Harder Than It Looks on Paper

/i

OK, that was a good session. I didn’t think it was going to be.

My recovery, according to WHOOP, was down in the yellow at around 47%. Not terrible, not great. CoachGPT’s prescription for today was simple enough on paper: three 6-minute intervals at a pace between 2:02 and 2:05/500m, with a stroke rate of 22–24.

I looked at it and thought, what’s the point? It didn’t sound like there was going to be much effort involved.

Turned out I was wrong.

I did my warm-up and then got into the first 6 minutes. Holding 2:02 at 22 strokes per minute is actually a fair bit of work. It ties straight back to what we were talking about the other day: lower stroke rate means you have to put more power into each stroke.

By the end of the first 6 minutes I was puffing. I took the 2-minute rest, started the second 6-minute block, and I was definitely working by the end of that one too.

The third set was the most interesting. I couldn’t find a rhythm at all to start with. I was either rowing too fast or too slow. Pace drifting, stroke rate drifting. It took me nearly half of that final 6-minute interval to settle into the groove of 22 strokes a minute at around 2:02/500m.

Once I locked it in, it felt solid, but it was a much more intense session than it looked on paper.

Feels good. Off to work now.

This is The Sub-7 Experiment.