It’s been almost exactly a week since I did anything strenuous. But it was a lovely week with the family. Getting outside, looking at things, doing normal life, and just being together.
Back at it today. Not in the gym, but out in the shed on the rower.
Nothing hectic. Just a fairly cruisy 7,000 metres in 30 minutes.
It’s funny how I’m now calling that “cruisy,” because it used to be the max. That’s probably the simplest sign that progress is happening. I’ve come a long way, and I’ve still got further to go, but I’m pleased with it.
It’s Tuesday and I’ve just finished another 30-minute row.
Nothing major to report, and that’s kind of the point. The pace is there, and it’s growing. The strength is growing too. It all feels like it’s moving in the right direction.
The big thing I’m noticing is controlled power. When I need to turn it on, it’s there, and it doesn’t feel messy.
The pacing was there or thereabouts where Coach GPT asked me to be. I had a little focus wobble around the 15-minute mark, but I pulled it back in and finished stronger.
Quiet progress. Controlled effort. Another good session.
I did my regular hour route — about 23k in just under an hour — basically up a hill and down the other side. It was the first time I’ve been on the bike since September and it felt really good to be back on it.
Monday was a “day off,” but not a dead day. I walked 6k, which was perfect active recovery.
Then this morning, Tuesday, I wasn’t really feeling it. If I’m honest, I could still feel Sunday’s cycling in my legs when I was going up and down the stairs. I also had a couple of early calls, which is another easy excuse to write the morning off.
But I’m a lucky boy — I’ve got a rowing machine in the shed.
So I put my gear on, went out, sat down, and did 40 minutes. Easy pace, nothing too hectic, but I wound it up for the last five minutes just to finish with a bit of intent.
And I feel great.
This is what progress looks like at the moment: keep turning up, keep it sensible, and use the rower as the reliable reset button.
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.
WHOOP was green when I woke up, and green means go. So I went.
I did a short warm-up, then 35 minutes on the rower at an average pace of about 2:04/500m, which worked out to roughly 8,500 metres. With the warm-up and cool-down, it comes in around 11k for the day.
Nothing dramatic, no heroics. Just a solid, steady session and another brick in the wall.
When I finish my sessions, I take screenshots of the WHOOP data and the ErgData app and feed them back into Coach ChatGPT. Today I noticed something new. It didn’t just say “good job.” It started to ask for specific changes in the data.
My pace was where it had asked for it, if not a little quicker. What it picked up on was my stroke rate. It pointed out that I was moving a bit fast and that it would like to see the same pace but with a lower stroke rate.
That probably doesn’t make much sense unless you are used to the action of rowing.
Inside the rower is a flywheel that gives you the resistance on each stroke. On the recovery part of the stroke, that flywheel slows down, and how much it slows depends on the damper setting. The higher the damper, the more the flywheel slows, and the harder you have to work on each stroke to get it spinning again. To keep a 2:04 pace at a higher stroke rate, say 26–28 strokes per minute, you can “get away with” less power per stroke. To hold the same 2:04 at 22–24 strokes per minute, each stroke has to do more work.
In simple terms, CoachGPT is asking me to slow the stroke rate down and put more power into each stroke. Get stronger, not just spin faster.
I hadn’t really seen it nudge me like that before. That is good. It means the coach is starting to care about how I make the split, not just the number on the screen.
It felt like the first real, proper work towards the Sub-7 project for a long time. I did six 500 metre intervals, sitting pretty consistently around 1:52/500m. It felt like work – in a good way. Hard enough that I had to concentrate, not so hard that I was falling apart.
After that I dropped the intensity and spent 15 minutes just cruising around the virtual loop, spinning the legs and letting the heart rate come down.
Nothing dramatic to report. No breakthroughs. Just solid work.
We’re on the right route. I think we always have been – it’s just that some phases feel easier than others.
I’m afraid I didn’t listen to CoachGPT at all today.
I knew I wanted to row, and I knew I wanted it to be tough. When I asked ChatGPT for a plan earlier, it came back with something sensible enough, but my head wanted a long, hard row for the sake of headspace, not optimisation.
So that’s what I did.
It’s chucking down with rain outside. This is exactly why I wanted a rowing machine in the shed. With the way my head was this morning, there was no way I was going to get in the car, drive to the gym and do a session there. Walking across the garden to the shed felt possible. Driving across town did not.
On the Concept2 PM5 you can connect your phone over Bluetooth and use the Concept2 app ErgData. There’s a feature in there called Real Time – basically a virtual 1,000 metre lap that anyone can join in real time if they’re logged in.
I’ve used it on the last few longer rows, and I really like it. Today there were 36 people from around 20 countries on the same virtual loop. You don’t see their exact pace numbers, but you see if they’re coming past you or if you’re moving through them. There are also virtual pace boats going round, so if you want something to latch on to, you pick a boat and hang on. Alongside that you still get your own pace, stroke rate, distance and time. Plenty to chew on.
Today’s session was:
5 minute warm-up
30 minutes on the virtual loop at an average pace of 2:04/500m
250m all-out sprint
5 minute warm-down
I was moving, and it felt good.
It wasn’t by the book. It wasn’t what the coach recommended. But I finished feeling great, and I needed that sense of control today – the feeling that I had chosen the hard thing and seen it through.
This is The Sub-7 Experiment, and sometimes I’m the one steering.
WHOOP scores this morning showed recovery way down, sleep way down, and if there was a dial for enthusiasm, that would have been way down too. Previously I would have talked myself out of any exercise on a morning like this.
But here’s the big change: I have a rower in the shed now. No excuses.
So I put my gear on, stuck on some banging tunes and went out to the shed for a ChatGPT-approved workout: ten minutes at a reasonable pace, then 3 × 5 minute sets at around 2:05/500m.
And it was great.
It got rid of the funk and set me up to finally finish a work task that had been hanging over me all weekend.
Today was the first 30 minute row on my new Concept2 RowErg. In my shed.
I am so excited to have this, and I recognise the privileged position I am in to be able to own my own machine. It is something I have dreamed about for a long time.
No excuses not to row. No excuses not to move every day.
Gym for strength work. Shed for rowing technique and pacing.
I am delighted.
This is The Sub-7 Experiment, and we have just changed gear.
There was ice on the car. The heating was on in the house. Everyone else was warm and cosy. It would have been very easy to stay in bed, put something on the TV and write the whole morning off as “rest.”
Instead, I scraped the ice off the car, put my gym gear on and went.
Same routine as the last few days: I took my WHOOP scores and fed them into ChatGPT. Recovery, strain, sleep, stress, all of it. This time the response was different. Instead of another rowing session, it came back with a strength and conditioning workout.
The plan was very specific. Exact machines. Exact reps. Exact weights.
There was only one problem. The weights it suggested were based on the numbers from a couple of months ago, pre-surgery, when I was training regularly and feeling stronger. I am not quite there yet.
So I asked the obvious question: are you sure about those weights, given that we have not done this in a while?
To its credit, Coach GPT backed off. It lowered the recommended loads to something more realistic, and in the end they felt pretty much perfect. Hard work, but not stupid.
There was another small win before I even started. On Thursday I had left my heel wedges at the gym. I assumed they were gone. When I walked in this morning, the receptionist handed them back. Someone had found them and turned them in. A tiny thing, but it felt like a good sign.
Session done, I finished on the rower with two 250 metre sprints. The first one was fast but messy. I got a bit carried away, my wedges slipped and my feet came out of the shoes with about 18 metres left. Almost there, not quite. The second sprint was much more controlled.
I am counting all of this as prototyping for the wedges. When the rower finally arrives at home, I want that setup dialled in so I can just strap in and go.
Right now the car thermometer says minus 0.5°C. It is still cold, but I feel great. I have a solid session in the bag, I am not wrecked, and the next job is to go home, rouse the rest of the house and get everyone out for a walk around the lake.
Training done. Family next. A good Sunday.
Another good session logged. This is The Sub-7 Experiment. And it continues.
The Sub-7 Experiment 