BRIC
Well BRIC is now done and dusted. And for me a couple of good results in the end.
After last Tuesday's strong 30 minute row my prep on Wednesday and Thursday was far less promising, as on Wednesday I aborted a 6x500R2 after 3, admittedly fast, reps. Then on Thursday I ended a 1000m attempt about 300m in, and just paddled home. Friday was tied up in travelling up to London and a bit of Christmas shopping for the family. So, a rather disappointing "taper".
Come Saturday I was up at 5:45 and arrived at the Velodrome at about 8am for my 9:30 race, having caught the last overground train from Camden to Hackney Wick that, for a while, wasn't cancelled.
Discovered when getting changed that I'd forgotten to pack my sports bra, so had to use my civvie one instead - fortunately not as serious as when I forgot my shorts - which has happened twice now, in Cambridge and in Boston
.
Unlike last year my warm-up erg worked OK and I got my planned 10 minute warm-ups in for both the 2k and 500m.
Did a good 2k, didn't go out quite so fast as at Cardiff two weeks ago but improved on what I did then with a 2 second faster last 500m.
Splits were: 2:00.6 (27), 2:00.7 (28), 2:01.4 (29), 1:57.0 (32) to just dip under the 8 minutes at the last with a 7:59.8. This is a big step up from BRIC last year when I could only manage 8:03.5.
I
was unopposed in my 65-59 WH category but still pleased to have gone faster than the 60-64 year old women heavyweights: what I didn't do is beat
Carol Woodward who set a new 60-64 women's lightweight record in 7:55.9, despite not being in top form
.
In the 500m my first problem was that I forgot to take my water bottle down to the marshalling area. Carol was kind enough to offer me a couple of swigs but it was a rather dry warm-up and race at what is a very dry venue. The other problem was that my race erg was faulty. The chain was very 'graunchy'. No idea how previous users hadn't complained. I raised my hand and having first conformed that it
was faulty they moved me and my registration to another erg but this resulted in a 5 minute delay for everyone on my (blue) side of the floor (sorry!). The new erg chain was still not perfect, but much better than the previous one and I accepted a slight high, for me, existing drag factor (126) to avoid further delay.
Nevertheless, after all that, I had another strong row: splits of 1:53.0 (35), 1:46.5 (37), 1:47.0 (36),1:48.5 (39), 1:51.5 (40) for an overall 1:49.2, which was 0.9 seconds faster than in Cardiff and 0.5 seconds faster than last year's SB.
I had come with two other members of my OTW club, Teign Scullers, and
Brian (81) managed a bronze in the 500m.
Lucy had unfortunately put on a couple of kilos (muscle from weight training!) recently so had to compete as a heavyweight. As a lightweight she would have come second. Also saw and chatted to lots of old friends from Sub 7, The Diamonds, Royal Navy and the other Indoor Rowing clubs. Saw some class racing by the British Rowing team, amongst others. And got Graham Benton, who had done 5:57.1, up on the podium with me. Never realised before quite how tall he is
.
So now making plans to get to Manchester for the English IRC (3rd Feb) and maybe Copenhagen for the European IRC (26 Jan). And I've already booked my flights and a hotel for WRIC.
Meanwhile back to training with a 5k (for IRL), 10k , 60 minute and HM to do this month.
