"what do you do in your spare time?" the handsome man asked ...

okay, so i wasn't asked by a handsome man, but maybe i will be some day *sigh* (george? are you listening, george?).

i haven't talked much about rowing and training lately, caught up as i am in the grips of the ol' dissertation, but i have been meeting with S twice a week for tough erging workouts and doing lots of distance/basebuilding stuff on my own on the other days. my überhot and überfit friend meg has changed the layout of her blog and i'm so flattered that she added me to her list of links that i feel i should disclose some training stats.

so here you are -- what i do in my spare time, dedicated to meg:

out of the total # of my training hours in a year 60% are dedicated to cardio, 10% to peak power training (more on that below) 15% to strength training and 15% to stretching -- i will not lose my place in the boat as the lululemon devotee! *smirk*

60% of the cardio (so 60% of the 60%) is category 6 workouts -- 1 hour long pieces where my split time is my 6k average time + 15-18 seconds. so for me that would be about 2:30/500 m. it sounds too easy, but it builds a cardio base that will help with recovery. up to half of these category 6 workouts are cross-training like biking or running. the other 40% (of the 60%) of the cardio should be 1000m race pieces, done in sets of 5 -- basically, for me, one workout a week is made up of practice 1000m race pieces.

the 10% peak power training is painful, but makes me fast(er). at this point in training i do it once a week or once every week and a half. i set the drag factor on the erg to 10 and pull the following after a 15-20 minute warm up. i keep the drag factor low during the warm up.

6x 10 sec bursts with 45 sec rest between each burst
4x 15 s w 75 s rest between
12 x 5 s w 25 s rest between

for each burst i try to be at 90% of my peak power. ouch.

the 15% strength training is weight lifing 2xs a week and the stretching i try to do every night before bed.

so, if the handsome man ever ask you what i do in my spare time, you know what to tell him. (and don't forget to give him my phone number, especially if it's george.)