Last Saturday was in Manchester for the English IRC at the Velodrome. My 2k race was at 10:50, when it was still quite cold. My main problems was the lack of warm-up machines. Ended up grabbing one a bit too early so having completed my full 20 minute warm up and hung around a bit I then needed to have another warm-up which ended up being 12 minutes. The race itself was hard, and I didn't feel that comfortable. I started out fast and brought my average pace down to 1:59.5 after the first 500m. I was then hanging on just holding the average under 2 minute pace but posting a lot of 2:00s and a few 2:01s. Did speed up in the last few hundred metres but always felt tight and didn't go as deep as I'd been able to do at BRIC.
Splits: 1:59.5 (29), 2:00.4 (29), 2:00.1 (30), 1:58.9 (33) for a 7:58.9 and a 0.9 second improvement on BRIC. Was still 0.3 seconds outiside my SB last year.
Frustrated later in the day as Jane George and I both missed our 500m race through a combination of the races running late and then seemingly catching up again and an inaudible PA system.
Afterwards took the tram back to Piccadilly station with Susan (TPK). We then had a pleasant meal together (including a pud each
) before I caught my train to London. Travelled back to Teignmouth on the Monday.On Wednesday I resumed training with an unrestricted pace Anne Yates CTC (2,801m). Flat out predicted I should be able to do this at 2:01.3 pace, however didn't push quite that hard but still managed 2:02.5 pace and 29 spm. I will probably repeat at 19 spm later in the month but this time I wanted to keep the spm and speed high for training purposes.
On Thursday, despite strong wind, waves and squally rain, we were out on the estuary in a coxed 4 scull. Went upstream and into the river to nearly reach Newton Abbot quay, in the river the wind was much less, as it was on the return. Followed with a 1,800m swim (in my local pool - to warm up again).
On Friday, bearing in mind that I would be racing on Saturday decided to taper. I had once heard that a good taper would end with just a 100m piece on the day before a race, so I did two for luck
: 19.7 seconds (45 spm) and 19.6 seconds (46 spm), both at 210 df. Noted that I'm wasting energy jumping the ergo forward about 8 inches on each row; maybe if I jam the ergo against the wall I can get a 19.5.Today rowed my 2k race at the South West IRC, which is a small event held at Bideford in North Devon. Most attendees were local, from Bideford Blues or Appledore or Illfracombe Gig clubs. The venue is at Bideford College, the atmosphere similar to at the Welsh which means not as warm or dry as at velodromes or sport arenas.
This race I felt much more comfortable and was able to negative split to hold onto mostly 1:59s for the first 1,500m and was still able to sprint harder than I did in Manchester. Had to resort to much more pronounced breathing through the middle 1000m but it worked.
My splits: 1:59.8 (29), 1:59.3 (31), 1:59.2 (31), 1:58.0 (33) for a 7:56.7 and a further 2.2 second improvement over Manchester. I've now also bettered the WRIC qualifying time, which has been set at a pretty tight 7:57.4 (not that they'll give me the air fare money).
