I probably didn't get as much rest as I should have on my "rest day" (Monday). I spent several hours doing some small-scale logging as part of a project for my woodworking business. Even small-scale logging is some heavy-duty work, for the simple reason that logs are heavy. I was careful and managed not to tweak my back, but I wore out my arms swinging a sledge hammer at steel wedges.
It was a rousing start to the last week of the current training block. Next week will be an easier week, but for now, things are gonna get harder before they get easier. Tuesday morning I put some extra weight in the boat for the following workout: five sets of (4 minutes at 50 strokes per minute/3 minutes at 60 spm/2 minutes at 70 spm/1 minute at 80 spm). The rest intervals were 1 minute between pieces and 2 minutes between sets. As usual, a main objective was to carry the precision and power of the lower stroke rates into the higher stroke rates. I was sore from Monday's labor and it took a while for those muscles to loosen up; by the end of this long, grinding workout I could feel my power giving out.
I was still a bit on the sore side as I headed back to the river yesterday morning. The workout was a tough one: three sets of two 750-meter pieces at 76 spm. The first piece of each set was to be done with moderate resistance (two golf whiffle balls) and the second without resistance (well, except for the bungee cord). Said Maks, "It will feel like suffering, flying, suffering..." Maks didn't specify a recovery interval, so I figured that out on the fly: I started the second piece of a set 8 minutes after I'd started the first piece, and I started the first piece of a new set 9 minutes after I'd started the second piece of the previous set.
"Suffering" is the right word for what those pieces with resistance felt like. I tried not to stress myself over the lack of glide and just take the best strokes I could. As for the pieces without resistance, Maks told me "It is extremely important that you maximize your stroke efficiency--that you really anchor well." If anything struck me as a bit surprising, it was that my no-resistance pieces were not all that faster than my pieces with resistance. I was clocking just over 4 minutes with resistance and just under 3:50 without. Then again, the 15-second-or-so difference is a lot, I guess, for 750 meters--if you get beat by 15 seconds in a 750-meter race, you've been beaten bad.
This morning I woke up to pouring rain. By the time I got down to the river the heaviest rain had moved out, but light rain continued to move in and out as I paddled. I did two sets of four (4 minutes on/1 minute off), alternating between 60 spm and 70 spm. I tried to put solid power into each stroke and maintain good mechanics. The workout was straightforward enough, but I was disheartened by all the floating trash that the rain had washed into the harbor. Between the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and the harbor mouth the surface was covered in a thick layer of bottles, cans, toys, grocery bags, and styrofoam. I believe it had washed out of the Wolf River and drifted down the Mississippi River, and then been blown by the south wind up into the harbor. In other words, I was paddling in litter that had originated everywhere from north Mississippi to Fayette County to Shelby County both inside and outside the city of Memphis. Sometimes I just about have to hang my head and cry because it seems like we've lost this fight.
Anyway... it's been a substantial training week, and the weekend is yet to come.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment