Week 17 - Back to the Grind.

Sessions on Monday - Wednesday, Friday and Saturday this week, with 104.482km for Anita, and 115.549km for me.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday's sessions were HARD!!! I don't think we had recovered from the Marathon last Saturday, and with 9-hour work days Tuesday and Wednesday exhaustion was a real issue.

Monday was 2 x 45' intervals, which Anita completed in the 2:23's/500m and I in the 1:59's. Again I had upped the stroke rate to 26 on the 2nd interval, compensating a bit for my arms. Anita was strong at 19 & 20 spm respectively.

Tuesday should have been 4 x 15', but the rowing machines we usually use were in use, so Anita took the spare machine and I did about 20' on the X-Trainer behind before getting on, with a flat 1hr in mind (To finish at nearly the same time as Anita). I felt really weak however, and when I realised Anita was doing a 45' piece I decided to stop at 9k, after 35 minutes. I then did a 15 minute interval (1:55) to finish. Anita's intervals were 2:14 for the 15', and 2:22 for the 45'

Wednesday was 3 x 30', and as we felt so tired we decided to just do it. Anita did 3 identical intervals at 2:24/500, and I did 1:59.5/1:59 and 2:02, having to play about with my pace, with fast minutes and slow 2 minute periods just to get through it.

After a much needed day's rest Friday was a completely different story, with 3 x 25' intervals. Anita was again very strong, with 2:21, 2:15.9 and 2:23 intervals, with slightly higher strokes per minute than usual (23/24) - I think her technique is also changing more too whole body instead of mainly arms, which can only be good. I did a 1:56.5, 1:53.5 (Feeling strong) and a 1:59.5 to finish. It brings home how important rest and feeling rested is with regards to the quality of exercise you can do.

Lastly to today - 3 hrs planned, 30', 1hr, 1hr and 30' intervals with approx 5 minutes rest.

The Liverpool Man Utd FA Cup game was on for the first two intervals, and I lost myself in it, doing 2 1:59/500m intervals. I think the people in the gym now know I'm a Liverpool fan, especially after Dirk Kuyt scored :) I was feeling good enough to go for my hour PB (15330m at 1:57.4) on the 3rd interval, as I haven't tried for it properly since we started training in October. I started at 1:57, with the idea of bringing the average pace down to 1:56 by the end. Feeling good after 90 minutes doesn't mean anything when you don't with 40 minutes of an hour piece left!!! I stuck it out though, through numb-bum (with lots of seat-positioning) to get it to 1:56.5 with 5 minutes left, from when I started bringing it down into the 1:40's, and for the last 10 strokes 1:30's to finish in 1:56.1, or 15506m @ 27spm - A PB by 176m, between 90 minutes and 150 minutes of rowing :). I started the last interval, but had nothing left, so did 25' X-Trainer to warm down. I chose a fat-burn program, which give a Heart Rate Target of 122, which I had real trouble coming down to!! It took me 5 minutes to recover from a start of 135bpm, which shows how spent I was!!

Anita did 2:19.9, 2:22.9, 2:22.8 and 2:21.3 for her intervals, all at 22 or 23 spm. She is now suffering from PITA after rowing; I think she is undergoing the physiological change I did about 2 months ago - loss of fat and movement of muscle around the sitting bones.

Another 100km week at the gym for us next week, though we have a week off planned wc 13th Feb as I'm on an SQL course in London for 4 days, so we work towards that!!!

Until next week,

Anita & Andy

www.justgiving.com/Anita-Wells