ahooton wrote: ↑December 7th, 2024, 3:16 pm
I think we may have been in the same race. Also, 1 second improvement for me too 6:37.7. Was hoping for more but my legs felt like jelly throughout and I couldn’t muster the final sprint.
Just noticed you’re in LWT. Fantastic result. Your 5k time definitely needs another attempt!
Well done! It sounds like you had as much 'fun' as me! My legs were like jelly too, which I was hoping if just from nerves would be fine once I got going, but I was also hindered by anxiety about making weight. Which whilst in the end I was fine for it did mean my nutrition and hydration wasn't as good as it should have been for the preceding 24 hours. I don't have to work hard to make sub 75kg but nonetheless it was a stresser. I'm glad I had a solid race plan in my head because in the event my head was mush. I practise my race calls in my head every time I row the last 2K of a SS session so I only need the smallest glance at the metres left to know what I should be doing and how many strokes are left at any point. In my race group I was beaten into 3rd place by a tenth, but 2nd place was well over-weight so wasn't classified. Immediately post-race my head was still mush so I wasn't sure how I felt about being beaten by a tenth, until I learnt I was 2nd.
On the subject of attending in the first place: Indoor rowing events seem to encourage a feeling of "I'll only turn up if I think I can finish competitively". At least, I am personally guilty of this, and I am lucky that I can make it as a lwt quite easily. If lwt didn't exist would I have gone? But, very few people sign up to a local running race (half marathon, marathon, etc) with the expectation of placing, they sign up for the experience of training, turning up and performing as well as they can on a personal level. All of us will applaud anyone else simply attempting to row a distance as fast as they can regardless of the result, because we know what a mental and physical challenge it is to train consistently and perform, but do we hold ourselves to different criteria with regards the competitive element? Not sure, perhaps I'm missing the mark or failing to get my point across well. But it's a shame these events aren't better attended, and now I've done it once I fully intend to go again with a more relaxed attitude to placing.