Friday, June 3, 2016

All told, a strong week

I knew I needed some good recovery time from Monday's more intense workout, so I paddled easy on Tuesday and yesterday, and on Wednesday I did the May-June strength routine but didn't paddle.  My injured area has responded in encouraging fashion.  There's still a bit of soreness there, but it's seemed less and less like something to worry about each time out.

This morning I went down to the marina and found another dead-calm scene in the harbor.  I did the May-June strength routine on the dock and then got in the boat.  I ran into Joe down there and he accompanied me on a good long warmup paddle down to the mouth of the harbor and back to the marina.  Then I commenced my workout: it was the same as Monday's--six two-minute pieces with two minutes recovery in between--but this time I nudged the pace up from 7 miles per hour to 7.5 mph.

Today's workout felt much harder than Monday's.  On Monday I felt taxed but never doubted I would finish it out strongly and smoothly; today, with two pieces to go, I wondered whether I could maintain that 7.5 mph pace and even considered dialing it back to 7.  But I bore down and got it done as planned, and I hope that will pay psychological dividends in a race soon.

I was feeling it the most in my legs, especially my thighs.  At the end of each piece my thighs throbbed and felt rubbery.  Granted, I'd just done Hindu squats as part of my strength routine on the dock.  In any case, I hadn't entirely intended today's workout to be an all-out affair, but it sort of turned out that way.  I'm still learning just how big a difference a half-mile per hour can make.  The hip held up fine... I guess I'm back.

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