Here we are, Friday morning, and I’ve just finished in the gym.
It’s brightening up now. Blue sky, sun out. Quite different from last night, which was all howling wind, rain, thunder and lightning.
As for the gym, I woke up this morning feeling oddly apprehensive about going. They’ve refurbished it, and I realised I felt a bit like I did back at the start of this whole experiment: slightly intimidated and a bit overwhelmed.
They’ve been posting photos of the refurbishment on Instagram, and I couldn’t see a rowing machine anywhere. That bothered me more than I expected, because the rower has always been my safe zone in any gym. I know how to use it, I know what I’m doing on it, and after all this time I can hold a decent pace without feeling like an amateur.
So it was a relief to find they do have one, and not just any rower either. A lovely new Concept2. Tucked away, as gym rowers often are, but that’s fine. I know where it is now. It’s smooth and buttery, a lot like mine in the shed.
They’ve done a really good job with the refurbishment. There’s loads of new equipment and a few new machines to discover and have a go on. I tried a couple of them and all in all I’m quite happy with it.
That said, it is still a bit overwhelming in there.
There were a couple of moments where I found myself just standing there, looking around at this forest of strange-looking scaffolding, plates, handles, pads and seats, thinking: what exactly am I supposed to do here?
So I did what made sense. I found a machine I recognised, did a few bits on that, and then gradually started looking at the others.
The interesting thing, though, was this: because the gym only reopened on Saturday and this was only Wednesday, even the well-fit gym goers, the muscular and honed ones, were also wandering around looking at the new machines, reading the instructions, and scratching their heads a bit.
That made me think.
Maybe I’ve been seeing myself as the outsider in this gym community, when actually I’m just another person in the room figuring things out. Maybe the next step is not just learning the machines, but saying hello to people rather than skulking around in my headphones.
Early days. We’ll see.
For now, I’m pleased with the workout, pleased with the new gym, and glad I went.
I went to Dingle with my two cycling buddies, the two who normally drag me around these events and make sure I complete them. Both great lads, and I really love these trips away with them.
We have done a cycling adventure every year for the last few years, and they are great. Hire an Airbnb, go out for pizza the night before the event, cycle the event, go back out for a meal in the evening, and head home the following day.
Brilliant. Great rides, great company.
This year was a bit different. Our usual organised sportive didn’t take place, so the three of us decided to ride the Dingle Peninsula instead. One of our group had completed the Ride Dingle sportive a few years ago and was very impressed with the route, so we decided to do it ourselves this year.
We rented an Airbnb right on the route. Ordinarily, with a sportive, we have to drive to the event, find parking, do the ride, and then drive back to our accommodation. This year, the start and finish point was right on the driveway of the house, and that was fantastic.
The weather forecast was pretty hectic, with a yellow wind and rain warning in place for the day of the ride.
At about 9:00pm the night before, the wind started picking up and the rain started falling. By the time we all turned in for the night, the rain was hammering against the roof and windows. I don’t think any of us got much sleep, such was the noise of the tempest battering the house outside.
We had originally planned to set out at 9:00am, but given the weather, we pushed it to 10:00am. That was the right call. The wind started to die down and the rain was showery at most. By the time we rolled out, the rain had pretty much stopped.
We had also looked at the route and found alternatives and bail-out points where we could shorten the ride if the weather was too intense.
The first section was 20km from where we were staying into Dingle itself, over the Conor Pass. The main pull was just over 5km at an average of 9%, and by the time we reached the top we were in the clouds, unable to see much of the fantastic view that is normally available from there.
A quick leg stretch at the top, and then we dropped down into Dingle. Halfway down we were out of the clouds, and soon enough we were outside the first coffee stop of the day.
20km completed, and we were feeling good.
The decision was made to go for the next section of the ride, which looped out around the peninsula itself, past Slea Head, and back into Dingle.
It was still windy, but the sky brightened up and it remained dry for the rest of the day. It is such a spectacular part of the world, with rugged coastline, beautiful views, and interesting, technical roads. These are still public roads, open to two-way traffic, so care needs to be taken. But that being said, they are very rewarding roads to ride.
Back into Dingle for a late lunch, and that was 80km of the 120km completed.
The last section to get back to the house was mainly main road, so a lot busier traffic-wise, but there were great stretches of segregated cycle path, especially up the hills where bikes are so much slower than traffic. They were smooth and largely clear of the usual broken glass, sharp rocks, and overgrown foliage that normally seem to be strewn across cycle paths in this country.
There were 15 major climbs on the day, and when we got to the top of the 15th it was literally all downhill from there. The views from that last vantage point were magnificent, and we could practically see the house where we were staying from the top.
We clipped in and cycled back to the house. The last 7km or so were straight back into the headwind. The lads are always generous with their energy and I often find myself at the back of the line, tucked into the slipstream and well looked after. They both say they don’t mind, but it still plays on my mind. This year, with a few kilometres left and the wind still in our faces, I went to the front, dug in and emptied the tanks. Hopefully I gave them a bit of respite for the final drag home. We’d been pretty well matched all the way round this year, and by the time we got back we were all well spent.
But elated.
The lads hadn’t been doing their normal amount of training this year, for work and home reasons. I hadn’t cycled any more than 60km for a few months, but I had been rowing, and that fitness and mindset kept me in good stead all the way around.
We had a good meal that evening. The following day we had a good breakfast and spoiled ourselves with a sauna overlooking the rugged coastline, with a saltwater plunge to cool off afterwards.
What a great weekend.
Roll on the next one next year.
This is The Sub-7 Experiment, but this weekend it was mostly cycling.
Not because nothing has been going on, but because the things to write have largely been the same:
“Nice workout. Got the job done. Nothing much to report.”
And it has all been a bit samey.
That has got me asking questions. Why does it feel the same? Where is the push coming from? Am I still properly engaged in the Sub-7 Experiment?
So I’ve been trying to make sense of it, and here are a few thoughts that might explain it.
Firstly, let’s look at the process.
For ages, the process has been the same. Take screenshots from WHOOP, put them into ChatGPT, ask for a workout, ChatGPT gives me the workout, I do it, then I report back.
That process worked for a while, but I’ve decided to ditch WHOOP.
I have cancelled my WHOOP subscription and no longer wear the device. It has done its job, and I am grateful for it. It gave me the impetus I needed when I started training three years ago, and it helped me get back into the idea of looking after myself. At that point, it was the best tool for the job.
When I started focusing on the rowing, I would set the app going to record the session and then work until I hit the suggested strain in the app itself. That suggested strain feature was brilliant because it stopped me bursting myself every time I got on the machine, wildly going for it until I collapsed.
No pain, no gain, right?
Well, not strictly true.
Too much pain becomes “give up and never go back,” at least that’s what my head was telling me. But with the WHOOP strain monitor giving me a suggested amount of work to aim for, it gave me structure without stupidity. Brilliant.
But now there is so much data in there that I have become swamped by it, and I’m not really using most of it. Yes, I would check recovery and sleep, but to be honest I am well used to my body showing signs of fatigue after a workout now. I don’t need an app to tell me every morning.
Recovery is also quite subjective, based on WHOOP’s algorithms. Sleep quality is the same. I was there. I know how the sleep went.
As for the rest of it, there is so much data now that I don’t know what to do with it, other than remove it from my life and make things simpler.
So no more checking WHOOP first thing in the morning. No more screenshots of WHOOP, ErgData and Strava into ChatGPT after every workout just to capture all the details.
I’ve gone back to using my old Polar chest strap and heart rate monitor, connecting that directly to the Concept2 rowing monitor and letting ErgData capture the session and feed it into Strava. When I’m in the gym, the same strap sends heart rate directly into my phone and the Strava app.
I am still asking ChatGPT to give me the workout each time, and I am still uploading the results from ErgData afterwards. Occasionally I’ll upload Strava too if ChatGPT asks for it. So the coaching process is still there, but the data sources are simpler and there is a lot less noise around it.
Good.
Data sources simplified. App integrations simplified.
Let’s go.
Except nothing really happened.
The workouts were fine, but they were also a bit easy.
So I had a chat with ChatGPT itself.
One of the things about ChatGPT is that it has a memory feature. Depending on the subscription you have, it can remember things from your conversations across different chats. That can be a good thing, but it turns out it can also be a bit of a problem.
It’s good because, as a user, you don’t have to keep reminding it about everything that has happened. I have a persistent conversation inside ChatGPT that is all about Sub-7 coaching, along with many other subjects.
I had some surgery on my leg last October, and at the time I asked ChatGPT, within the Sub-7 coaching conversation, for a recovery plan to get me back up to speed. It remembered that.
I also tweaked my back in the gym a short while ago, using bad form to lift some plates off a machine I was using. Again, I told ChatGPT about it and asked for recovery steps. It remembered that too.
So when I asked it to remind me what the Sub-7 Experiment was about, it told me the long-term plan: to build a training programme that will enable me to row 2,000 metres in under 7 minutes.
That was the right answer.
But then I challenged it. I asked why I felt as though there was no real progress at the moment and why everything felt very samey. It came back and said I was still recovering from the tweaked back and the leg surgery.
And immediately, there it was.
It had remembered that I’d had those issues, but it had not properly remembered that I had also told it I was back in one piece and able to continue with the full-on progress towards Sub-7.
It seems the memory function in ChatGPT remembers what it thinks is important, not necessarily what the user thinks is important, unless the user specifically says: “Remember this.”
So I told it to remember that I am back on form and back into the full Sub-7 programme, and that it should stop treating me like a piece of glass.
And since then, starting last Sunday, the workouts have been much more on plan.
Sunday’s workout was a 10-minute warm-up, then 8 × 250m sprints with 90 seconds rest between each one, designed to simulate 2,000 metres at or around Sub-7 pace.
And my goodness, it was a strong session.
Properly controlled pacing. Good technique. No mad thrashing around. And most importantly, there were signs of real progress.
Yes, there were rest periods between each 250m sprint, but if I add up the actual times of those 250m sections, it comes out as a 7 minute 7 second 2,000m.
All I need to do now is join those 250m sections together.
That is definitely going to need extra strength work in the gym and more power runs on the rower, but I am making progress.
It’s beautiful outside. The weather is still warm, and that definitely helps. But the main thing is that I got myself into the gym again and did the session.
Nothing dramatic to report. Just rebuilding the momentum, rebuilding the strength, and getting back into the groove.
It’s Tuesday, and I’ve just finished a workout in the gym.
It’s the first time I’ve been in for weights and strength work for a while, and I did feel a bit weak and underpowered. I don’t know if that’s because I’m expecting too much, or because I’m simply out of practice. Probably a bit of both.
But anyway, it was nice to be out.
It’s a lovely sunny day. Warm too. About 22°C and it’s not even 10 o’clock yet. That always helps.
I really enjoyed being back in the gym and doing a couple of different things. Things that were not rowing. I love the rower in the shed, but I do need this bit too. The lifting, the moving, the using different muscles, and just being somewhere else for a while.
So yes, all good. Not my strongest session ever, but a useful one. A reminder that strength needs consistency, not occasional heroic appearances.
Then, to finish things off, I had to do a bit of gymnastics getting back into the car. Somebody had parked so close to my driver’s door that I couldn’t get in, so I had to climb in through the passenger side and shuffle across.
I’m glad I’m not an old fella yet. Or at least I’m glad I’m still supple enough to make that work.
This is The Sub-7 Experiment. Still rowing, still lifting, still trying to stay bendy enough to get into my own car.
It’s funny, the other day I found a message to my future self. It was in my calendar. I’d obviously written it and put it in there when I came back from holiday last year. It was a reminder not to let myself go this summer. Ease off a little bit maybe, but not to let myself go the way I did last year.
It was quite funny really, because I honestly don’t feel as though I’ve properly got going since I wrote that message.
And yet, when I look at the evidence, that’s not entirely true.
My cruising speed on the rower is a lot higher. I don’t think I’m any closer to breaking the sub-7 2K yet, but my cruising speed is there. I’m fitter. Aerobically fitter. On Sunday I went out and did 80 kilometres on the bike and didn’t really think about it. It was just there and done.
So the work is still happening. I just don’t feel like I’ve got going with the same intensity I had last year.
So what needs to change?
I think I need to start blogging more again, because that was where a lot of the accountability came from. More than that, it was where the reflection came from.
My routine after rowing in the shed needs to change. At the moment I finish the session with my music still on, walk back into the kitchen, make my recovery drink, log my calories, log the workout with ChatGPT, go upstairs, shower, and start work.
At no point in that sequence do I stop and reflect on what I’ve just done.
I’m doing the exercise. I’m just not logging it properly in my own head. I’m not writing it down. I’m certainly not reflecting on it. It’s just a case of getting out, doing the session, coming back in and moving on to the next thing.
That reflection piece needs to be reinstated.
Maybe the new rule is simple: when I finish on the rower and come back into the house, I take the headphones off. Then, while I’m making my recovery drink, I speak into ChatGPT and do the reflection there and then.
That used to happen naturally when I went to the gym. I’d finish the session, get back to the car, sit there for a minute and think about what I’d just done before starting the engine and heading to the next thing. Training in the shed is brilliant, but it has removed that little pause.
I need to put it back.
The work is still there. The aerobic capacity is still there. The chassis is there. But I’m still a long way from sub-7, and I need to get stronger. That’s the next proper conversation with Coach ChatGPT.
So yes, time to get back in the groove, but gently. If I turn it into a chore, I’ll switch off again.
This is The Sub-7 Experiment. Still reflecting. Still working. Maybe not quite as intensely as before, but there is a plan to change that.
The “new” rower in the shed is not so new now. It has been there for six months, and the new routine of rowing, then heading straight back into the house to start work or whatever the day brings, has meant I haven’t been giving myself any time to reflect on the workout afterwards. No reflection has meant nothing to post.
Rowing is still important to me, and so is the wider exercise regime as a whole. But I think I’ve been missing that reflection piece. I also wrote in a previous article that I’ve missed the gym visits too. So it feels like time to reassess what matters.
Exercise matters. Having an exercise goal matters. Reflection matters too. And so does being around like-minded people. My gym membership has lapsed, and I think it is time to renew it.
In other news, I’ve been cycling a bit more.
This Sunday I’m riding the Tour de South Coast, a 100km sportive that covers some roads I’ve used before in training. I don’t know anyone else who is doing it, but there will be a couple of hundred cyclists out on the day, and I’m looking forward to it.
I’ve also been back to see Bike Fit Barry, who has once again sprinkled a bit of magic over the setup on the Triban. On top of that, I’ve decided to make it even more comfortable. I’ve taken the mudguards off completely and fitted some big 35mm tyres, which means I can run lower pressures and take a lot of the buzz out of the road surface.
A quick 15km test ride yesterday showed they are doing exactly what I hoped.
I spent a lot of last year tweaking the Giant to try to get more comfort out of it, but the truth is that the early carbon technology makes it so stiff that it just takes too much out of me over longer distances. I’m keen to see how the newly fettled, balloon-tyre-equipped Triban gets on over the 100km on Sunday.
In Coach ChatGPT news, I’m still consulting with it and still completing the workouts it gives me after I upload my daily WHOOP scores. I’m getting stronger and faster on the rower, and my technique is getting better too. I can really feel the progress.
The aim is still to get to a sub-7-minute 2,000m row.
I genuinely didn’t know where my head was at today. It was all over the place. I wasn’t feeling the gym. I wasn’t feeling the rower. I wasn’t feeling anything.
I did that thing where you’re not doing anything, but you’re also not resting. Up and down the stairs. Round and round the house. Looking out the window. Rain. Wind. Sit in front of the TV for a bit. Make a cup of tea. Walk again. Another cup of tea. More pacing.
I even told Coach GPT I wasn’t going to train today, that I’d just go for a walk, but I was talking myself out of that as well. The truth is, I knew I needed to do something.
And then the voices started. The men in my head.
“What’s the point?” “What’s the point of any of this exercise stuff?” “You’re not getting anywhere.” “Just go back and watch TV.”
I battled it and battled it. Right up to the point where I was pulling my gear out of the wardrobe. Shorts on — still fighting it. T-shirt on — still fighting it. Shoes on — still fighting it.
Then I went out to the shed, sat on the rower, and started.
I did 15 minutes, and every five minutes I got faster. By the last five I was holding sub-1:57 pace.
Then I stopped and did two 250m sprints , pretty much flat out, but controlled. Controlled frustration release. Controlled anger release. The kind where you’re emptying the pressure without blowing up.
It didn’t solve everything. I still feel like there’s a lot going on and a lot to do. But it released the valve.
And I am genuinely grateful I have a rower in the shed, because if I’d had to get in the car and drive to the gym this morning, I don’t think it would have happened at all.
This is The Sub-7 Experiment — as much for mental health as physical health.
I wasn’t really feeling it today, if I’m honest. But I still turned up. I talked to ChatGPT about what the session should look like and started with ten minutes on the rowing machine.
That ten minutes actually confirmed it: I wasn’t quite there today.
So instead of forcing a full rowing workout or walking out, I pivoted. I went and did sled work instead — pushing, pulling, lifting, carrying — the stuff I enjoy and the kind of work I can always get something out of.
After that I finished with another five minutes on the rower, just to close the loop and leave feeling like I’d done a complete session.
On the way out I had a proper “of course” moment: the little key in my key fob wouldn’t work, so I had to break into my own car. Thankfully there’s an old-school mechanical key hidden in the fob, so I got it sorted without too much drama.
I feel a bit better now. And it’s actually a nice day outside — blue sky, sun shining — even if my head and legs weren’t totally on board this morning.
This is The Sub-7 Experiment: turning up, adjusting, and getting it done anyway.
