Hugh is going right now. Well, thats wonderful. Really makes me want to stay in bed. I hold Hugh in a very high regard, he is a fast sculler and very determined guy. But don't judge him differently when he wins all the pieces in Steve's absence and my own. Alan Campbell would be a 5- time World Champion if Mahe Drysdale and Ondrej Synek were injured/sick at the world championships. Again, my gripe is not with Hugh. It's with people judging someone's performance based on the result and not on the objective performance.
" Oh man, you should have seen it, I had the best piece of the year and Hugh killed me! He's going so fast right now!" Oh really? Thats interesting. It is true that he seems faster when we is winning pieces rather than getting third behind Steve and I. If you tell me you clocked the fastest 500 m time you have ever done, I would say, " Nice work. Thats a very good indication you are improving!" But telling me that you had your best piece of the year while comparing yourself to nothing, it's just stupid, it's what makes so many people(including myself at times) trail off into a false reality. Objective indicators, performance benchmarks, take the ego out of the equation, assess yourself honestly. Kind of a tangent, but the bottom line is that all of this talk about how fast Hugh was going on Thursday got me very riled up. I just wanted to get healthy. Although, deep down I knew I probably would not be ready for saturday's workout.
Fast forward. Woke up Saturday morning after a 10 hr snooze and felt pretty good. Drank some coffee, ate some yogurt, and cruised over to practice. The workout was 4 x 3', all with a start. Perrrrfect! Ha, honestly at this point I was fairly pessimistic about my ability to finish this workout. Regardless, I was definitely exited to do some racing. On the first piece, I just went off like a nutcase per usual. Speed was pretty good, felt decent, and the rowing was fine. I shifted to base and found myself open water ahead of everyone. Alright, Alright. At that point, I was just freckin' happy to be out there. I then looked at my speed coach and thought about what I need to be pulling to stay with the leaders in the M1x at the World Cup. I figured for 3 min, probably around 1.40/500m. I rowed at or under 1.40 pace for the first 1.5 min and was well clear of everyone. I rowed 1.44-1.45 for the remainder and Hugh and Ben began to come back a little. It was clear that my system was fine for about two minutes but I was missing some aerobic power. But whatever. It was a decent first piece. We then turned around into a pretty stiff headwind. Being slightly under the weather, I knew that the repeatability of my speed was probably going to be the loose end for me on this workout. Recovering between pieces was going to be a problem. Again, whatever. I blasted off again. This time, for whatever reason, I felt much more connected to the system. The headwind felt a lot like the bungee. I rolled deep into the stern, picked up the stern, and threw it as far as I could to the finish line. Then again. The first 20 strokes were some fast headwind strokes. I looked up and was clear of the field already. Oh man, this is great. I keep letting it run under me, building equal pressure between my hands and feet, then releasing it. This piece was the highlight. Showed me theres another level of speed out there reserved for those willing to relax and just suspend.
Pieces 3 and 4 were not exceptional by any means, both in a tailwind, I won each, but by smaller margins. Probably 2 lengths on the 3rd and 1 length on the 4th. As I mentioned before though, I initially didn't expect to finish the workout, so this was a welcome alternative. Hopefully I will continue to recover throughout the weekend and be ready to go for the upcoming week.
Exactly 2 weeks until we depart for WC 2 in Eton. It's the time to be finding some new speed. After taking a day away from the boat and good health, I think I have a better idea of where to look for it..
I woke up with what seemed like food poisoning, couldn't eat, drink, or really do anything. I lay in bed for a couple hours before I FINALLY had the urge to vomit!
I barely ate for the rest of the day until I had a small bowl of pasta at dinner time. So since that day, I have been slowly getting back into training. The main difficulty was to rehydrate and refuel from a day of not eating or drinking. I did some easy rowing on Friday and felt progressively better throughout the day as I drank and ate more and more.
I rowed 17k in the morning and 10k in the afternoon. The morning row was fine, but my HR was incredibly high and my splits slow. Just one week ago, I had done that same distance 12 minutes faster at a lower HR. That is just comical.
I had a good bungee row in the afternoon which really helped reintroduce some power and hang back into my rowing. Dan mentioned that we would be doing 1k pieces in the morning. I knew I would not be feeling great for them but I was excited to compete after a day out of the boat and MISSING the Head of the Hosmer...it was tough missing out. Its the highlight of the Craftsbury week. You are only as good as your last Head of the Hosmer and well, I MISSED IT, so I am nothing right now. Its the premier rowing series of the summer and I want to miss as few as possible in my lifetime.
On Thursday everyone kept telling me, in passing, how fast Hugh is going right now. Well, thats wonderful. Really makes me want to stay in bed. I hold Hugh in a very high regard, he is a fast sculler and very determined guy. But don't judge him differently when he wins all the pieces in Steve's absence and my own. Alan Campbell would be a 5- time World Champion if Mahe Drysdale and Ondrej Synek were injured/sick at the world championships. Again, my gripe is not with Hugh. It's with people judging someone's performance based on the result and not on the objective performance.
" Oh man, you should have seen it, I had the best piece of the year and Hugh killed me! He's going so fast right now!" Oh really? Thats interesting. It is true that he seems faster when we is winning pieces rather than getting third behind Steve and I. If you tell me you clocked the fastest 500 m time you have ever done, I would say, " Nice work. Thats a very good indication you are improving!" But telling me that you had your best piece of the year while comparing yourself to nothing, it's just stupid, it's what makes so many people(including myself at times) trail off into a false reality. Objective indicators, performance benchmarks, take the ego out of the equation, assess yourself honestly. Kind of a tangent, but the bottom line is that all of this talk about how fast Hugh was going on Thursday got me very riled up. I just wanted to get healthy. Although, deep down I knew I probably would not be ready for saturday's workout.
Fast forward. Woke up Saturday morning after a 10 hr snooze and felt pretty good. Drank some coffee, ate some yogurt, and cruised over to practice. The workout was 4 x 3', all with a start. Perrrrfect! Ha, honestly at this point I was fairly pessimistic about my ability to finish this workout. Regardless, I was definitely exited to do some racing. On the first piece, I just went off like a nutcase per usual. Speed was pretty good, felt decent, and the rowing was fine. I shifted to base and found myself open water ahead of everyone. Alright, Alright. At that point, I was just freckin' happy to be out there. I then looked at my speed coach and thought about what I need to be pulling to stay with the leaders in the M1x at the World Cup. I figured for 3 min, probably around 1.40/500m. I rowed at or under 1.40 pace for the first 1.5 min and was well clear of everyone. I rowed 1.44-1.45 for the remainder and Hugh and Ben began to come back a little. It was clear that my system was fine for about two minutes but I was missing some aerobic power. But whatever. It was a decent first piece. We then turned around into a pretty stiff headwind. Being slightly under the weather, I knew that the repeatability of my speed was probably going to be the loose end for me on this workout. Recovering between pieces was going to be a problem. Again, whatever. I blasted off again. This time, for whatever reason, I felt much more connected to the system. The headwind felt a lot like the bungee. I rolled deep into the stern, picked up the stern, and threw it as far as I could to the finish line. Then again. The first 20 strokes were some fast headwind strokes. I looked up and was clear of the field already. Oh man, this is great. I keep letting it run under me, building equal pressure between my hands and feet, then releasing it. This piece was the highlight. Showed me theres another level of speed out there reserved for those willing to relax and just suspend.
Pieces 3 and 4 were not exceptional by any means, both in a tailwind, I won each, but by smaller margins. Probably 2 lengths on the 3rd and 1 length on the 4th. As I mentioned before though, I initially didn't expect to finish the workout, so this was a welcome alternative. Hopefully I will continue to recover throughout the weekend and be ready to go for the upcoming week.
Exactly 2 weeks until we depart for WC 2 in Eton. It's the time to be finding some new speed. After taking a day away from the boat and good health, I think I have a better idea of where to look for it..
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