After a frustrating week I was pleased to have a confident session today to end the week before tackling next weeks hell.
4 days off the erg and away working with poor nutrition and limited sleep I took a few light sessions at 70% and then hit some short intense intervals yesterday morning. Mrs O and I were off to a wedding so my only chance to train was at 0630 – not a pleasant hour to train hard.
5k warm up and then into 6×1 minute with 1 minute rest. I missed my target by some way but given my lack of speed work (still) was relatively happy to have put in 100% and will take the adaptations from the training – it hurt. Averaged 1.28.7.
Having slept in this morning until around 1130 (something I haven’t done in years) due to the wedding and driving back at 2am (awful driving conditions due to the heavy rain) I took a relaxing day and went to train around 1700. Todays session was slightly more free range and was split into two.
First session was 30r20 but capped at 75% – felt nice averaging 1.51 and then a 5 minute rest before hitting a 5km at a strict rate 24. The instructions were simple – ‘enjoy a free HR but only push on as much as your mind wants to’. Not really sure what that means but either way I set off and sat on 1.44 and just squeezed on the last 1km to finish in 17.13 (1.43.3). Felt very strong and concentrated on keeping the stroke long with limited lean back and light handle pressure – legs legs and legs. No sprints, no lactic build up, no discomfort – might get in trouble for not pushing harder.
Confidence restored after limited training and I would have put money on a big 5km PB today given this afternoons performance.
Time to collate my data and send it though to -Q-
X Factor and a beer tonight – I am true rock n’ roll!