Today’s rowing session was an experiment or perhaps more of an exercise in curiosity. I noticed that one of my training partners had rowed a fixed distance of a non-standard number of meters. Instead of rowing a fixed distance of 100, 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, 6000, 10,000 meters or one of the two odd but common distances of 21,097 or 42,195 meters, he had rowed the fixed distance of 6,861 meters. I’ve done quite a few fixed distance session of non-standard and therefore “odd” distances, but I’ve assumed myself to be in the minority.
Anyway… one thought led to another when I was looking at the summary results of his 6,861 meter rowing session and the result was that I had the idea to row the same distance today, to find out how my ending heart rate compared to his. Every person’s body is different from everyone else’s in myriad and countless mostly micro-organism, micro-structural ways… so there really isn’t any point to compare two people in that way unless one person happens to be a clone of the other as in the movie Multiplicity (my favorite movie about cloning) … but I thought it would make for an interesting rowing session, regardless.
When I told wifey about my plans for today’s rowing session, she immediately said, “That would be comparing apples and oranges! How tall is he?” I readily admitted that what she said was true. He and I are not the same height, same age, and there are probably a virtually infinite number of differences between us if you want to venture considerations into the microscopic dimensionality (is that a word? spell checker thinks not…) of comparisons… But the most important and main point was that it would be different, doable and definitely fun.
It was. Fun. My heart rate was quite a bit higher than his, for the same average pace, for whatever that is worth. My heart tried to do something irregular a couple times during the session, which the heart strap transmitter couldn’t translate into a meaningful heart rate, but most of the time it worked okay.
The session was screen-recorded for those who want to row-along with it. The screen recording link will be active less than an hour from now and is located here: Indoor Rowing Fixed Distance 6861 meters 11242018
Happy rowing to you.