the last thing that leaves the ex athlete is their self belief

so over the last few weeks, I've been mulling an opportunity to play with a bunch of former rugby players in a veterans tournament later this year. many of them were way better than I was and played long professional careers. It's been over 20 years since I played full contact rugby and about 15 since i stopped playing in my Touch Rugby league (not coincidentally...15 years since my ACL reconstruction). I still miss competition and physical contact and it was flattering to be asked. the thought process was 'why not...you're in good shape, it'll be good to have something to aim for and fun to compete again'

fast forward to this morning when I can hardly get out of bed & am undecided which leg to limp on as both knees and one Achilles hurts after playing soccer for an hour while coaching my 10yr old's team and I realise how delusional i was being.

getting old really does suck. even when you're fit and capable of performing selected fitness feats at a decent level, once you get outside the limited sphere of your training and do other stuff, there's a price to be paid in terms of joint, ligament and muscle pain & recovery

Unscheduled rest day today, knee too dodgy to row.

Hoping to do some lifting tomorrow and then will be able to get on the erg on Sun. Still holding out hope of a 2k time trial but preparation has not been optimal

Yeah I get what your saying . I was a Keeper at the college and Premier Divisions here. Once i Hit my early 40's i pretty much called it.
Still remember the game that ended it for me indoors. Could not stop a beach ball and the last goal hit the back board bounced off the back of my head and in . I still joke with my buddies let it 16 goals on 13 shots

Only one buddy that tries to play and always comes back injured after a game.

50 mins 11688m at 2.08.3/500. stroke rate 18

had two days off due to bad knee plus unscheduled lunchtime beers yesterday. Took a sleeping pill last night after 3 days **** sleeps and was fairly dusty this morning.

basically sat on a rower, listened to a pod and rowed and felt a lot better at the end than the beginning. knee feels a lot better.

will schedule a couple of hard sessions early next week and get back onto the clean living cycle with the plan of doing a 2k time trial at the end of next week

face pulls - 3x15 warm up

5x5 Bench Press 90kg (only did 4 reps on the third set as messed up the angle on one of the reps and it put the whole set off)

3x6 DB Bench 32kg DB

3x10/10 superset of Cable Push Downs 38.5kg/Cable Extensions 28.5kg

wife and all 3 kids have been sick with a head cold the past few days and I feel like I'm ducking and jiving the germs. Tripled up on my multivitamins today plus taking powdered vit C in an attempt to ward it off

2k warm up in 2.08/500 then

15 rounds of 60 secs on/60 secs off

4508m total at 1.39.8/500, 30 s/m

all intervals were either 300 or 301m = either 1.40.0 or 1.39.6/500m. took heart rate twice- was 158 at the end of interval 7 and 184 at the end of interval 15

tough but fun session. planning on doing another interval session on Thurs if I recover ok...if not, will do more of a UT1 type thing

etc

yup. I had to give up golf (back) and bowling (left knee & right arm). I can still powerlift at least.

training today

5x3 Press - 60kg
3xPress dropset 6/6 50/4-kg
4x8 Bent over row - 70kg
3x Barbell curl/Hammer curl super set 8/6-40kg/16kg DB

zero shoulder pain for the first time in months - the FacePulls are really helping

was tempted to do a 50cal assault bike blitz at the end but managed to hold off. Want to do a good interval session tomorrow on the erg and think being fresh for that is more important

we're on the home stretch of this stage of my PR 'journey'. While my 50th isn't for a few months, I have a 3 day weekend with my good friends up the coast in 3 weeks time that will be huge from a 'hard living' perspective and I'll be taking a week off all hard training afterwards.

so my plan is to try to fit in a time trial for all 3 of my rowing distances and then also get a 50cal assault bike attempt in.

may also get a DEXA and a blood test, just to mark the moment and see where I'm at

the above all relies on staying healthy and keeping the clean living tip going. The training will always happen, but I don't think the body responds as well when I'm drinking too much and not sleeping well.

I've done a mainly good job the past 6 weeks of weaning away the weekday alcohol. Last week wasn't great, but other than that I've been a lot more disciplined and it's helping me sleep better.

work is nuts right now, so I didn't have the time or headspace to do the 4x1k interval session I had planned

found 20 mins so just jumped on the erg without a warm up and rowed semi-hard

5054m in 20 mins 1.58.8/500m at 18 s/m

got the heart rate up, got a decent sweat on and cleared my head, so it ended up being a victory

ok, so I think I've found the goal to focus on moving forward.

my state has released a small series of Indoor Rowing competitions for the second half of the year. Specifically there are 3 events...One in early August, another in early September and then the state championships in early October. (there is also a National Championship in late October but there's no location on that yet?

two of the state ones are in Sydney and the third is only a 2 hour drive away, so ... almost 3 months away from the first one as we are...my plan is to compete in these three events with a real focus on the State Championships in early October

the format of them all is 3 separate sequential events - 2k, 1k and 500m. I'm not sure how far apart they are on the day. Guessing I would compete in all 3, albeit I think the 2k is the most important, so I'd be going in to PR that event and then seeing what I had left for the 1k and then just attempting something half decent in the 500 at the end.


should be fun and it would be nice to meet a few other people to connect with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUuzZ4lkgcw&t=11s

Monte...the drag factor recommendation from this guy is high and seems at odds with your boy? (AIS = Australian Institute of Sport which is where all the Olympians train)

I've already been thinking about experimenting with higher - I basically row everything at 108 at the moment. Thinking about doing a training cycle at 120 to see what the impact is

Training today

4 hours sleep, after just under 5 the night before... just so much work on my mind and a really difficult situation with one of my kids...just haven't been able to switch off. Feels bad to sleep so badly when I'm not even drinking!

5x3 Bench - 95kg
3x Bench drop set 7/7/7- 80kg/70/50
3x Barbell curl drop set 7/7/0-35kg/30/20

holy pump Batman!

happy to get through the session. that's 6 days in succession - rest day tomorrow and then a 2k on Sun, assuming I can stay off the booze

https://www.espn.com.au/olympics/sto...xtreme-weather

sent this to my ultra running bro - just one more reason not to run ridiculously long distances in dodgy terrain!

in other news...trying to force myself to head to my home gym and do a 2k but I'm absolutely ****ing terrified

managed to get through the nerves eventually.

Plan was the go out in 1.43.5 for the first 1k and then slowly ramp it up, with sub 6.52 the 'reasonable' goal and sub 6.50 the stretch goal.

felt exhausted after the warm up - only did 15 mins at an average of 2.08 with 4 or 5 'fast 5 strokes' in there but had to rest for several mins afterwards to get the heart rate down. probably just nerves...IDK

did a 'fast 5' strokes rather than a fast 10, in an attempt not to go out too fast, but still had to really reign it in to go through the 500m mark in 1.42.0

managed to stay on my intended pace for the next 1k but was really feeling the pain in the third 500. At half way, I'd thought sub 6.50 was in play, but while I held it together up to 1500, I really didn't have anything left at all when I attempted to turn the screw in the final 300. Chest was burning and the lungs felt close to exploding for the last 700 and in the end I was happy to get to the finish without blowing up.

Finish 6.51.4 at 1.42.8/500 which is a lifetime PR by 3.3 seconds

Would really like to race a 2k as a negative split next time, albeit...maybe going out hard and hanging on gets me to a better time? IDK but this was RPE 10 and the hardest I've ever raced any time trial

also....(suspend your disbelief Slim and thank you Monte) I managed to verify my time so I have official rankings on the C2 website.

The new ranking year is only 1 month old, so these rankings will of course drop but for now, we are....

#1 in the 40-49 age group in Australia
17th in 40-49 age group in the world (out of 591)
#5 in Australia all ages
#98 in the world all ages (out of 2240)

Congrats, it's nice to see all the training paying off!

Re: nerves and heart rate, I have a similar anecdote. I had 4 intervals the other day (deadlifts, med ball cleans, and rowing) and I was really dreading doing the 4th one. My HR went down to ~140 before I started the 4th interval. After finishing the 4th interval and with the same amount of rest afterwards (but not having the fear of another interval), my HR was at 110!!!

wow

Wow, great work and thanks for the trip report! Sounds like you emptied the tank on this one; nice work holding on at the end!

tyty.

First time where I really was totally screwed aftwrwards. I was totally worn out for hours after and I’ve got drunk very quickly this evening

(Which is awesome)

Nice PR and ranking!

I don’t know much about rowing but those rankings you posted seem very impressive. Congrats