2/2/2015 – 5k Erg Test
I’ve decided to start writing a lightweight blog/diary mainly so that I can look back in my food diary (courtesy of MyFitnessPal) and check this blog to see what training I did for the day, how I felt during the training, my weight that day and more importantly what I think I could do better.
My motivation for starting this blog comes very directly from my performance today, the 2nd of February 2015. Today I had a 5k erg test to be submitted to the GB coaches as part of the trials process. This test was to be completed having weighed in at 73kilos 2 hours beforehand, similar to the championship process.
I woke up this morning much lighter than I had expected to be, 71.9 kilos, which was considerably lighter than I had been for the past few days and prompted some worrying on my part. Had I eaten enough the night before? Should I eat more than usual in order to ensure I am properly fuelled for the erg? In the end I decided to eat more than I had been to try and prepare my body for the erg and ensure I was full of energy.
After some considerable procrastination, I headed down to Molesey to prepare for the test. The warm up went well and I felt full of power. Hitting the target split felt easy, but it always does before a 5k. Warm up done, myself, Harry and Callum set up our machine for the test and got underway.
I had a good start and settled onto what I felt was a good rhythm. In my head I knew what splits I wanted to hit through each marker and all was going well until just gone half way. My legs were lacking the power that I usually felt and moving into the last 1k I had left myself with too much to do. I was 9 seconds off where I had set my target and although I had set a personal best, I was disappointed with how I had performed, especially under the watchful eye of the GB coach.
Feeling a little worse for wear than I was used to, I promptly vomited into the nearest bucket and up came all the food that I had so (naively in hindsight) thought would help fuel me to success.
Moving on from here, I have under 2 weeks to perform at the February water assessment up in Boston, where I must ensure that I manage my weight more effectively and learn from this rather grim experience.
– Ali Douglass
Senior and Intermediate Men’s Captain
