Day Off: A well deserved rest

It's said Sunday is a day of rest. My kids and I are just hanging out watching early morning cartoon together. My legs are tired, my body is aching and I feel like much of the day will be a slow day.

It has been a solid few weeks. Today's not our first session or sessions off but its the first full day that I feel like I have earned. Some wonderful things have happened over the last few weeks and in particular some of the recent activities have been greatly insightful. A few ergo's and wattbike challenges this last week which made life interesting. Add to this some very good pair rows while our four is separated before our next camp. Then we enjoyed some great time on the bikes. Yesterday finished with 140km with some 6L of fluid consumed with an average of 35km/h with Josh.

The recent weeks saw some positive rowing in the leading up to the NSW state champs, this week though was about re-establishing ourselves with some volume while testing our limits with threshold work. The time apart from the four is so we get time home with families.

Before we have been able to enjoy a day like today we were required to log so solid work as I have indicated. One example is the ergo session we did Friday afternoon as our third session for the day. The previous bike ride and row set us up nicely to feel like we had truly hit the wall.

My ergo was on stationary as I am still alternating ergo session between sliders and stationary. Josh did is on sliders and reminded us again why he is the human horse. The session was 6 x 10min with lactate to be kept below 4mml. Here's my ergo screen...



Mentioning Josh and his impressive capacity he did slightly better splits with slight lower heart rates and half the lactate values. I think his highest one was was 1.7 with lower levels being 0.9 sitting on 1.37 splits.

This was an interesting session and a great test of threshold capacity. My max heart rate was 167 with my highest average coming in the final 10min effort with an average 163. Eight out of ten effort were sub 160 average heart rate with all bar one lactate sample below 4mml.

Josh and I did the session at different times so I got the chance to watch him do a few of his efforts.



Here he was in action in the second last effort. What's great to see is this younger athlete developing and learning. His capacity is undeniable and his work ethic through these type of session is become impressive. On days like this with sessions of this nature it is a test of resolve, persistence and willingness to take up the challenge. Being that it was just one part of a very full day of training is what's even more enjoyable. It was also part of a challenging week. It however is just another week in the build up to London.

So now back to my rest day as even the thought of last week make me tired and to spend even part of this beautiful day considering what's ahead in the coming weeks makes me more weary. My feet are up to toons are on and the kids and I are just hanging out. Don't worry the quiet won't last long as they will most certainly want to get outside and off to the park to play soon.