Thanks to the last blog, and some links sent to me by the Concept2 team (as apparently your forearms should most definitely not hurt after rowing), I have the technique conquered! Well, sort of. If I stop concentrating...usually towards 'the end' when I'm getting tired...I do have a tendency to revert to pulling with my arms, but on the whole it's much improved so thank you! We were actually told by some friends who are expert rowers, having rowed in both the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games, to try putting up mirrors around the machine so you can see if your back is straight etc, so Dad's looking into getting some big ol' mirrors to put in there. While it is a great idea though, I'm not sure watching myself row would be the best morale boost - can't be a pretty sight! Although as the picture shows, the machine itself is set up in a rather grubby garage, so perhaps mirrors would brighten the place up a bit!

This week I tried out the training plan which you can find on the Concept2 website, as it seemed that a plan would stop me from relying on dog-walking and using the usual 'oooh I'll row tomorrow' excuse! As we don't have a heart rate monitor I did have to change the heart rates set for each session to a more vague 'intensity level' and work more off the time-per-500m, but so far this does seem to be working quite well. The first day was just a test of how quickly I could row 2000m, so off I breezed to the garage claiming that I'd 'just be a minute' - ever the optimist! In fact it took me 10.18.5, which isn't too bad I suppose, but seeing as it did almost end up in me collapsing on the floor in a sweaty heap afterwards, could definitely be improved.

The next day was intervals, which I must admit; I thought would be ridiculously easy. How hard can 5 minutes of rowing be, right? Wrong! I did five sets of 1 minute intervals with a 1 minute rest as fast as possible, and ended up doing...

Set	Distance (m)	p/500m
1	217	2.18
2	219	2.17
3	218	2.18
4	211	2.22
5	232	2.09

Which is 1160m overall - not too shabby for 5 minutes! The fourth set was a bit disappointing, but as it made me push really hard for the last one it actually did some good I suppose. Although, as my Dad pointed out, if I'm speeding up by that much on the last set I can't really have been pushing hard enough on the first ones. Looking at the programme the next intervals involved will be eight sets of 45seconds with a 45second break, and now that I'm aware of how hard they actually are I'm not looking forward to that at all!

The last two sessions were simple rowing for a given time, the first being 16minutes in which I managed 2825m, and the second 20 minutes in which I managed 3594m. Overall, this means in four sessions I completed 9579m. So it seems the programme is definitely encouraging a large distance to be covered, which I'm really pleased with as it all helps to build the much needed stamina. Next week however, the plan is to completely smash that distance record, attempting to get on the machine as much as possible - so watch this space!

Next weekend I'm also off for an information day with the challenge organisers, where I will hopefully get to meet the other people completing the trek along with me so I am really looking forward to that! They have let us know that the day itself will include talks on the kit and preparation, but I'm hoping that we can at least have a quick talk about fitness as well. It will be really interesting to see how everyone else is getting along in comparison, and from that, whether I need to step up my game at all! Only 48 days left to go now - scary!

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