John

Sure, after two weeks of being in a plaster cast, I was able to jump on the indoor bike and do some kind of exercise, but it was around 6 weeks before I could go anywhere near the Concept 2. But the associated swelling through my forearm muscles, and damage to my bicep meant I was in a fair bit of pain each time I rowed. That within 10 days of doing these exercises, I was able to row without pain in my arm. I’m still not able to do any supplemental exercises, but each day is feels better – and each day that happens is another reason to keep going with it, as hopefully soon I’ll be able to lift something more than a 5Kg weight plate without pain! !

I won’t go into the gory details of why (although I did when I was talking to people at the race today) but let’s just say I’m going to have a limp for a couple of weeks, and it’s going to keep me away from the Welsh and BRIC – and unless a miracle happens, will mean there’s no point in me travelling to the English IRC and certainly not the World’s. I’m not blaming any delays in start, I’m not blaming the fact that I wasn’t wearing my lucky pants (*I don’t have lucky pants, that’s a joke) 1 time I’m killing it – the next time it’s killing me. I’m not saying I’m going to start doing 3 hour rows every Sunday now –

But as next weekend I’ve got the Scottish Champs 1K event, I figured I’d be better off doing some 1K prep work. I’d have hoped to have held 1:35 for the whole 12 intervals, but this was a good session, and although I was KO’d by the end, it felt like something that if I did it again this week, would be useful mentally before next week’s race. Now, there’s always a chance that yesterday’s workout took a larger toll on me than I originally thought, and that’s why the result was this, but looking at the times, and stroke rate, it tells a story (and one that shows I didn’t even row that last stroke). So I backed off the stroke rate a little and settled for 1:53’s – then had to back off the effort level too and start settling for 1:54’s which eventually plopped down to 1:55.

Do I need to fix my head, so I don’t mess up the race? Do I need to accept I’m not as fast as I should be, and then not hit the negativity after a race? At which point, I engaged in the race I’m not saying I towed well. Train with longer sessions for sure, but only push the short sprint stuff until I’m happy again.