So, one year plus on and I have been doing a cycle ride every Thursday each week. Typically 80 to 150KM with a nice lunch to break up the ride.
I have not checked my FTP but I do now at last notice that I have much more endurance on a typical rowing race of normally 2KM/8 mins.
Used to get completely out of breath and unable to keep a steady high output pressure up on the oar.
Now I don’t know if I am just not pushing as hard but I do appear to be able to set a work level output at the start of a race and keep the pressure going for the full eight minutes without running out of puff.
Something must be getting better because last week I was in a local Cam rowing race as part of a Vet G crew (average age 65 plus) and we beat Vet D,E and F crews on raw time and were fastest on the river on the day against really good young college crews once our handicap was taken into consideration. I don’t think I could have done that before I took up cycling again.