Tag Archives: erg

Finally, a row on the Connecticut River

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This morning marked the first row of the season on the Connecticut River. Freezing rain and six inches of snow are predicted to hit the Hartford area over the next couple of days. Brilliant. With the impending and inhibiting weather, I’m reminded to take every day on the water as a bonus right now. Hartford is proving to be a difficult place to be able to get some serious rowing time in. The Connecticut has a habit of flooding, on top of the snow and continuously turbulent weather that keeps training limited to dry land work well into the month of April. Regardless, this morning was a necessary break from the erg, and solid reminder of why I’m a helpless but happy prisoner to rowing.

A PR in the 2K test this past weekend has me more eager than ever to get to work on the water. Training has picked up in volume and more intense strength training on top of increased hours at the office, so fatigue has been rearing its ugly head recently. The full-time job situation makes it difficult to allot adequate time to recovery and rest. If anything, rowing has taught me the importance of true recovery: Eat, hydrate, and resting are the essential actions to support successful training. So simple, yet sometimes so difficult to execute.

Here’s to warmer weather and more mornings on the water.

erGOALS…

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I have always encouraged others to make sure they take a moment to enjoy the small successes achieved along the way in working toward the larger goal. The road to reaching any accomplishment-whether it’s publishing your thesis or dissertation, finishing a long-range project at work, to training to be an elite rower-is long, difficult and inevitably filled with setbacks. So the importance of taking time to recognize the smaller successes is vital to keeping your confidence up and the momentum going. We all know what it feels like to be “stuck” or in a rut. It comes in the form of writer’s block or maybe you just can’t seem to shave off that extra second on your 2K to set a new PR (personal record) no matter how diligent you are about your training and how hard you work. There are far too many days we are all hard on ourselves and too few that we give our own back a congratulatory pat.

Last week was a big week for my training record book. I pulled a new PR in both the 2K and 6K erg tests. Still on the steep side of the training curve, I am seeing significant results with almost every test so pulling new PRs isn’t anything new. The difference in these PRs was I succeeded in reaching two goals I had set for myself which felt pretty damn good.

A little over two months ago, I set out a list of my goals I knew I needed to reach this year. Buying my own boat = check. I’m madly in love with my Hudson single. Breaking the 7 minute mark in the 2K (pulled a 6:56 for my new PR) and breaking the 22 minute mark in the 6k (pulled a 21:59 for my new PR) = check and check.

You can kind of see the “21:59.9″ in the picture above. In my state of gasping for oxygen and forcing myself to take light strokes to properly cool-down, I managed to snap a picture…like a proud parent when their child does something for the first time, I was a little excited…just barely broke 22 minutes but hell, I still broke it. That was true pain and what a lesson in how important every single stroke can be.

Time to set some new goals.

Ergs Don’t Float…

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For many, that can be a brutal reality. What you do on the erg does matter in terms of volume and building your base. You have to work to develop your fitness; that’s a no-brainer. But as anyone knows, it means close to nothing if you can pull an unbelievable 2K or 6K time with handle and chain, if you can’t move a boat with oar and water. Maybe you’ll win the hammer at CRASH-Bs but I’d much rather win a Gold at Worlds or the Olympics. Just my two cents.

So, I finally bought my own boat last week. Cross that off the list of goals set for the year! It is February 8th and I couldn’t be more excited to take MY single out on the water. Hurry up warm weather. The idea of having my OWN boat is exciting, scary, and a bit of a reality check. I’ve been putting in the time on the erg and in the gym; now I’m putting in the money, personal investment and commitment to truly go after a dream. There is something unbelievably powerful and yet frightening in acknowledging the reality of climbing that high dive ladder and jumping straight into the deep end. It looks real nice to talk about it with your feet dry and on the ground, but taking the plunge is an entirely different experience.

Hudson 1x

Hence, why I have probably experienced a little bit of the “holy shit” feeling of a little fear but mostly positive anxiety over the past week. There is nothing easy about putting in the hours of hard training-waking up at 5:30am (or earlier), then putting in a full 8-10 hour work day…only to finish your day with a second 1-2 hour workout. Truly it is easy to “play National Team” and train in the safety of name-your-boathouse, facility, or gym. Putting in the time can be physically tough and perhaps mentally strenuous if you’re balancing a family, friends, a job, or simply your life; but I keep reminding myself that this is the easy part. The hard part comes when I’m getting destroyed in the first few (or dozen) races come April and May. Taking a physical beating is easy to recover from: you rest. Taking an emotional beating takes guts, perseverance, and the ability to put your pride (because, let’s face it all athletes have egos) on the shelf for a while.

Bring on the high dive. Ready to jump in headfirst and get a little wet.

Back at the Boathouse

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I have mentioned before how valuable having a training partner is. Yesterday was my first workout back with my partner Brian, breaking a long 11-day solitary confinement driven by my own ambition to get the workouts in-and of course, my workout binder (yes, I have a binder that catalogues my workouts, mileage, test results, etc-I might be a bit Type A) mandating I check off each day. More on the binder later.

Sunday’s Sub-max 6K was good-especially in the company of Brian and his wife Pam. While it’s not necessarily “difficult” because you aren’t going balls to the wall, maximum effort-it helps knowing you’re in it with a team. You’re working hard because you know that’s what you have to do but you’re also working hard with others and in some way this creates an atmosphere of obligation and maybe even competition; making sure you give your best because everyone else around you is doing just that (and you expect that from them), and it would be insulting, even disrespectful to them to not put in your 100%.

This morning was a 75-minute easy piece on the erg (easy, HR zone = R)…but LONG. A month ago, 75 minutes without stopping used to seem like an eternity. Today, it felt fantastic-I was cruising and enjoying it. But I also think a huge part of the ease of this morning was having someone working just as hard on the erg next to me. For all the reasons mentioned above and before, there is comfort and strength in that. I was talking with a friend last night who was flabbergasted at the idea of spending that long on the erg. She exercises so it wasn’t the thought of working out but more so the idea of spending so much time doing the same motion-methodical, boring. I remember thinking that same thing before actually trying this rowing thing. I can run for hours but never imagined I could have the focus to sit on an erg for hours…but alas, I have arrived. I guess it’s one of the side effects of the addiction. Focus, fixation. My mind goes to another place for those 75 minutes, 100 or 120 minutes (as tomorrow’s workout calls for). I think about everything and nothing. Time when my mind is completely at ease and for lack of a better term, “blank” is rare but graciously welcomed even when it is sweating on an erg, feeling my muscles working and burning. I love it. I look forward to it. Not just for the time that it is (because truly, I do love the exercise), but knowing that every minute I’m training, I’m working toward a goal; toward being better as an athlete and person. There truly is purpose (and benefit) in every pull I put in on the erg. And for that alone, I absolutely love it. It’s why I wake up at 5:30am every morning; it’s what I look forward to in my day.

It is 3 days into a new year. Many successes and victories and many losses and failures will be seen over the next 362 days. But at the end of the year, the final result will only be success and I can’t wait to taste a little bit every day.

Planes, Trains, and ERGometers…

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I spent a good solid hour tracking down an ERG to get my afternoon workout in on Sunday. It became comical. I put some serious miles in touring my old hometown in search of that one place that held the key to my workout for the day. Lesson learned: Rowing machines are not easy to come by in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I even had one fitness center attendant look at me like I had spoken to her in a foreign language when asking “do you all have an erg?…it’s a rowing machine?” She brought me upstairs to the lat row station and replied “you can do rows on this?” I thanked her for her time and proceeded to gym #5 where I finally found an old (but most importantly, functioning) erg. The best part-I think the gym attendant was so surprised that someone was seeking out a rowing machine that he allowed me to use the gym for free, no guest fee required. Thank you, Byron from Spectrum Fitness in Baton Rouge.

The search for this simple (yet apparently rare) exercise machine just to get a sub-max 6K done shed light on a couple of things for me: (1) Rowing has become an obsession; I’m calling it a healthy one, but an obsession nonetheless. Having a goal and something that I have developed such an intense passion for has been refreshing as well as tormenting. I had been told rowing is addicting (thus leading to obsession), but I also know that I’m a passionate person, and perhaps that could explain the instant love and connection with the sport. This love affair has spread into other areas of my life. It has become an annoying distraction at work and invades my everyday thoughts. If only I could make a living off of a boat and a couple of oars, right? (2) Determination, discipline, and relentless desire will take you places. Not just to 5 different fitness centers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Yeah so what if I hadn’t found a rowing machine? I would’ve done something to get my heart rate up and get a decent workout in. But I know that every day counts. Every workout counts. And it is completely in my hands as to how hard I work and the quality of work I put in. So that meant doing it right and doing all I could to find an erg. The feeling of accomplishment and pure satisfaction upon finishing my workout was worth the trouble.

P.S. If you’re ever in an unfamiliar place and you need to find a gym with a rowing machine, the Indoor Rower Finder on the http://www.concept2.com website is awe-some. Awesome. If only I had remembered to use it prior to my Planes, Trains, and Automobiles real-life movie experience.