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21 May 2012: 21 days, 21 kilometres

This was on the radio as I drove to the gym – my favourite version of one of my all-time favourite songs. Compared to 3 or 4 minute pop numbers, the song itself is a mini-marathon. Quite fitting really…

Summary

Time to bed (previous night): 21:30 (maybe a little earlier)
Time got up (today): 03:00
Mood (1 to 5):
Morning 5
Lunch 5
Night 3 (very tired)

Journal

03:00 – Piece toast, glass water.
03:30 – Gym (see below)
06:15 – Bacon, egg, mushroom and cheese sandwich, orange juice
07:25 – Bus, rest, nap
08:30 – Long mac, bacon and egg sandwich
11:00 – Morning walk. Sliced banana, yoghurt, nuts and seeds
14:00 – Lunchtime walk. Wholemeal roll, chicken, cheese, avocado
16:00 –  Banana
18:30 – Meatballs, wholemeal pasta, pasta sauce (with lentils and veggies)
22:15 – Milk, bed

NOTE: As per advice, plenty of fluids consumed today (about 4 litres water) – I also kept relatively active, walking etc. So far it seems to be paying off!

Gym

5 mins warm-up bike – 2.104km

Half marathon row – 21km in 2 hours 8 minutes and 28 seconds

Stretching

Notes

Britt (again) recently mentioned the idea of doing a half marathon row. Yet again I fell for it!

I didn’t push hard – just a slow and steady pace. A little slower than the 60 minute row I completed recently…

Main observations from rowing for over 2 hours… heart and lungs coped fine, I did build up a reasonable sweat so having a small towel within reach was a good move. Having the water bottle within reach was also useful as I did need the occasional splash of water in my mouth.

As I say, in term of heart and lungs there was no issue. I probably could have kept going for a while longer from that perspective. That’s a good omen for scaling up to full marathon distance and making a start with running.

The main issues were a small blister on one finger, a sore backside, aching neck and shoulders and boredom! In fact I would definitely say that the main battle is a mental one – all those niggling aches and pains could easily have ended the row if I’d allowed them to get to me.

As it was, I didn’t. When I peeled myself off the rower, forced myself to stand up (it actually hurt to straighten my legs and back) – it felt GREAT.

I can’t remember the exact time, but the event was announced to the world via Facebook as:

“2 hours, 8 minutes, 28 seconds. Arse muscles locked, walking like I’m about to poo my pants. But I rowed 21km. Get in!”

 



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