60min r20/22 HRR 70%

cranked through 60 minutes this morning (this is off the back of 3 nights where I have been awake at 3/4 in the morning for some unknown reason) started off at r20 but as I got to half way I made the conscious decision to bring the rate up to 22 in order to keep a half decent pace going. Longest row since December 30th!

Trying To Stay Strong - 9 Irish records in 24hrs

The breakfast before the off

So - I did it - just - and it was a heck off a lot tougher than I thought or some people may have thought when comparing my PB's (mostly set within the last year) to the old records - there a scientific reasons for that which Q know best  :-D

See his views here Q-Power

The set up

Watched the TV during the Marathon - Film "2012"

Big thanks to all those who supported, rowed alongside, donated and basically helped me get through what I think was my toughest challenge to date - arguably tougher than the 100k and possibly not as bad as the 24hr - but then I didn't complete that one. Q as ever was immense with his approach and organisation but also there where guys on Facebook and Rowpro who helped probably more than they realised (too many to name all) but Adam Mell and Darren Simmons where huge - Adam actually rowed all the distances himself which was great inspiration and Darren's use of Twitter got us encouragement from some of the top rowers including Team GB. Also of course the Mrs who allows me to do these daft things and supports me during them.

So how did it go - well we had been up to Dublin (3hr one way trip) on the Thursday and Back on the Friday after a appointment at the childrens hospital (no huge emergency) - also I could still feel the effects of the 6k TT from earlier in the week (19:42.5) - but when am I ever rested :lol: so started off OK with the 6k bang on target and no issues, other than realising I could not see either predicted finish or ave pave rowing online - hmm - tried to sort it out to no avail. 1of 9 - 6k Record Taken ave 1:44.9

Then the 500m - without the pred finish or ave I was at a loss as to where I was - and I although I thought I had secured the record I found myself 0.1 too slow feck! 

So then the 1k - made sure I was comfortably under for this one. 

Then it was back to the 500m and nailed it keeping the pace under by a second. 

So onto the FM - had the Mrs in contact with Q to try and work out where I was with the split due to still not sorting it out and got that one knocked off - Rowpro was becoming a pain - tried to enjoy it and even took some selfies as I rowed lol. There would be a rest of just under a hour then the 10k.

Back in for the 10k and saw a few friendly faces online which was good as I needed them logged in and ready to go - READY - ROW - err I'm still sat there! FFS crashed again so set up a stand alone 10k and nailed that - so much easier with pred finish and ave pace. 

OK we'll do the 30min online - again some friendly faces and I'd also managed to get ave 500m pace showing - set off and it was tough but I got it. 

But after this is when Q and I needed to take stock so the first phone call was put in. The body was showing that it wasn't coping well with the pressures - two choices where revealed - one was to push the break out and do the hour and then the HM and 5k - the other was to swap the HM and hour round. I decided to crank the 5k out, rest and recover then hit the hour.

A bath and rest at this point.

OK back for the hour and from the start it was a struggle - I managed to get almost to 40 minutes - but with pace plummeting and HR soaring I had to make a decision - just finish it or bin it and get the HM done then push the hour out to the final hour of the 24. 

I took the second option - another quick call to Q - then went off on the HM - what's noticeable is that the 2:00.6 pace was a struggle for me and that the HR was actually dropping as the pace increased towards the end - a sure sign the body was close to being a bit naughty. Still HM completed and then left with the hour to do before 9am in the morning.

Up at just after 6 - weighed in and lost 2.5kg - quick breakfast then out with the dogs. Felt surprisingly well with the body - the skin not so much - I'm raw on my butt to the point of bleeding also the hands as well as two large areas on my chest where the HR strap rubbed. Still got dressed and then out to shed so not to wake the baby and got set - couple of technical issues meant I was delayed starting until about 7:55am - at 8am my phone alarm went off after I was about 4 minutes into the row - I tried to swipe at it three times to turn it off - no good as it was just too far so almost at a stop I got to it - turned it off and then back to the row - up to this point I was going quite well (target of 1:46.9 for the start) the pace boat was now over 10m in front of me and it took me till halfway to get level again - bearing in mind I needed to be 1:46.4 this wasn't helping. I had to dig in pretty deep and had more demons in my head than a row at this pace (for me) necessitated - but with the reasons being the row I put them to the fore and dug in - pretty much on my TT limit for the entire row I managed to get within the target and with two minutes to go called on Beowulf to carry me home - got it - thank god and thanks to all those people out there who believed in me and supported me.

Having done this challenge it really brought home to me how depression can set in - again looking at those old records they are so within me on a good day that it seems a simple task - but when you stack them up one on top of another - even though you know there are people out there supporting you and would be willing to do the task for you - ultimately you (I) are alone and sometimes that means you need to rearrange, sometimes you need to put that call in for help, I could well have failed today, would people think less of me, some may, others have more admiration for the fact you get so far, my one piece I would say is - if you need help don't be afraid to make that call - it can save something precious to you - samaritans website 

Just Giving Page for donations

Total Meters - 124,054 Rowing Time 7:44:44.3 Ave 500m 1:52.4

Written by Ad Mell

**** 60min PB **** - emptying the tanks ;-)

Jonathan Doyle's blog popped into my mind during this session - so a little homage to him "emptying the tanks"  :-D

So this morning my alarms didn't go off as I turned them off yesterday as the baby woke me before they went off - so although I was still up early - by the time I got to work I didn't really have time to do more than 20 minutes erg'ing - so instead I got to my desk 30 minutes early and bolted that onto my lunch - giving me enough time to do a 60min TT which I missed at the weekend (as I did the FM instead)

In the work gym as my little room was in use - set up and got my music on - but during my warm up I got some funny looks about the music so I turned it off and went in "stealth mode" - the target was to set off and hold 1:42.9 (PB was 1:43.5 - 17,394m with an eye on Sam Blythe's 17,414m entry in the rankings) after the initial "panic" which I get when setting off on a TT I settled in for the pain - Q had posted recently about his 30r20 row saying "as the pain increases the clock decreases" and with that in mind I just held of the pain - to be fair it wasn't that bad - never is .. till the end. I found myself sat on 1:42.5 pace and just decided to hold it - again a conversation with Sam recently about holding it tough through the middle third came to mind and that I did. Some distractions in the gym with people doing odd things - but I kept focused and knew with 15 minutes to go I would make it - I could even drop the pace to 7min 2k and still get what I wanted - instead I squeezed it on to empty the tanks. Which by the last 3 minutes where gone (at least the oxygen was) as I blew the carbon off hard.

Garmin result http://connect.garmin.com/activity/477087751

**** 60min PB ****

Have to say thanks to Andy Jones - after a day of chores I'd just bathed and popped the baby to bed - so while I waited for her to settle I had a quick look at the blogs - I'd almost decided not to go out and row - it was gone 9pm - but he gave me the kick I needed.
Plan was to punish myself as I'd missed to many sessions this week with a cold and wimping out - so a hard 60min sounded like it would do the trick - looking at the rankings the current No1 in the 30-39 group was 17300 by Lars Gumprecht (my PB was 17137) - so that was the target - 1:44.0 and thought r24 would be good to go. So outside I went into the 11c shed with 93% humidity - ahh Ireland - wet and cold! 2k warm up - then set the 60min - splits at 3:45 and off I set.
To be honest I found it reasonably comfortable - was thinking at 12min in it might start to hurt - but got through in good shape and under target - then told myself if I stayed at 1:43.5 pace at 20min I would back off for the middle 20min - but I didn't need to and kept at it - one eye on the HR though - my 2k TT's had maxed at 178 (although my max HR was 190 I hadn't seen that for a while) as it got over 178 I thought I better settle back in order to ensure I got to the end - also my knees started to hurt a tad - but with a minute left I decided to thump it home
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Workout Summary - Dec 14, 2013
--|Total|-Total-|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|--Avg--
--|Dist-|-Time--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-%HRR--
--|17394|60:00.0|17394|60:00.0|01:43.5|24.6|166.0| 84.3%
Workout Details
#-|EDist|-Etime-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|Avg%HRR
01|00873|03:00.0|00873|03:00.0|01:43.1|24.0|130.7| 61.2%
02|01743|06:00.0|00870|03:00.0|01:43.4|24.0|149.0| 73.2%
03|02613|09:00.0|00870|03:00.0|01:43.4|24.0|153.1| 75.9%
04|03483|12:00.0|00870|03:00.0|01:43.5|24.0|157.0| 78.4%
05|04356|15:00.0|00873|03:00.0|01:43.1|24.0|159.7| 80.2%
06|05227|18:00.0|00871|03:00.0|01:43.4|24.0|161.7| 81.5%
07|06097|21:00.0|00870|03:00.0|01:43.4|24.0|163.8| 82.9%
08|06966|24:00.0|00869|03:00.0|01:43.6|24.0|164.8| 83.5%
09|07837|27:00.0|00871|03:00.0|01:43.3|24.0|166.7| 84.7%
10|08705|30:00.0|00868|03:00.0|01:43.7|24.3|167.9| 85.6%
11|09571|33:00.0|00866|03:00.0|01:43.9|24.3|169.2| 86.4%
12|10438|36:00.0|00867|03:00.0|01:43.8|24.0|170.4| 87.2%
13|11305|39:00.0|00867|03:00.0|01:43.8|24.7|172.2| 88.3%
14|12172|42:00.0|00867|03:00.0|01:43.9|24.7|172.9| 88.8%
15|13037|45:00.0|00866|03:00.0|01:44.0|24.0|173.6| 89.3%
16|13900|48:00.0|00862|03:00.0|01:44.4|24.0|175.0| 90.2%
17|14758|51:00.0|00859|03:00.0|01:44.8|24.3|175.1| 90.2%
18|15617|54:00.0|00859|03:00.0|01:44.8|25.0|175.6| 90.6%
19|16480|57:00.0|00863|03:00.0|01:44.3|25.3|176.4| 91.1%
20|17077|59:00.0|00596|02:00.0|01:40.6|29.0|178.9| 92.7%
21|17231|59:30.0|00154|00:30.0|01:37.4|32.0|181.1| 94.2%
22|17394|60:00.0|00163|00:30.0|01:31.9|34.0|182.5| 95.1%
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