For someone who's not interested in it you sure are following it pretty closely.

Glad to see I'd be in the top 100 though.

Training today

Deadlift superset with Pull Ups

5x5 - 110kg, 7 Pull Ups
3x11 - 90kg Hammer high Pulls
5x3 Press 55kg

good to do some more focused pulling work. I'm working my body very slowly back into deadlifting and staying very light but my body feels a lot better since I've been doing more pulling and my shoulder pain is mainly gone.

However I do feel that I've lost my mojo over the past few weeks with my lifting in general, but particularly with my Pressing and never feel like I have the strength to really attack the lifts. Feeling achy and less energetic - doesn't seem to impact my rowing, but I definitely feel it with my lifting. Not sure if I'm training too often..I definitely know it isn't a calories thing and my sleep has been mainly ok. I've been having an edible most nights to help with sleep but there's a chance it's making me feel sluggish, so I'm gonna have a few days off of them and see if that makes a difference

we'll see.

training

2k warm up - 2.12/500m

2x13mins 5 mins rest

6821m at 1.54.3/500 24 spm

persisted with the guideline UT1 pace from Rathburn and found it easier than last time, but still quite challenging. IDK, I'm still playing catch up on learning the exact definitions and prolly still pushing a little harder than a true UT1 but I'm happy with doing this level of training twice a week, doing a longer slower one once a week and a more intense interval type session 1x a week so I'll just drop the definitions and stick with the plan for the next few weeks and see how it goes.

training

5x2 Bench 97.5kg
3x superset 10 Close Grip Bench 72.5kg/ 12 Bench Dips
3x superset 8 Barbell Curls 42.5kd/8 Hammer curls 12.5kg

reduced mojo on bench continues...this was supposed to be 5x3 but was training at home and didn't have the minerals for the third rep on any sets. tbh, not sure the third rep was there either

joints and muscles less achy the past few days which is great. the last two nights I've consumed 0 alcohol and 0 pot and slept very well. (i did fall off the wagon on Sunday where I drank a bottle of red, but outside of that it's 0 alcohol days in the past 17). Hoping to sustain the sobriety through til at least next weekend. Sunday provides a speed bump as it's Anzac Day here which is one of the biggest drinking days in the calendar but I'm taking both my boy and my father to a rugby league game and will be driving, so I'm hopeful I'll be able to hold out.

Good job with the sobriety. I was under the impression that there was a law requiring ex-rugby players to get shitfaced on a daily basis.

before we bugger coach other?

* each

Has your sleep improved with your sobriety?

to some degree yes, but it's not dramatic.

I definitely wake up feeling more refreshed. While some nights i still sleep more/better than others, I'm not having any 'bad' nights sleep and I'm not getting any anxiety driven 3am wake ups, which I sometimes get when I've drunk a lot and I've got a lot on my mind.

my fitbit sleep tracker is only giving me slightly better scores and the amount of actual sleep it's tracking is also only a little more ... maybe 15 mins extra a night with slightly less 'awake time' in it.

my resting heart beat is down 3-4 beats though. It was mainly averaging 67/68 but over the past few weeks it's been at 64. I had a bad night's sleep after poker on Sat night and it was 66 on Sun, then when I had a drink on Sunday night, it was 68 on Monday but then has dropped back down to 64 again the past 3 days after no drinking or edibles.

idk what it all means but I feel better in myself for not drinking so much and now I'm out of the habit of every night drinking, I shake my head at the fact I was doing it

That's still kinda high, I would think h&f's fittest man would be at least in the 50s and possibly in the 40s.

Will talk to my people about revoking your title and giving it back to montecore. Maybe you just a flash in the pan, bro.

all of a sudden my life is empty again.

re my heart rate...I never really tracked it when I was younger so idk. maybe it drops more if I continue to get fitter? I'll attach the pic of the fitbit tracked resting heart rate since I started wearing it at Christmas and you can see the downward curve so there's clearly a correlation. I do know my brother is high 50s and he would giggle as he ran backwards faster than anyone in h&f so again, idk how much more potential there is for my hr to drop.

I've been on record half a dozen times that I think Monte will beat my rowing times if/when he ever raced them. Maybe I've got to equivalent times quicker than he did and that means something in terms of long term potential, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter at all. All that matters is our own personal journeys. I will honestly be delighted if he beats my times - he rows a lot and he's doing the process properly so he deserves to row fast

training today was unfortunately different to what was planned.

major teenage daughter issues the past 24 hours. Haven't been able to focus on work all day and didn't have the mental headspace for an interval session

did 35 mins at 15 spm with drag of 95 - 8150m at 2.09.9...almost did it as meditation. just got into a rhythm and listened to a pod and it made me feel a lot better. Was going for 50 mins but I had to collect son from school.

still...a lot better than nothing and I'll do the interval session on Sunday

Sorry about that feel - hopefully things improve. Nice work getting a session in regardless.

Re: RHR, I take it a few times a week first thing in the morning and I'm generally around 44-48. No real idea how much of that is nature vs nurture.

A fitbit cmon Garmin dropped this new one

https://buy.garmin.com/en-CA/CA/p/70...n/010-02430-00

buddy of mine just rowed a marathon in 2 hrs 51. 2.01/500 average

not sure I want to do that and know that I couldn’t row that fast

(He has a 3.02 1000m)

remarkably he did it at drag 120 and 24 sr

Lol wtf

Here is the proof. Pretty impressive stuff

That doing it at 24 spm is the most impressive thing for me really drives home how truly shitty my aerobic base is. Incredibly impressive stuff.

From the video he posted, he has a really short stroke and I’m guessing your coach wouldn’t approve but he’s strong and he clearly has a great engine. Top 40 in the world for 40-50 age group

He also trains super intensely (he did CrossFit Murph every day for a month last year) and has hurt his back twice so...

I still remember when that was a workout at the games 2018. I was shocked at how good the times were.
Men Winner 2:43:50
Womens 3:00:42

45 mins. 10920m at 2.03.7

splits went
2.06.4
2.04.5
2.02.5
2.02

kept the drag at 110 and stroke rate was 20. I think I'm strong enough for this to be fine for my medium speed longer rows. (I'm gonna stop using the UT1, 2 and 3 designations, because i really don't understand them)

was fine. drank again last night and took a sleeping pill to ensure I slept through after 2 nights of 5 hours sleep

20 spm is kind of classically on the border between UT2 and UT1; UT2 is generally ~16-18 spm with a bit of a heavier stroke, and UT1 is ~20-24 and a bit lighter and tappier. Gardner may call this "gray zone" training (i.e. more fatiguing than classical steady state without the benefits associated with getting fully into UT1), but who knows. Stroke rate seems slightly high for what I'd consider UT2, but I don't think it's a huge deal. Any HR data?