Shattered

Got my 30K row in today, barely, and felt like I did in this picture, which was taken after I ran the Boston Marathon in 2005.

The workout started out well enough. I rowed a gentle 5k (19:57) as a warm-up, then got off the machine and changed clothes (chaffing precaution) and started up again using 2.5K (pettau) splits. I had experimented with a new seat pad (purchased from Concept 2) during the warm up, I elected not to use it during the heart of the workout.

Things went very well for the first 7 pettaus:

9:50.6 113
9:49.2 117
9:49.1 127
9:49.3 122
9:49.1 123
9:49.1 126
9:49.6 127

Then I lost mental focus--I knew this was happening and felt like it was no big deal:

10:08.6 123

Then I fell apart physically. No power in my drive, no energy, severe butt and low back pain (muscular, not chaffing). I tried the pad again, it didn't help. In the end, I just got through it as best I could. I guess that's the key, I got through it:

10:33.5 118
10:24.4 124

So, 30K in 1:59:50.1. I have more work to do but time to do it.