The weekend didn't kill me, so it should make me stronger

I did some gym work before heading down to the river Friday morning.  As I paddled a 15-minute warmup into a stiff headwind, I could tell that my muscles were tired from the gym.

They'd be getting more tired during my in-the-boat workout.  I did two sets of three (3 minutes on/3 min. off) at 76 strokes per minute.  I did all of the first set, and the first two pieces of the second set, with light resistance on the boat, and my muscles were feeling pretty rubbery by the end of that.  For the last piece, Maks told me to remove the resistance: "See how it feels when you anchor well without the resistance on the boat--the boat will absolutely fly :)."  I guess the boat did fly--it moved about a half-mile per hour faster than it had with the resistance on--but my arms were too tired for me to enjoy it as much as Maks's colon-and-parenthesis smiley face suggests I should have.  Oh well.

Yesterday morning I did a calm 40-minute paddle.  That was just a warmup for the Saturday afternoon lactic session, and it was a bear.  Maks called it "a lactic hell."  It was four sets of two (40 seconds all-out/20 seconds rest/40 seconds all-out).  Maks said to take long breaks between the sets, so I made that 5 minutes 20 seconds; he didn't specify how long to take between the two reps that made up each set, so I made that 1 minute 20 seconds.  That way I'd be starting each rep at the top of a minute.  If I thought I was giving myself too much rest, I was relieved of that concern once the second set was underway.  Somehow I found it in me to put everything I had into every 40-second sprint, and every sprint hurt bad.  I don't think I've ever felt more grateful to reach the end of a workout.

This morning it was time to calm everything back down with an easy endurance workout.  I did three sets of (6 min. at 56 spm/4 min. at 60 spm/3 min. at 64 spm/2 min. at 68 spm), with a minute break between pieces and 2 minutes between sets.  I made a loop out on the Mississippi, where conditions were choppy because of a healthy south wind, and that added some balance drill to the session.

And so, my last full training week at home has come to a close.  I'm glad to have a day off tomorrow, as I've got a long list of chores to knock out before I depart for the Pacific Northwest on Thursday.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.