Late Lunch — 4 at 4

I’d aimed to row at one. Work had other ideas, so lunch was at four. It was 8.6°C in the Great Hall when I got onto the static Model E. I warmed up with a separate 2,000 m in 10:00.1, then set off on 4 × 2,000 m at 24 strokes a minute, with exactly three minutes of easy rowing between reps.

The first two felt good. They came in at 1:49.9 and 1:49.7 per 500 m. By the third I was having a quiet word with myself, which got me through in 1:49.4. On the fourth I went a bit dark, kept the rate at twenty-four and dug in for the home stretch. That one was 1:49.0.

The 8,000 m of work came to 29:12.7 at 1:49.5 per 500 m. I’d aimed for 29:18.4 at 1:49.9, so that left 5.7 seconds to spare. By then it was probably too late to call it lunch.