Results

I started off confidently pulling a consistent 1m 50 per 500 without too much effort. Easy street. This lasted for about 500m and then I hit the wall...a little earlier than anticipated! The remaining 1500 was spent at a fairly uncomfortable 2mins per 500m. To put things into a bit of context for non-rowers, if I want to get to 7mins I will need to be pulling an average of 1m 45 per 500. As you can see I have a long way to go. Bearing in mind I thought I was going some at 1m 50 per 500 now I realise that getting to 7mins for 2km will be a stretch indeed. So how did I get on? The answer lies in the photo. For a bit of a pudding I didn't think it was too bad. Clearly a million miles away from target but potential all the same. For me the worrying thing is was that when I started the quickest I got to was about 1m 45/500 and I only kept this up for a a few strokes. The thought of maintaining this pace for 7mins is a touch daunting. I had to stop a couple of times to get rid of a touch of cramp so I'm sure with increased fitness it won't be too tricky to shave off 10secs at least. My mission for this week until the next time trial is to work on fitness. This week I shall mostly be running.

Just so you know what we're competing against the current record in my age category is (ie the fastest category) is Matthias Siejkowsk of German who completed 2k in 5:37. Not too shabby. If we were going head to head he would have been showered and changed by the time I finished. The good news is I pretty much equalled the world record time of Frederik Osborne of the USA who completed the test in 7mins 57 in the 80-84yr old category. And on that bombshell..