New Personal Best! Brag About That New Pb!

[p_b82]

Looks like I’m 2 for 2 on Friday afternoon PB attempts this month — the row gods are smiling kindly upon me for now, so I must take advantage! Stoked to knock off another one of the long-distance time trials I’ve been itching to revisit for some time: the Hour of Power.

My race plan was to break the piece into ten-minute mini-pieces, and stick to r28 come hell or high water. I can usually tell by 20-25% of the way into a test piece if I’m going to have a chance at a good row, and thankfully around the 10-15 minute mark I was feeling half-decent and the first whispers of belief crept in...

The next half hour was touch and go, and there were moments of doubt, to be sure. Much like last week’s half marathon though, I pulled out all the stops as far as mind games go, breaking each 10 minute mini-piece further into 2:30 chunks, focusing on my breathing, and telling myself that seeing an occasional 1:46 pop up on the screen was okay, but to not make a habit of it...

This may be the PB that I’m most proud of, even more so than the 6:09 2k, as it’s my second true lifetime PB in the last few months (along with my 10k in December) — beating my college best by 0.3 splits — and in my humble opinion this was much tougher sledding overall.

Managed to venture where few of the 40+ have been this year and snag the top spot in the C2 40-49 global rankings for this season, a nice cherry on top.

Code: Select all

Time	Meters	Pace	Watts	Cal/Hr	S/M
1:00:00.0	17,201m	1:44.6	305	1351	28
10:00.0	2,873m	1:44.4	307	1357	28
20:00.0	2,863m	1:44.7	304	1346	28
30:00.0	2,863m	1:44.7	304	1346	28
40:00.0	2,862m	1:44.8	304	1345	28
50:00.0	2,866m	1:44.6	305	1350	28
1:00:00.0	2,874m	1:44.3	308	1359	29

If I thought the last was insane to comprehend my mind has been blown again.... Huge congrats!

[MPx]

I'm loving seeing and reading about these Justin. Stunning stuff - always makes me smile.

[Dangerscouse]

I'm loving seeing and reading about these Justin. Stunning stuff - always makes me smile.

Ditto. I love it when I see PB posts. Sometimes they're just the deserved plaudits from the rest of us, but sometimes they're a superb result, either world class or relative. They're all as good to me.

[Jbrown1215]

Breaking 17 is a massive achievement, but getting over 17200m is mind blowing. I'll be surprised if you're knocked off top spot, with such an excellent result like this. Well done doesn't good enough, but well done

Your performances keep getting better and better, mindblowing!

If I thought the last was insane to comprehend my mind has been blown again.... Huge congrats!

I'm loving seeing and reading about these Justin. Stunning stuff - always makes me smile.

Thanks Stu, Sascha, Peter, & Mike.

Funny how the mind works -- I recall during my warm-up doing a 10-15 stroke burst at ~1:44-1:45 r28 and thinking it didn't feel as comfortable as it should have... and then proceeded to do 1690 strokes at that pace. I mentioned in my HM recap last week that I can only summon the mental fortitude for these types of efforts every so often. I didn't plan on doing the HM and HoP in back-to-back weeks, but I trusted my gut on Friday that told me to go for it, and it worked out. It's tough to think about tackling either of those PBs again anytime soon, but I'll need to get a HM done for the Sub7's May intra-team challenge.

Part of my motivation at this point is recognition that at some point in the not-too-distant-future, I just won't physically be able to chase all-time PBs anymore, and will need to switch my focus to age-group PBs or season's bests. Whether that's one year from now or five I've no clue, but I feel compelled, almost obligated, if you will, to make the most of whatever run of good form I'm on right now and having no regrets.

Quite proud to now hold the #1 spot in the global C2 season rankings for the 40-49s in both the HoP & Half Marathon. That was never an explicit goal of mine, and I've often stared at the various leaderboards in awe of the absolute monsters on top and what they've accomplished, so I suppose I still have a bit of imposter syndrome seeing my name there