The Draw for the Scottish Indoor Rowing Championships

So the draw is out for this Saturday’s Scottish Indoor Rowing Championships.

It’s been a rough lead up to the race, I’ve had a few back and joint niggles and feeling just a tad fatigued, but feeling much better now and excited about the race — mainly because my GF Diane will be racing for the first time (not just in an indoor rower — but ever, in any type of sport!). She’s been a great support.

I’ve had to ram in a lot of training, from a standing start, since getting a rowing machine in the middle of September, and I am feeling the limits of what I can do with my body in such a short period of time, therefore I am pretty happy and content with where I am. My smart scale informed me within a 4 week period, I’ve lost 3 kg of fat and improved my metabolic age to being equivalent of a 24 year old, from 26. Nice! That alone makes all the rowing worth it.

I am competing against 4 other lightweights in my category, which is actually quite a lot for a race like this, and could be a result of lockdown triggering more rowers to find alternative races. It’s hard to say how competitive this field is, but I suspect it is formidable, I spot at least one British Medalist in there who got top 10 in the World Indoor Championships this year, and another who rows in the Army — they tend to be very fit.

Only the top two will get a medal, and I would be pretty (extremely) happy to come away with one. The others are rowing also at the 2000m distance a few hours before so maybe they will be a bit tired for this race, that’s my only hope. I want to build myself to race at that distance too but ran out of time for this season. Next year for sure I will consider, my personal best is a pedestrian 6.51 at 75kg, done over 10 years ago.

I am desperate to hit a personal best for this distance for this race (get under 1.30.3) and I expect to beat my seasons best (1.31.7). I would be over the moon to hit my stretch goal of breaking 1.30, which is a huge mental barrier for me to overcome. I see breaking 1.30 as the elite threshold, and a necessary marker to win at National level.

Can I do it? I am not sure, I am doing a different training routine to my previous campaigns, I used to just slog 500 m sprints and hope it works, this time I am alternating between interval training and longer rows. Without crowds and the adrenaline of people to race against, that might go against me. I am also working on my mental game, listening to podcast and watching World Strongest Man 2017 Eddie Hall on how to get energised for the pain to come. I haven’t done a 500m test since the Australian Indoors, and that was a month ago, rowed with no sleep at 4 am with a 2 am weigh in, so surely I should be faster and the experience less miserable this time!

My race is at 5 pm on the 21st of November — you can watch the live stream here. Would love your support!! Just 20 minutes later is Diane’s race, and as we are sharing a rowing machine, it would be interesting to see how the handover would work.

This is of course a stepping stone, two weeks after this race, is my likely last race for the season, the British Indoor Rowing Championships, where my six year, somewhat desperate quest to get a medal continues!