Starter for 10 ... 10by30s 1m r r20 May CTC

Well it's been a while - life taking its toll and although I keep trying to get back into it I admit without the routine of a job to go it's been tough - I've started so many times in the last few months but stopped eve quicker, so maybe keeping account of myself may help.

It was a year yesterday since we had our sons Louis's diagnosis of Edwards Syndrome (Friday the 13th of May) and he battled on until just before his birth on the 13th July. So I once again had some reflections on life and once again I know I need to row for my own balance.

Other more recent happenings have been diagnosed with suspected Carpel Tunnel Syndrome which I first really discovered the last time I started to try and row again and we also sadly lost one of our dogs to doggy heaven. I checked my erg monitor this morning - last time I rowed was the 26th April - I also rowed on the 25th - for 30 minutes each time, prior to that it was March....

So where to start - well with the pains in the wrists a long slow one wasn't gonna help so as I knew that the current CTC is short reps I plumped for that to get the fun going in me. Deciding to be sesible I went with R20 and figured I should be good for 1:35 pace if not a little more. Into the gym at 9am and after the majority of my standard warm-up - which normally en-tales a max HR of 160 (I hit 180 without the high end sprint today....)

So not feeling hugely confident of I set and with a standing start hit 1:41 on the first stroke - hmm - 1:24 on the second and then settled in through the line at 167m with exactly 10 strokes. Then the fun began, with the monitor/ergdata for some reason at the end of the second rep even though I counted out ten strokes it came up with 11.... I noticed this again on the third but I had the erg lifting of the floor and so put it down to that I also noticed the monitor flicked up a 1:13 pace - odd at 20 spm .... on the 8th stroke.... something not right here.

The fourth rep it was getting daft and now I can see the ergdata it's showing I hit 1:13 pace on three of the strokes - it also recorded 13 strokes! So again putting it down to the erg lifting of the floor at the front I got up and walked over to grab two 20kg plates to hold the erg down. Funny how that takes it out of you in the middle of these kind of rows lol

That seemed to settle the issues of miscounting and pace out but it also took the stiing out my legs and so I slipped to just over 1:30 pace and at the end I was on 1:32 - still something to get me going and a target for next time so job done.