Ergo pain

Yesterday the snow and frozen river granted me the pleasure of staying in Caversham for the weekend instead of driving to Lincolnshire and back.  I did however have to do a 5k rate capped ergo test in lieu of this.  Now, ergo's are nobody's friend but the 5k is surely not mine!  This was marginally better than the last 5k I did in January, but I'll have another couple of 5k's to do in January 2011 so am hoping to make further improvements.


On a separate note, the snow has finally hit us in Reading just in time for my day off today so my housemate and I were housebound all day.  We stayed in our PJ's, held a 4 hour marathon Monopoly session, watched a three hour film and sports personality of the year. 

Unfortunately the Monopoly game was not as enjoyable as I remembered it; nostalgia clouds the mind.  When you play with someone who is just as competitive as you it all gets a bit uncomfortable! After half an hour my housemate was winning by a mile and to keep me playing she bought me out of my properties and gave me money that I would shortly give right back to her. 

However, somehow after maintaining my hold on one set of properties and starting to build, the tables started to turn.  Four hours after starting the game she finally surrendered and I started to count my £60+m. Perseverance wins the day!


The playing of board games seems inextricably linked with Christmas and I can't wait to get home.  Having watched the travel disruptions of the past couple days I have my fingers firmly crossed that I get home safely and before the 25th! 

Merry Christmas all :)

Snow forecasts

Just a quick post...

Due to bad weather forcasts in Boston, Lincs later this week the 2nd 2010-2011 GB Trials have been cancelled, with a 5km ergo rate capped at 26 to be submitted instead.  This saves us the travelling and accomodation costs but I was looking forward to tearing it up on the water up in Boston! 

I'm hoping for a better ergo test on saturday than my 5k last year where I 'blew up', as we say, with 2.5km still to go! Then, a day off on Sunday, home on Wednesday for Christmas :) with land training for a week before I am back in Caversham.

Continuing forwards

So after saying just yesterday that the river was ok in this weather, this morning it had started to freeze! We were out in a quad for first session though so if one person's blades didn't get in the water because of a patch of ice usually the rest of us would be ok :D and it creeps out from the banks so we sat squarely in the middle of the river. Glad its a busy stretch of river, moves the water around a bit more!

Second session this morning I had a 30min ergo test (30mins at 20 strokes per minute) and took a massive 1.5seconds per 500m off my PB, so it's becoming quite respectable now it's in the 1m54's :)

Nine days till trials...

cold toes

I'm feeling pretty lucky at the moment; it seems like the snow has hit the whole of the United Kingdom apart from the Berkshire area. So, we had about a centimeter and a half that stuck around for maybe two days but apart from that, zilch!  That is not to say it's not been incredibly cold with temperatures of -4 celcius at 8am.  But at least we don't have to trudge through feet of snow and worry about crashing our cars on the way to and from the boat club.

We've been doing a few more ergos than usual, but the river is still flowing, whereas the lake at Caversham is frozen over so we have been lucky to be able to get on the water and I've had some freezing cold outings!  ...The kind where you wear two pairs of socks, plus ski socks and waterproof socks, two pairs of leggings, an all-in-one rowing unisuit, sports bra, short sleeved technical top, two long sleeved technical tops, a splash jacket, ear warmers, cap, pogies and a neck warmer. And you're still cold!  The river is beautiful in winter though, almost makes up for it ;)

Training is going well at the moment, really enjoying it and looking forward to trials in ten days time, up in Boston, Lincs.  Funny how they hold the Great Britain team trials up in Boston, obesity capital of the UK! 

We had our Reading University Boat Club Christmas dinner at the Crowne Plaza on Monday night.  Great fun but the food was a bit ridiculous; very small portions beautifully presented but did nobody tell them that this was a rowing dinner?! I was hungry when I went to bed and starving when I woke up in the morning! Eating is just about one of the best parts of being a rower. For me anyway, I have always loved to eat! Three sessions a day though makes sure that it doesnt all go to my hips.  Today we had 16km on the river in our singles, a UT2 session (aerobic) followed by 4 x's 500m on the ergo at your 2km pb split +4, +2, on pace and quicker than pace, and then weights and core circuit.  Oh and then work this afternoon! Keeps me busy :)