Fall Training.

The week after the National Rowing Championships (NRC's) I was hoping for a nice down week of recovery and rest. Instead, there was a battery of physiological (and psychological) testing called the RADAR - as I have mentioned previously, it involves 5 tests on the erg (indoor rower) and one on-water time trial;
10 stroke Peak Power (watts)
1minute (meters)
2000m (time)
6000m (time)
60minute (meters)

In my opinion, I like the idea around the testing session; a quantifiable way to determine fitness, and this series includes anaerobic power, lactate threshold, and aerobic endurance all in a few days! I do find it an emotional drain to get through each time around and luckily RCA has recently changed it from 4x/year down to only 3x.

I have improved my scores again from the last time (Aug. 2011) but I still have an arch-nemesis in the 6000m test. I consistently have frustrations just past half-way in the test and have under-performed the past 3-4 attempts. It will become my new "motivator" for the winter training.

Now that the RADAR scores have been submitted and I can get into winter training I feel the weather is cooperating perfectly. See below for the 10 day forecast outlook;

Training will be a combination of long Erg workouts at low rate (16-22 Strokes/minute), Rowing for LSD (long steady distance), and weight sessions 3x/week. I'm very excited to get into it.