Where's Your Head At

Gonna be pumped - like this kid

Here's the follow up to my post from yesterday - how am I feeling mentally now we're coming up to the big day.

It's fair to say that the mental challenge is going to be the biggest one. I'm pretty confident of my physical ability; I've trained hard for a long time and am feeling in good shape. I've got no idea how I'm going to cope with it mentally - I've never done one thing over and over again for about 10 hours. 

Doing 4/5 hour sessions is definitely heading in the right direction and I've been learning various coping techniques. My favourite of these involves getting into a really consistent rhythm on the rowing machine, focusing on whatever I can hear (normally "Fighting Talk", which, by the way, is a must listen if you like sport at all) and then slowly drifting out of real consciousness. I can often get a good 20-30mins done without really realising it. Another good way to let time drift away is just to really focus on my technique. That doesn't necessarily mean making it any good; I often focus on catching (i.e. starting my stroke) as far forward as possible. I quite enjoy just watching people wandering around the gym as well, especially when they're doing something ridiculous (this is probably the only place where there's ever been a shout out for the man who always comes to the gym in a backwards baseball cap - especially when he tries to do sit-ups and his cap keeps falling off). So overall I think the normal training has got me most of the way to being mentally ready. The rest will come on the day - I'm famously obnoxious about these sorts of things (see rowing with broken ribs or playing hockey when I couldn't walk).

But, how am I actually feeling now the row's approaching? I'm apprehensive about how it's going to go because it's really a dive into the unknown. I'm excited about having raised so much money (hopefully with more still to come in). And I'm relieved that the row is finally about to happen. There's been such a build up and at points I've not been able to see the end point. That might sound a bit down, but that's not what I mean - I'll be pumped up on the actual day. It's just that my overwhelming feeling is being thankful that I won't have to wake up at 5:45 in the morning to row and I'll be able to do some different forms of exercise. I'm also looking forward to not having to feel guilty if I need to miss a session!

I'll put up another update before I actually do the row, just to give a final impression. If you'd like to donate please do so at http://www.justgiving.com/100km-row. And (as always) many, many thanks to all of you who have donated so generously so far.

James xx

(Considerably) Over 1,000,000m done and less than a week to go

If I were moving I'd have passed here... (tediously, I'm not!)

It feels slightly strange to be only 6 days away from the row; I've been training for so long that at points it's felt like my row is never actually going to happen. Mainly I'm happy about almost being there - it's definitely time to just get it over with. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy to have done the training so far and I've learnt a lot from doing it, but rowing quite slowly, by yourself, staring at a wall gets a bit dull. You have to bear in mind that (by my reckoning) I've done over 1,000,000m during training - for context that's further than from London to Milan.

Last week was a pretty good one training-wise. I needed it to be because from now on I'll just be tapering before the big day. I managed a good 100k over the week, did a bit of cycling and had a few small weight sessions. I'm also happy with where I'm at technically (even though everybody is very confused by me tapping down). I haven't managed to resolve my basic issue of lack of discipline - it's far too easy just to row a bit faster when I know I'm "only" rowing 10/20km.

This week I'm just going to keep myself ticking over really. I'll do some little rows, but I'll focus on stretching. How flexible I am is going to have a major say in how easy the row is - when I'm going to be doing 10,000 odd strokes getting an extra 10cm per stroke will make a significant difference. Otherwise I'm going to make sure I do all the basics; I'll keep my fluid levels as high as possible, I'll eat well, sleep well and keep taking my vitamins and minerals.

I know I've focused on the physical aspects throughout my posts, so tomorrow I'll write about how I'm feeling mentally. The mental aspect of rowing for 10 or so hours is probably going to be the biggest challenge.

As always many thanks to those who've donated. And to those that haven't please pop over to http://www.justgiving.com/100km-row. It's much appreciated. And for those who want a bit of an insight into my mind the check back here tomorrow.

Cheers,
James x

The First Bad Week... (But it's all picking up now!)

Hi all,

Sorry for the slight break in writing - last week was a bit of a downer so I didn't fancy writing. I was a bit ill, so was faced with the dilemma of forcing myself to row and potentially delaying my recovery or resting up. I ended up choosing to rest up, but it does mean that I lost almost a week of training (which is hardly ideal with only a couple of weeks to do). I decided to rest up because I figured that over-training probably played a role in me being a bit under the weather.

Anyway I'm back to being positive again now - I'm back rowing in the mornings and I don't feel like I've been set back too far. This is going to be my last week of full training; next week I'll stick to about 10k a day and stretching. That's a little bit worrying, but mainly I just want to do the row now - I've been training for months and I'm finally reaching the climax. I'm still confident about it - the only worry is that the issues are the same as always. I've not really managed to find a solution on the bum pain (I'm just going to use pillows as much as possible) or going too quickly (I'm hoping that having some people - I'm looking at you lil' Jen - will control me a bit better).

A "recumbent" exercise bike

I think if I ever trained for something like this again I'd mix it up a bit more when I started. In retrospect I would have cycled a bit more to keep things more interesting - I think a "recumbent" exercise bike would probably have helped with my glutes as well. I've become a bit over specialised at rowing - at a physical assessment I was one of the only people who came out with stronger arm pulling than pushing strength (I know that shows my technique's a bit dodgy, but I'll do whatever's comfortable when I'm rowing this much).

Anyway I hope you're all well and if you'd like to donate please do at http://www.justgiving.com/100km-row. And thanks again if you've already donated,

Cheers,
James

A Marathon Row...

Hi all,

I did my first longer row yesterday, so I thought I'd update you on how it went.

I did 40km, which was a pretty good distance. I was intending to do 50, but my desire to watch England vs Australia in the rugby league outweighed the lessons I thought I'd learn from another 10k (turned out to probably be the wrong choice - England were very, very frustrating).

Haile and I both covered roughly the same distance

So I rowed basically the distance of a marathon and it went pretty well. I purposefully kept myself rowing pretty slowly, but still averaged about 2:35/500m over the row which was faster than expected. I forced myself to take reasonable breaks (a couple of minutes) between 10km sessions, so ended up taking about 3 hours 45 minutes.

I didn't actually feel too bad at any point during the row, though there were up and down periods. My main problem was my bum (as expected). I mixed up just using the seat and using an erg cushion to try to reduce this problem and it did make a bit of a difference. When I row the full distance I think I'll mix in a normal cushion as well. I really wasn't too knackered - physically - by the row, which is a major positive (even though it was expected). I've also not got any muscular or joint problems today (the day after the row), which is great.

So overall I was very happy with it and it made me see that this is definitely achievable - even though it will be right at the end of my physical limit.

I'm taking a fair few of these bad boys

One other thing I thought that might be of interest is my diet at the moment. I'll just give you the weekday run-down, as weekends are a bit less predicable (e.g. my row yesterday used up 2,200 kcals for starters). At breakfast I'm going for a large bowl of cereal (skimmed milk) with a smoothie, lunch tends to be a couple of rolls with a few slices of something with lots of protein and salad, and dinner is a large pasta-based meal (remember I'm rowing in the mornings). So almost all my complex carbs are coming from my evening meal - it's not ideal, but work really restricts who my meals are laid out. If I feel the need for a snack I'm going for dried fruit of some sort (generally cranberries, raisins and sultanas for me). Supplement-wise I'm taking a multivitamin tablet, glucosamine sulphate and fish oil tablets (for my joints - I'm hypermobile, so have joint stability issues), and methylsulphonylmethane (again for joints, but for cartilage). I'm not necessarily convinced by them, but it seems better to cover every base at the moment.

Anyway, thanks again for reading. If you'd like to donate please do so at http://www.justgiving.com/100km-row. And it is much appreciated if you've already done so. If you'd like to see why I'm doing this please read my first post.

Hope you're doing well and thanks for reading,
James

The Date is Set!

Hi all,

This time I have managed to hold back the blog until my row date was confirmed - Saturday 3rd December is row day. One month to go...

A model performer under pressure

So while it's great to finally have a date set, it does also mean that this has all suddenly become a lot more real and therefore scary. Luckily training is still going well and the early mornings have really helped my rowing (though I'm not sure getting up at 6ish is ideal longer term). I managed to get through a pretty good distance during the week and felt fairly solid throughout.

I do need to get some real stints in, so this weekend I'm going to be very anti-social and stay in Portsmouth. I'm intending to do a 40 or 50k row on Saturday just to see how it goes. I'll put up another post afterwards because it'll be the closest I'm probably going to come to the real distance before actually rowing. My main concerns are still: 1) Rowing at a consistent rate and 2) sitting down for that long in the same position is going to start to hurt my bum. And the fact that these are my biggest concerns has got to be a good sign.

Now I've got a date I'm going to start pushing the sponsorship much harder - somehow it didn't quite feel right asking people to sponsor something with no fixed date. It's going pretty well so far, so thanks to all of you who've donated. And here's the link for those that haven't http://www.justgiving.com/100km-row.

Thanks,
James