Today’s rowing session was 30 minutes done via internet with one other person, Terence P., who was a couple thousand miles away on the east side of the United States.
A few minutes before the session started, Terence typed that he intended to row a pace of about 1:59/500m. I wasn’t feeling energetic and simply answered that I’d be slower.
He pressed for me to specify what my target pace would be and … though I had originally intended to row at a pace of about 2:15 if I had to do it alone … I revised those intentions and replied, “About 2:04 probably.”
He replied that if I would row at 2:02 then he would row with me at that speed. It dawned on me that we were bargaining over the price of how much effort I would invest for 30 minutes, to have a living, breathing person energizing a pace boat alongside.
Pace boats definitely have value. That’s one reason people row via the internet – to have virtual company in the form of the avatars of other people. It’s a lot of incentive to have company, even if they aren’t actually in the same room with you. What you see on your screen is the same thing everyone else sees and everyone is aware of that. You are aware of and watch them and they are aware of and watch you. You are an influence on each other.
So I agreed to the price and said “I’m game.” We’d struck a bargain for the side-by-side company of each other’s avatars on the terms of doing 30 minutes at a pace of 2:02.
Houston, we have a problem. We enjoyed the company of each other’s avatars for about 20 minutes until the other guy lost connection with the RowPro server. (The RowPro servers are hosted in Houston, Texas.)
I felt okay at the time Terence lost connection, so I kept my word and maintained the pace of 2:02. When the time counted down to about 1:50 remaining I picked up the speed a little for the last 500 meters. If Terence had been there, he would have appreciated that.
In addition to the main session of 30 minutes, there was a 100 meter test, a warm up and a warm down. All total, today’s distance was 11,141 meters.
Happy trails.