During my push ups this morning I felt smooth and thought maybe I would try a PR. So I decided to see how I'd feel during a 1,000 meter warm and and felt really good. Probably because I'd taken 8 days off completely to heal from my vasectomy and had 2 days of easy rowing back.The game plan was to hold a 2:10 pace and then open up during the last 1,000 but after the warmup when it was go time it cost almost nothing to get below 2:10 and hold somewhere between 2:02 and 2:07. But what I learned last year was that each of these PR attempts required me to stretch the rubber band and keep it stretched without it breaking. Last year many times I wasn't able to keep it stretched and would end up cracking so I was decided that being more conservative was smarter.By about 2K to go I saw my heart was holding steady, my respiration was full and my pace was still between 2:00 and 2:05 and I had a fleeting thought that I was on pace to crack. But I focused on technique and tried to breath more during the recovery part of the stroke.
As I neared the 1K mark I knew it was going to be a PR and I decided NOT to light it up then but to wait until 500 meteres before I hit it. But because I was "thinking" about the acceleration my heart had been going up. I was still moving at the same speed but my system was already on - in hindsight I should have relaxed more and not allowed my self to get excited.At 500 meters I hit it hard and started the real push. My heart rate jacked up and I had the pace down to 1:40 then 1:45 then 1:48 and held it. At 19:00 (I don't remember how far I had left to go) but I had the idea that I could finish in 19:59 or less. As soon as 20:00 clicked by I knew I blew it but still finished in 20:21.
After the smoke cleared and I entered everything online I found out that I was 48th percentile. I missed 50th percentile by freaking 10 seconds! The silver lining is that I figured out what I need to know before the next PR attempt. But it still sucks to know that I missed by 10 seconds.... This was an important workout because I my goal is now to actually train and make it to the 75th percentile by 12/31/13.