This was a 6K test for nat comp holiday challenge.

I did it alone at home, Christmas evening after a family dinner.

Hardest erg piece so far, both physically and mentally. Goal split was 1:55.5, but halfway through I ran out of steam. For the first time in my memory, I flew and died.

It took my whole will to not abandon the piece halfway through. My leg muscles were tired, I had a hard time keeping up my breathing, and trunk muscles were sore. I could barely move afterward and had a hard time paddling to cool down. I persevered in the test for two reasons:

1) I know how important it is to finish an erg piece, even with performance I am not proud of, than to abandon the piece to preserve my ego and to make the temporary pain go away. You cannot abandon a race. Finishing at whatever pace improves my mental toughness, and gives valuable data points about my performance.

2) This test is worth 1,000 points on the holiday challenge, or more than three days of level A (hardest) workouts. Hell yes.

Lessons:

1) Increasing split time really works to reduce fatigue / heart rate, despite the pain. Never abandon the piece.

2) Take care of myself. I had alcohol several days in a row, did not hydrate properly, did not eat well yesterday, and barely got any sleep the night before. I attribute my fly-and-die to this; I tried to beat my PR that I set after carefully taking care of myself in the upcoming days.