Training
Last week was a recovery week, which I am always looking forward to, but don’t enjoy very much in the end. Somehow, I am always a little bit more exhausted than usual and quite grumpy and irritated. Since we competed in a regatta on Thursday, at least the week wasn’t too boring and I actually have something to write about. For a full race review, please refer to my previous post though.
After taking a much needed rest day on Monday, Tina and I had to get into gear for the race on Tuesday. In the double, we did four starts plus a 100m sprint, as well as three 500m intervals. Since the weather wasn’t great, some of the intervals were quite challenging because we don’t like headwind very much. At least our prayers for tailwind at the day of the regatta were heard. Haha.
On Wednesday, I was supposed to do a few sets of burpees, but I needed a bit of a longer workout in order to relax after a long day hunched over my books, so I spent 30 minutes on my indoor bike.
On Thursday, we raced in the double and the quad, as mentioned earlier, and won both races, which was a pleasant surprise. I decided to write up a separate post, which you can find here.
Friday was quite stressful because I scheduled two workouts as I’d forgotten about one of them. At midday, I trained with Max at the Crosszone and we primarily worked on improving my weightlifting technique. Since personal trainings with Max are always exhausting, I also had to do a 10 minute workout consisting of 1 minute burpees and 1 minute power cleans, followed by two rounds of core strength tabata. In the afternoon, we trained in the quad with junior B-girls from our club. Since I’d already done a workout in the morning, we basically did a 12km steady-state workout with a few technique drills. It went better than expected, with the only major problem being the lack of synchronicity in the finish of the stroke, which caused me quite a bit of back pain. I think we have very high standards though because our quad with Andrea and Eva is really fast and stable.
On Saturday morning, we trained in the quad with Andrea and Eva, but, unfortunately, I don’t remember if we did any intervals. I do remember though that, as usual, we did quite a few technique drills, such as square blade rowing, which went really well.
On Sunday, I was quite tired and unable to do intervals, so I decided to grant Herbert’s wish to row in the double with me. He’s made a lot of progress in the past few months and I am now able to count our workouts together as an actual workout. Haha. The workout was mostly steady-state with regular technique drills for Herbert. We primarily worked on improving his catch and getting him to be more relaxed throughout the stroke. For him, the key to success is being relaxed and not worrying too much. I think it went really well, especially since he mentioned finally “feeling” his back muscles after a workout in the boat. Yes!