Through the midnight hour...

Last night I started at midnight.

Tonight I rowed through it.

23:40 to 00:20.

Apparently Midnight Mass is becoming a series. 😆

Tonight was supposed to be simple.

40 minutes.

r20.

Keep it aerobic.

Keep it controlled.

The result:

40:00

9,920m

2:00.9/500m

r20

DF 136

198W average

The first five minutes were a little slower, then the pace settled almost immediately into the 2:00–2:01 range and stayed there.

The stroke rate stayed where it was supposed to as well.

r20.

Every split.

That part I’m happy with.

The heart-rate monitor, less so.

It looked perfectly believable early on:

134

139

138

142

144

Then, while the pace and rate barely changed, it suddenly decided I was rowing at 72 and 74 bpm.

A few minutes later it was back up around 152.

So the average HR is useless again.

At this stage I’m seriously considering going back to the Garmin Premium strap for rowing, because the HRM-200 just doesn’t seem to like life on the erg.

Still, the useful numbers are all there.

The session was steady.

The rate stayed controlled.

The pace was actually a little quicker than the recent aerobic work without turning into a test.

Another session done.

Another forty minutes in the bank.

Sometimes the work has to fit around life.

Sometimes that means starting at midnight.

Sometimes it means finishing after it.

Either way, the work still gets done.

Midnight Row Mass

Midnight....

Probably not the most sensible time to start a 60-minute row.

But sometimes you just have to get the work done when you can.

I went looking for a suitable midnight theme afterwards and found this description of Midnight Mass:

Blind faith. Religious extremism. Guilt. Addiction.

Seems about right. 😆

Blind faith that all these steady metres are going somewhere.

A slightly worrying level of devotion to r20.

Guilt if the session gets skipped.

And addiction?

Well… I was sitting on a Concept2 at midnight.

Tonight was another straightforward engine session:

60:00

14,615m

2:03.2/500m

r20

DF 136

187W average

The aim was the same as before.

Hold the rate.

Keep the effort aerobic.

Don’t turn it into a test.

The first half moved along nicely around 2:02 pace before things naturally drifted a little later in the hour.

The HR strap also performed its now-traditional disappearing act, dropping to 80 bpm in one split while I was still rowing normally.

So that number can join the growing collection of Garmin fiction.

The useful data is elsewhere.

Every split at r20.

Another full hour completed.

And compared with the 60r20 last week — 14,600m at 2:03.3 — tonight was 15 metres further and fractionally quicker.

Nothing dramatic.

Which is exactly the point.

The aerobic engine isn’t rebuilt in one heroic session.

It comes back through repetition.

Hour after hour.

Stroke after stroke.

Sometimes, apparently, starting at midnight.

Amen.

Back on the Erg

The last few days have been a bit of a write-off.

Fever, feeling freezing one minute and boiling the next, stomach issues, an ear infection thrown in for good measure — definitely not the ideal backdrop for training.

So rowing stopped.

No trying to make up missed sessions. No pretending I was fine.

Just recover.

The encouraging bit has been what’s happened to my resting heart rate.

For the first time in a long, long, long time, I’ve started seeing numbers in the 40s again.

Yesterday Garmin gave me 47 bpm.

This morning, after travelling up to Athlone last night, it was 49 bpm, with overnight HR around 51 and HRV slightly above my normal range.

More importantly, I woke up feeling almost normal.

Dangerous words.

There are three Concept2s in the gym at the Athlone Springs Hotel, so the obvious question was whether the engine was ready to turn over again.

Nothing clever.

60 minutes.

r20.

Keep it controlled.

The result:

60:00
14,476m
2:04.3/500m
r20
DF 136
182W average

The heart-rate monitor decided to play stupid games again, with obvious dropouts into numbers that simply didn’t match the pace or effort, so the reported 130 average can be ignored.

The believable sections had me building into the 130s and around 140 through the middle, with the final stages into the mid-to-high 140s.

Pretty much where I wanted to be.

The important part was that the rowing itself stayed steady.

Every split at r20.

No chasing pace.

No hard finish.

Just an hour back on the machine after a few days of being ill.

And compared with the last 60r20 before getting sick — 14,600m at 2:03.3 — today was only 124m down, about one second per 500m slower.

Different erg.

Different gym.

First row back after illness.

I’ll take that.

The best result this morning probably isn’t 14,476m anyway.

It’s feeling normal again.

It’s seeing a resting heart rate beginning with a 4.

And it’s getting through a controlled hour without needing to prove anything.

The engine is turning over again.

Engine Work at Midnight

Nearly midnight again.

Tonight wasn’t about pace.

It was about control.

60 minutes on the Model E, on slides, with two simple instructions:

Hold r20.

Keep the heart rate mostly in the aerobic band, around 134–145 bpm, without letting it run away.

The result:

60:00

14,600m

2:03.3/500m

r20

Avg HR 142

DF 130

The pace moved around a little, but that wasn’t the target.

The stroke rate was.

Every 7:30 split came back at r20.

And the heart rate stayed where it was supposed to for almost the whole hour — mostly in the high 130s and low-to-mid 140s, only nudging above the intended ceiling right at the end.

That matters more to me than the distance tonight.

This was one of those sessions where the work is in the discipline.

Don’t chase the monitor.

Don’t turn an aerobic row into a race.

Just sit on the rate, control the effort, and keep doing the work.

That’s the engine-building stuff.

Not dramatic.

Not glamorous.

But necessary.

And finished, as usual, just before midnight.

8by500 1:30 rest building the pyramid

I’ve been digging back through the old Q-Power training lately, trying to remember not just the sessions, but the thinking behind them.

James always had a reason for the work.

Build the engine first. Heart, lungs, blood volume, mitochondria, muscular endurance. Big aerobic base. Then sharpen the point with the faster work.

And one thing he used to say has been rattling around in my head again:

“The training effect only comes in from the last portion of a session, so above all finish them.”

That was very much the mindset going into today’s lunchtime session in work.

8 × 500m.

1:30 rest.

Rate capped at 28.

The plan was simple — start at 1:45 and knock half a second off each rep for as long as it stayed under control.

Targets:

1:45.0

1:44.5

1:44.0

1:43.5

1:43.0

1:42.5

1:42.0

Then best controlled.

Actual:

1:45.0

1:44.5

1:44.0

1:43.5

1:43.0

1:42.4

1:41.9

1:38.2

4,000m work in 13:42.5.

Average: 1:42.8/500m.

That last rep was the interesting one.

1:38.2.

At r27.

No frantic rate. No hanging on.

Just more speed there when I asked for it.

The heart-rate monitor decided to contribute some fiction along the way, so that data can go in the bin.

The rowing data is enough.

And, more importantly, the session was finished properly.

That’s probably the bit Q would care about most.

Another marker laid down.

Another session in the bank.

Huginn and Muninn can keep watch.

Thought. Memory.

Remember the work.

Use it.

Move forward.

Iron in the legs

Last night I was back on the static Model E.

No heroics. No test. Just 40 minutes at r20, laying timber into the hull.

The result:

9,855m
40:00
2:01.8/500m
r20
DF 138
Avg HR 137

The interesting part was how smooth it felt.

On 5 March I covered 9,556m in the same 40 minutes at an average HR of 137.

Last night: 299m further.

Same heart rate.

More speed.

Maybe the slides are teaching something after all.

They punish bad timing. They expose rushed movement. They make you earn every clean stroke.

Then you return to the fixed erg and the machine feels quieter beneath you.

I finished exactly at midnight.

Yogurt. Banana.

No battle last night.

Just sharpening the axe, tightening the shield straps and putting another layer of iron into the legs.

The battles can wait.

For now, the warrior prepares.

Two by Four — dance monkey

Back to the office gym.

Same static Model D.

Same 4 × 2,000m @ r24, 3:00 rest.

The previous benchmark was 1:55.1 average.

Today:

1:54.8 → 1:53.8 → 1:52.8 → 1:50.7

8,000m in 30:08.8

1:53.0/500m average

That is 33.1 seconds quicker than the last attempt.

The first rep felt almost suspiciously easy. Smooth, fluid, no wrestling with slides or vintage machinery — just a modern static Model D doing exactly what it was told.

Then, during rep three, Dance Monkey came on.

Which, given the direction this session was heading, felt oddly appropriate.

By that point the whole thing had started to feel a little less like structured training and a little more like Welcome to the Madhouse.

Rep three landed at 1:52.8.

Rep four went to 1:50.7.

Garmin caught the final two reps properly: peak HR 166 bpm, no time in Zone 5, and the rate stayed where it was supposed to.

So the evidence is fairly clear:

More pace. Same rate. Better control.

The frame is built.

Now we raise the roof.

And apparently we dance while doing it.