Here's my plan…

Meters: 6,000;
Time: 28:24;
500m pace: 2:21-2:23;
SPM 24; TMR: 16,621

Here’s my plan… 

Well, actually, I don’t have a plan. Best I can say is that for right now, probably through the end of September, early October, I’ll stick with what I got going now — 25-, 30-minute pulls at my jog pace, to re-lay some foundation after spending most of the summer doing 12-mile bike rides a couple times a week down in Ocean City, New Jersey, at Noreen’s dad’s place.

I’ve checked in with www.concept2.com  for its tips on “Getting Started” and “Training,” and “Racing.” I all does seem fairly straightforward. It also seems kinda-sorta like what I have been doing often as not over the years, at least when I wanted to mix things up and keep myself interested.

I have a couple of favorite workouts.

1. A 25-minute pull at jog pace, but with an all-out sprint for one minute at the five-, 10-, 15- and 20-minute marks.
2. Same thing only different: 500-meter warm-up / 500-meter sprint / 1,000-meter jog / 500-meter sprint / 1,000-meter jog / 500-meter sprint / 1,000-meter jog / 500-meter sprint / 500-meter cool down.
3. “Power 10,” a workout suggested by a colleague at work who rowed varsity lightweight in college. A 25-minute pull, but at minutes 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9 and 15, 16, 17, 18 & 19 a ten-stroke all-out sprint. This is a personal fav, if only because with all that gotta-concentrate, fast-slow-fast-slow, count-to-ten stuff, the whole thing just flies by.

But here’s one thing I have never done. And if I’m honest with myself I’d have to stay it’s because I have always been — no other way to say this — scared to give it a go. And that’s a straight-forward 2,000-meter row at whatever the fastest pace is that I can maintain over the entire distance. Yeah, wuss. Haven’t got time for the pain, or something.

Which brings me to this. My jog pace was, up until just a few years ago, a sub 2:20 — a 2:18, a 2:19, somewhere in there. I could hold that easily. But once past 50 (or, really, once closer to 55) I found that counterproductive, too difficult to bounce back from. So I backed off a bit to a sub 2:25 and found that doable.

The real problem is my “sprint.” Yes, there was a time I could get down to 1:50 for the full minute. But in my real, nearly-56-year-old world, I’m lucky if I can hold a sub two minute. Yes, I have done the math. Four times 500-meters at two minutes equals 2,000 meters at eight minutes.

You tell me: Should I even bother to show up at the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s with a time like that?

Let the record reflect that I have said it before: I have work to do.