I'm back

K earned more points towards girlfriend of the year last night when she picked me up from work with Thai food. She had ordered fried spring rolls on the hunch that my desperate mood was mostly fueled by hunger. I decimated the spring rolls before we got to her place. I fed her two of them. I ate six.

We had beers, we ate, and she packed to spend the night with me up in Marin.

At my place, wanting to get to bed, commando style I swiftly and precisely packed my travel bag for my trip, my change bag for the boathouse, my workout clothes for the morning, and went to bed.

I got up with the alarm at 5 to head to the boat house. K got up with me, and had a productive morning at my place.

I had been eagerly looking forward to rowing, since I've been training on land for so long. But 80% of my team hadn't done their 20 min test piece, and instead of going out on the water with those who had already tested, I elected to test again. I already had one good one on the card, so I could only improve.

And improve I did. I went from a 1:48.8 average 500m to a 1:47.9. I took almost a full second off the split. I added nearly 50 meters to my prior distance.

All the time on the erg paid off, especially the 3 x 20 min workouts, which got me very comfortable with the 20 min piece.

The good/ sad/ scary thing is, looking at my pacing, I can still go faster.

It's my second fastest time on my log card, and among my top 4-5 performances, lifetime. And my knee still isn't healed, so I think I can do better still.

But it's a very respectable number, and should put me well into the running for the Head of the Charles boat. I'll have to seat race on Saturday, I've been warned. I'm looking forward to seeing the scores so I can see who I'm competing with.

My record is 1:46.7 pace for 20 min. I aim to break that this year. Just 1.3 seconds on the split to shave. It can be done.