Today before rowing I read a few chapters in a book titled "Iron War," by Matt Fitzgerald. I had recently bought another book by the same author, titled "How Bad Do You Want It?" The latter is one of his newest books. But before I got very far into that book I remembered that I had a copy of Iron War misplaced somewhere. So I found Iron War and decided to read it before the newest book.
Iron War is a great read and a real "page turner." Fitzgerald can write as compellingly about sports as does Michael Lewis in his non-fiction dramas about the world of finance and statistics.
By the time I was done with breakfast and coffee, a few chapters of Iron War had been devoured and I felt inspired enough to attempt a 10K season best for today's rowing.
The sore throat and other symptoms seemed to have almost completely disappeared, but the throat seemed a bit sensitive to inhaling dry air through the mouth, so I kept my mouth closed during the first 20 minutes or so of the 10K. By 20-30 minutes into the session, the evaporation of sweat had sufficiently raised the humidity in the 10x10 room used for rowing, that I was able to inhale through open mouth if I wished, without drying the windpipe and irritating it. The human body, when working above a certain level, can self-humidify the immediate area if there isn't too much air-circulation from the room to the outside.
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| If she keeps her arms elevated, her sweat can more efficiently evaporate and humidify the room. |
So the target/goal for today's 10K was to not only improve my 10K time this season but also to improve it enough to move up a bit in the 10K World Standings for men the same age as I am, technically. Though I usually answer that I'm 39, technically according to my driver's license I'm 69.
Below is a view of the 10K World Ranking standings before today's session, in which I was ranked 7th place:
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| 10 K standings for men my age before today's piece. |
The new 10K standings after today's piece was ranked will be the last image in this blog post.
To add a little incentive to today's piece, I did two things. First, I told one of my daughters with whom I happened to be texting, about what I was going to try to do. Second, I added 3 pace boats to the session. The slowest pace boat would be the one to beat and move up from 7th to 6th in the standings. The next fastest pace boat would move me up from 7th to 5th. Finishing ahead of the third and fastest pace boat would move me up to 4th place.
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| Starting screen showing the 3 pace boats. |
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| Session report |
After the start, though, I didn't pay attention to the pace boats. Instead, I just listened to music with part of my mind, calculated about how many meters would pass before each song ended, and focused on keeping the average pace to something faster than 2:03, which didn't seem like it would ever get painful. Gainful without painful seemed to be another goal. I knew that if I were to work hard enough to try to pass the current first or second place holders, I'd have to row at a pace that would become painful quite a bit before the last couple minutes of the 10K. I usually like to reserve any venture into pain until the last 500 meters or so.
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| finish screen |
So all went well and there wasn't any significant pain, not even during the final 500 meter sprint. The result, as shown in the screen print below this paragraph, was to move from 7th place to 3rd place among 69 year old "heavyweight" men who have ranked the results of their 10Ks so far this season.
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| Third place. For the time being, at least... |
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