This year's Scottish Indoor Rowing Championship is to be held on Saturday 9th February, through in Edinburgh this time at Heriot Watt University. Although not as convenient for me as Coatbridge was last year, it's not too far to travel.

Have been training for this since August/September, and by October/November I was well on course to set a PB at the championships. Then December came, I was ill, I moved home, and then I concentrated on long distance rows (a mistake, with the benefit of hindsight). I have struggled since then to get to where I was in November, and would have to admit I'm still not quite there.

Which means I wasn't too annoyed when the format for SIRC '08 was announced. The age category races were to be over only 1km instead of 2km, with the only 2km races being the 'open'. Given I don't fancy rowing beside huge 6ft 5in 22 year old uni rowing team members, I'm happy to go along with the 1km race. After all, I wasn't going to get a 2km PB anyway.

Also new for this year is The Royal Mile Challenge, especially for non-water rowers. This race will be over 1807m (I assume, the length of Edinburgh's famous Royal Mile). I appreciate the effort to provide something specifically for gym ergers like myself, so I will be doing this race also. Have never done a 1807m row before, so an easy PB for me there.

So my aims for the day are just to compete, row as hard as I can, and have fun. The pressure is off a bit as I am not expecting myself to PB over 1km, and I won't get anywhere near a medal unless there are only three folk in my race! But the day will give me a chance to see just where I am in terms of fitness, and that will allow me to estimate how long it will take me to PB over 2km. After the championships, I'll likely take a week off, then continue my training for as long as it takes.

Good luck Alan, is the Royal Mile row up-hill ?

I'm so well-prepared, Steve, it'll be down-hill all the way...

Well, I finished my pre-championship training program with a hard 10km row yesterday afternoon. Now I just need to do a couple of sessions concentrating on outright speed, decide on my target times, come up with a pacing strategy, and I'll be sorted.

Hopefully the entry lists will be published soon, so I can see how many folk I'm up against in my two races.

Well, that went better than expected.

My first race of the day was just before noon - Men's HWT Royal Mile Challenge. Had decided not to kill myself in this one, as I wanted to save myself for the afternoon's 1km race (as I realised on Wednesday I had a chance to PB). All I wanted to do was average under 1:50/500m pace. Settled into my race and found myself running fourth out of six starters (three no-shows). Realised a third of the way through there was no way I was going to catch 3rd nor any way I'd be caught by 5th, so was able to ease off and coast home at my target pace. A few minutes later I realised that one of the guys who was ahead of me was the only entrant in the LWT race (run at the same time) and therefore I actually finished 3rd in the HWT race. So I got a medal!

Sitting down on my erg shortly before the Men's HWT 30+ 1km race, it was more than apparent I wouldn't be finishing quite so high. With the exception of one guy, the other eleven looked bigger, fitter, faster than me. And so it turned out. But I wasn't bothered. My aim was to PB regardless of finishing position. My previous PB over 1km was 3:29.3, but I managed to dig deep and force myself to a 3:28.5! Not a big improvement, but to get any kind of improvement at all is quite staggering really, given how my training had gone.

So I'd entered the championships with no real aims, and came away with a medal and a PB. Not a bad effort at all.

spot on alan, always one of my fav was the rowing at the gym.

Grats Alan - Really nice to get a medal to take away.

3:29 eh? All sounds over a bit quick to me to be "proper" exercise

Beautiful day today so I went out and did two laps of my nine mile circuit in 1:06 - a full four minutes quicker than when I went out four weeks ago before getting that nasty cold. I guess I had some energy that needed burning.

Gonna go out tomorrow for a longer, slower ride

Nice one Alan. I was cycling today too, Steve.