T–249 WEEKS
Block one is done.
Seven weeks. Six weeks of training, one testing/recovery week, and my first 60-minute test—all by feel, without looking at data during the workouts.
Yeah, I probably got a little fitter.
However, that isn’t the thing I’m happiest about.
I think the biggest success of these first seven weeks was that I actually listened.
Some days my body said go easy, so I went easy.
A few workouts got shortened. Some were slower than what I would have previously strived for in this feeling process. When my back was bothering me, I paid attention to it. When my knee started complaining, I changed what I was doing rather than trying to prove I could train through it.
None of those decisions felt particularly impressive.
That may be the point. I think going by feel allowed me to stay consistent while feeling good about going easy on certain workouts. Combined with the stronger workouts, that actually produces a better end result.
Test day.
That was the other side of listening.
I covered the monitor and rowed for an hour. No pace. No heart rate. Nothing telling me whether I was going too fast or too slow.
Beforehand, I predicted I’d average 2:34/500m.
I actually averaged 2:27.3.
That surprised me.
Not because 2:27.3 is some extraordinary rowing performance. It isn’t.
What interested me was that, without the number in front of me, I had found an effort considerably faster than the one my brain had decided I was probably capable of.
My body knew something I didn’t.
And that seems worth paying attention to.
Over these seven weeks, listening to my body sometimes told me to slow down, sometimes to stop, and on test day apparently told me I could go quite a bit harder than I thought.
That feels like progress.
I’m still at the very beginning. The training volumes are modest. One good hour on a rowing machine doesn’t tell me much about the kind of endurance I’ll need years from now.
And I certainly haven’t cracked some secret training formula after seven weeks.
But I think I’ve learned something about what I want By Feel to mean.
It isn’t always go easy.
It isn’t always go hard.
It’s paying enough attention to know which one today is asking for.
Then trusting it.
Block Two starts next.
When you really listen to your body, is it more likely to tell you to slow down—or surprise you with how much you can do?
Feel good.