Training
Usually, recovery weeks are not very exciting. This Friday, however, we had our first lactate threshold test of the year, so I actually have something to write about!
After taking Monday off, I started the workout week with aerobic/anaerobic intervals on Tuesday. Following a 10-minute warm-up on the erg, I had to do 8 intervals of 2 minutes anaerobic threshold training followed by 2 minutes of aerobic active recovery. Finally, I had the pleasure of spending a bit of time in the weight room, doing 3 rounds of one legged deadlifts and bar rows, as well as 4 rounds of core strength tabata.
Even though, I was supposed to rest on Wednesday as well, I felt like I really needed to move after a frustrating work day in front of my computer and treated myself to a relaxing 30-minute steady-state ride on my indoor bike. Even though the workout was really low intensity, I was able to easily cycle 1-2 km/h faster than only a few weeks ago! Success!
Since our lactate threshold test was scheduled for Friday, I didn’t try beating the system and took Thursday off, as I was supposed to. It helped that we were visiting family and I didn’t spend the day working at my computer, which usually makes me really aggressive. Haha.
Friday‘s lactate threshold test was actually quite successful because I pulled 30 watts more than I was able to before the winter, which I am really happy about. Admittedly, I didn’t perform too well in the previous test because I’d just returned from Canada and was incredibly jet-lagged, but the test is not the only indication that I’ve become much stronger. Funnily, I was upset that I couldn’t get to the next effort level, but I think you can’t be a successful athlete without always aiming higher. Right?
On the weekend, both on Saturday and Sunday, Tina and I trained in the quad with Andrea and Eva, and, once again, really enjoyed it. We primarily focused on doing technique drills, as well as 5-minute segments at higher stroke rates, 20, 22, 24, and so on. In total, we rowed approximately 24km. We were aiming to do a longer 15km session on Sunday, but some of us had family obligations since it was Easter Sunday, so time was a bit limited.
I always feel like I have to recover from our recovery week because it is quite exhausting recovering from exhaustion. Haha. It is quite funny because in the summer and fall, we didn’t know why we didn’t perform particularly well in races, especially in comparison to intervals we’d been doing in our regular workout sessions, until we realized that we were just always really exhausted during recovery weeks. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but it was one of the reasons for us not having a recovery week before the indoor championships. We also have to do some form of intervals during recovery weeks now so we don’t relax too much. Haha. As an athlete you just always have to work hard.