It’s all in the mind, some say.
Today I decided at the last minute to do the Indoor Rowers League challenge for the month of February. So … it wasn’t literally at the last minute, but was literally on the last day for which results could be entered.
I wanted to avoid stirring up another bout of irregular heartbeat, which the doctors have been referring to as atrial fibrillation. So I started out with a 3K warmup. Before doing the 3K warmup, I did a 1K warmup warmup.
Before doing the actual 2K time trial, I did another 2K at what seemed like a reasonable warmup pace.
For the 2K TT itself, I thought it would be reasonable, barring any irregularities from the ticker, to pace it at between 1:52 and 1:53. So I started out at 1:49 and it felt good. But anything, no matter how fast the pace, ALWAYS feels good right at the start … so I slowed to 1:53 and maintained an average of between 1:52 and 1:53 for the first 1,000 meters.
At about 900 meters, it started to feel like I had bit off more than I could chew and that I wouldn’t be able to maintain that pace for the last half. I didn’t like the idea of rowing slower than 1:53 for a 2K, so I just gave up and slowed way down.
One hundred meters passed at the super slow pace and I watched the average pace slow from 1:52 point something, to 1:55 point something. Another hundred meters passed and the average pace got nearer to 2:00. After about 300 meters passed, the average pace became slower than 2:00/500 meters and I decided I couldn’t allow it to be slower than 2:00/500 meters, so I picked up the pace to around 1:57 and rowed at that pace until the remaining distance counted down to around 250 meters. Then, I gave a bit more effort and rowed faster for the final 250 meters, consoling myself by finishing in less than 8 minutes total for the 2K.
There was some GOOD NEWS, as far as I was concerned: Heartbeat only went irregular one time. I could feel it as it happened and then the HR display confirmed it by going blank. But it only lasted a few seconds. That one occurrence was during the final warm down and think it was because I may have been slowing down a bit too much, too soon. So I picked up the pace a bit and slowed down more gradually. It has behaved itself since then.
The 3K warmup was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording and is available at the following link: “Indoor Rowing 3K Warmup 02282018“.
The 2K Time Trial fail was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording and is available at the following link: “Indoor Rowing 2K Time Trial And Fail 02282018“.
First, the screenshots for the 3K warmup:
Next, screenshots for the 2K TT fail:
Happy rowing to you.