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