Trouble

My incentive to do the rowing marathon has dwindled to this: I'm going to do it because I said I was going to do it.

The training, and the event itself, is (will be) really painful. During yesterday's planned 36K row I experienced, in addition to the excruciating low back and butt pain I've come to know and love, several severe episodes of left calf cramping. After 4 or 5 of these experiences in acute pain, I abandoned my row at 31K.

Over the past couple of weeks I've come to the realization that I'm really sick of the marathon training. As a result, my training partner and I have agreed to move up the marathon race date from mid-April to mid-March. This will leave my training a little less than ideal. That said, I now have completed 4 rows of 30 or more kilometers. I'm now counting on recovery as the key component to get me through this thing on March 15.

While I've been struggling with the long stuff, training partner John continues to thrive. He crushed the 36K piece yesterday in 3:54 per K pace. If he can hold that pace on race day (and I see no reason why he won't be able to), he'll have a marathon that'll place him 3rd in the world in his age group (40s) and 12th in the world in all ages groups. Impressive!

Race!

I raced yesterday: 10K on the erg. It went well. Almost perfectly, as a matter of fact. In the process, I was reminded of just how challenging, gut wrenching, and mentally, physically, and spiritually demanding a 10 kilometer race can be. It may be the perfect race distance.

My 5K race time predicts a 37:00 10K. Since my training had been skewed more towards the endurance end of things, and since I'd gained fitness since my 5K race (3 weeks ago) I decided to target 36:40, or a 1:50 per 500m split. I checked in with John, my training partner and, on this day, sole competititor. He acknowledged that he had exactly the same target time. In the back of my mind I etched 36:30 as the time which would define a great race.

In my experience, the key to a 10K race is kilometers 6, 7, and 8. At that point in the race, questions cloud the mind: Is the body still willing? Has the spirit been broken? Why am I doing this?

Predictably, I came through 5K in pretty good shape: 18:14.1. A quick glance at John's monitor assured me that I was slightly ahead of him (we were both rowing on the setting that shows, in addition to current 500m pace, average 500m split, I was at 1:49.4, John was at 1:50.0).

Into kilometers 6, 7, and 8 we went. My pace drifted, slowing to an aggregate 1:49.7 By 8k. A glance at John's monitor indicated that, incredibly, he was gaining speed! He was now at 1:49.8.

With 2K to go I fought to ignore the nagging questions challenging body, mind, and spirit. I picked up pace again and held off the steady rise in average pace. John continued to gain, however. It was a dead heat with a kilometer to go.

Heart rate rising, I pulled a 1:48 500m to bring my pace down to 1:49.6 with 500m to go. Confident, I glanced at John's monitor. 1:49.5!! Shit!

I pulled harder, ignoring the urge to back off and recover a bit in advance of the final surge. In our 5K race, John had beaten me by 1.1 seconds. I'd kicked with 150m to go. Afterwards, I thought that if I'd kicked a little earlier, I would've beat him.

With 200m to go, I found another gear. Could I hold it? I shut my eyes and pulled--form be damned, I added every upper body muscle and fiber to my quad and glute drive. I opened my eyes and focused on the monitor through the lactic acid fog. 83m to go, 1:35 pace. 8 strokes. Now 5. Now done.

Shit! John stopped a split second before I did. My time: 36:25.4. John: 36:24.8.

Afterwards, over a carne asada burrito and a Sebago IPA (well, 2 of them, but that's a story for a different blog) I congratulated John (Geary's Winter Ale and chicken burrito)and reflected on how good I felt about the race and how great the beer and burrito tasted. Then I picked up the tab, and thought how much better it all would've tasted if it'd been his tab.

Oh well, there's always the next race.

Check my world ranking here

Thoughts About the Monster

Rowed 33K on Saturday in 2:11:50.2. It became a low back and butt pain torture test. I remain firm in my comittment to row a marathon but equally firm in my comittment to then never row one again.

I took 3-4 standing 20 second or so back stretch breaks (the clock ticked on during these breaks, of course) during the piece. I'll need to build these in to my marathon as well. Other than pain management, the workout was not particularly stressful. My HR was never above 130. I rowed 3:55 kilometers throughout. My total time reflects 4:00 per K, that's because of the stretch break time and shorter breaks to drink gatorade and towel off (sweat management).

I was tired and moderately sore after the workout and into Sunday. The soreness is interesting and reflects the muscles used during rowing: the whole back, the front of the legs, glutes, forearms and biceps. It's general, not acute, an almost pleasant sense of the muscles letting the mind know they've been working.

On Sunday, I gave in to the latest snow and ran on the treadmill, a workmanlike 5 miles.

Yesterday, it was back on the rower for 15K, with no apparent residuals from Saturday's monster.

Back on the Rower

Monday was a 15K steady state piece, yesterday was 5K recovery rowing, and this morning was a VO2 Max session: 15K total with 5.5K at 3:30 kilometer pace (500m paddle recovery in 2:20). A good workout.

Saturday will be a monster: 33K. The plan is to just get through it. No breaks. Just pull on the handle until done.

I'll run Friday and Sunday. Now that I know I can cover 10 miles, I think I'll plan to do that every Sunday. I wonder how training partner Scott will feel about that plan?

The Mid-Winter Classic

Dramatically sports specific undertrained but reasonably fit generally, I hopped in the Mid-Winter Classic, a 10 mile road race held in near by Cape Elizabeth, Maine. It went pretty well, and is my best running workout of the winter.

Just how undertrained was I? Well, I hadn't run that far (10 miles) since July. In addition, I'd only run 84K in the entire month of January. My winter running goal is merely to be ready to train in April, and ready to race 5K-10K (inclusive) in the primary Maine racing season of summer and fall.

With that in mind, I approached the race as if it were a marathon in the sense that I didn't warm up (using the first couple miles of the race as a warm up) and I ran very cautiously at the beginning. This approach paid off and I was satified with the results. It helped that the weather was ideal--mid thirties F with a cloud cover and no wind. Mile splits were:

8:48 (8:59 by the gun)
8:36
8:24
8:03
7:54
8:15
8:01
7:56
7:51
7:35

1:21:22 total by my watch (I started it when I passed the start line), 1:21:33 officially.

The course is hilly throughout--with hills too long and steep to be called "rolling". My effort was consistent from mile 4 on, the time variance was a function of the hills and a bit of a harder push from mile 8 in when I knew I could cover the distance at effort. All in all a very good workout.

Now, back to the rower.