No, my inability to race well in recent years has just been a result of my lack of preparation.NavigationHazard wrote:What part of 'increasing your training volume to marathon proportions while trying to get ready for racing a 7-minute piece is insane' is so hard to grasp?
You CANNOT put in that kind of work and lose weight at the rates you claim without depleting your glycogen stores. That will affect your ability to perform. Try too hard to sharpen on depleted glycogen and you will trigger overtraining syndrome that could take a year or more to banish fully.
If you hope to race well this season you need to be doing quality NOW, not quantity. Driving yourself down to UNDER 160 lbs (post-workout, dehydrated weight, you're not fooling anyone) so you can make weight and then eat/rehydrate before a race is a seriously flawed strategy. It will blow up in your face like it's done every other time you've tried it over the past 7 years.
Until this year, since 2003, I have just been doing foundational rowing at low rates.
You can't row a quality 2K without hard distance rowing and sharpening.
There is nothing wrong with cross-training while preparing to race.
Xeno cross-trained for three hours a day on his bike while preparing for his Olympic Gold race OTW in his 1x.
My cross-training now is similar to his.
Makes you feel great.
ranger