Category: Online Rowing

Yes, I know – today is not Halloween and it won’t occur until about 5 days from today – but today was the day I completed the Concept2.com Skeleton Crew Challenge.  The challenge is simply to row a total of at least 31,000 meters in the period that begins October 25th and ends at midnight on October 31st.  Today I exceeded 31K and was awarded with a certificate, which is displayed at the top of this page.

Today’s indoor rowing started out with 10K done online in the company of Bobo, who is located in France.  After that, I rowed in a 45 minute session with two others – a woman who is located in New Zealand and a man who is located in I Don’t Know What Country.  Finally, I rowed a 5 minute warm down.  Then I checked the meters rowed and saw that by rowing another 5 minutes I could surpass 31K since October 25th, so that was done to earn the certificate.

If you wonder why the HR graphs are “messy” most of the time, its probably because the heart strap battery is getting low.  Yesterday I removed the battery from the heart strap transmitter and checked it with a battery tester.  It tested to be at somewhere above 40% but less than 60% of its maximum new charge.  I decided to keep using it until it quits completely, so there may be more messy HR graphs for a few more sessions, depending on how long it lasts.

For the 10K, I rowed at about 2:20 until it counted down to 9,000 meters, then rowed at about 2:15 until it counted down to 7,000 meters, then rowed at about 2:10 until it counted down to 3,000 meters.  At 3,000 meters to go, I increased the pace to about 2:00 until distance counted down to 2,000 meters.  Then I rested a bit, did a short sprint at about 1:40 for a couple hundred meters and rowed the remaining distance at a leisurely warm down pace.

For the 45 minute session, I rowed a pace between 2:30 and 2:40 until the time counted down to 20 minutes remaining.  At 20 minutes remaining, I increased the pace to about 2:00 for four minutes then rowed easy for a few minutes, then did a short sprint for about 10 or 20 seconds, then eased off to a slower and slower pace, to warm down as the 45 minutes counted down the final few minutes to zero.

The two 5 minute warm downs/ extra meters were each done at exceedingly slow paces.

Happy rowing to you.

Today’s indoor rowing was 10,000 meters scheduled and rowed online.  A guy who is located in Norway joined the session, so I considered that I’d been rowing with a Viking, assuming he is a native Norwegian with Viking DNA.

I guess he was feeling either a bit tired or under the weather though, because he said he didn’t “feel like a Viking”.

Happy rowing to you.

The title of today’s blog post was going to be “Sunday Row” because today is Sunday and there was no other immediate and more unique inspiration that came to mind in the little time allowed to write today’s blog post.

So I searched to see what might be a good image for the top of today’s page by using the terms “sunday row” and the very first result among the multitude of images was the one you see at the top of this page.  It is located on the website of a rowing club called The Firth of Clyde Coastal Rowing Club, which is located in Scotland.

If there was any wind here today it wasn’t noticed, because my rowing was all indoors as usual.

Today’s rowing consisted of a 15 minute warmup, 30 minutes online with 3 other guys and then a belated 5 minute warm down.  A warm down really wasn’t needed, but I decided to row another 5 minutes, to bring the total meters for today to something more than 10K.

Happy rowing to you no matter what the wind conditions.