Hard training has some internal rewards, too

Tuesday was my last hard workout day before the race at Ocean Springs a week from Saturday.

Tuesdays have been my "heavy-duty" days during this period since the training camp in Florida.  Each Tuesday morning I've done a gym session followed immediately by a trip down to the riverfront for an in-the-boat workout of some sort.  I'm happy with how I've mentally handled these challenges.  I spent Monday this week dealing with a whole slate of nuisance matters in my non-athletic life, and by the end of the day I was feeling utterly beat down and thinking "Geez, tomorrow is a workout day... will I really be able to get it done?"  But then Tuesday morning, after rolling out of bed and allowing myself to wake up slowly over coffee and breakfast, I found my sense of purpose and carried out my gym and paddling duties with efficiency.  I've managed to do that pretty much every Tuesday for the last couple of months, and I feel good about that.

The workout in the boat was a tough one: after warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I did four bridge-to-bridge sprints.  For some reason these bridge-to-bridgers always feel harder than doing four 500-meter pieces using my G.P.S. device to measure the distance.  Maybe it's the extra mental energy it takes to get myself to the same starting position for each piece... I'm not sure.

I gave myself a bit more recovery time than I have in the past for this workout: I started a new piece every 9th minute, whereas in the past I've started every 8th minute or even every 7th minute.  I decided that with a 13.7-kilometer (8.5-mile) race coming up in eleven days, I didn't need this workout to be a lactic-tolerance sort of affair.  I just wanted to put together four good, consistent efforts.  And that's what I did: my times were 2:05, 2:04, 2:06, and 2:06.  I aimed for 90 to 100 strokes per minute; the low 90s was what I seemed to settle into.  Each piece was tough, and after the second one I was hoping I could just hang on and paddle with decent form for the last two, but I managed to perform pretty well in those just the same.

I've mentioned in past posts how good the endorphin rush feels after a hard workout, and I was feeling that again Tuesday.  I'm not getting any younger, and it seems my athletic ability may have declined a bit in recent years, but I'd like to keep at those activities that give me that feeling for as long as I'm able.

By this morning I was still feeling some of the physical fatigue from Tuesday's workout.  I went out and did a medium-intensity 60-minute paddle, and I hope getting some blood flowing through all the relevant muscles will help me finish recovering.

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