8K Of Warmup/down And A 2K Time Trial Fail

in-the-mind

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:

AL-Feb-28th-2018--3K-Warmup-finish
Finish screen for the 3K warmup.
AL-Feb-28th-2018--3K-Warmup-rpt
Report for the 3K warmup.
AL-Feb-28th-2018--3K-Warmup-rp-gph
RowPro graphs for the 3K warmup.
AL-Feb-28th-2018--3K-Warmup-C2-chart
Concept 2 online logbook for the 3K warmup.

Next, screenshots for the 2K TT fail:

AL-Feb-28th-2018--2K-TT-finish
Finish screen for 2K time trial.
AL-Feb-28th-2018--2K-TT-rpt
Report for 2K time trial.
AL-Feb-28th-2018--2K-TT-rp-gph
RowPro graphs for 2K time trial.
AL-Feb-28th-2018--2K-TT-C2-chart
Concept 2 logbook chart for 2K time trial.

Happy rowing to you.