It’s been a cracking weeks training so far (although a slight hiccup today) and we’re not done yet – still some weekend pieces to crack on with.
Yesterday saw the Q Power squad 2km TT’s go through at various stages of the day. I opted to get mine done early as I was busy teaching throughout the day so got warmed up just before 0800 and set up to go around 0830. The nerves on waking were unpleasant supressing my appetite but I forced some breakfast in and began the 1 hour commute to work. Stomach was turning all the way and I thought of 5 reasons not to do it – then I though of 6 reasons on why to do it.
The plan was simple:-
- Get out of the blocks and settle within the first 150m.
- Find a pace using feel
- See what happens
- Work hard but don’t bury it
And that pretty much sums it up.
1.35’s were all I could hold within reason, any tweak felt like too much and too heavy so looked to see out the first 1km. There after I thought I could squeeze on through the latter stages of no mans land – I didn’t (I knew after 600m this was to be a tough slog).
I searched for 750m to go and held it some more.
I went through the last 500m with no change of pace and spent much of the final 3rd using feel not looking at the screen.
At 250m I put what I could on the legs and hit the arms (which were heavy all the way). The response wasn’t much and accepted what I was getting keeping the rate as ‘normal’ as I could and keeping it long at the finish.
Was very pleased to finish and fought to sit up to compose myself before rowing out a 3km cool down. Time 6.17.7
Unlike 5 weeks ago when I pulled a 6.15.1 and stood up claiming it the easiest 2km TT I have ever rowed – yesterdays was a different beast altogether. Those who read my blog should realise why it was so different and I am happy with the performance (time somewhat irrelevant).
