Category: Ethereal Rowing

Some indoor rowers like to race online and others do other things. I scheduled two 30 minute online sessions dedicated to the Rowlympic challenge today.  (You can read about it HERE if you don’t yet know what it is)

Several guys from several different countries joined in.  They all rowed a lot faster than I did but I was happy to just take it easy today and put in the time at a mild aerobic level.

During the first 30 minutes, not everyone of the six who signed up for that session were able to row because I mistakenly clicked the “Prepare to Start” button about 3 minutes before start time, when I had intended to click the “Send” button to send a line of text onto the”Session Chat” screen.

The first 30 minute session turned out to be easy for the other 2 guys also though it seemed that at least one of them really wanted to go a lot faster.  The session probably served as a warm up for the other 2 guys, to get them ready for the following session which everybody except me rowed at a much faster pace.

The second 30 minute session turned out to be a bit more of a race for everyone but me. In the second session, Arwed Egger won the gold, Alex Crowe won the silver and Vincent Guéret won the bronze, all considerations of weight class and age not being taken into account. And the rest of the good news is that EVERYBODY finished.  Not a single DNF in the 2nd 30 minute session.

Maybe I will race or at least work a little harder tomorrow?  Depends on how I feel… but rowing at any pace, even the easiest, it a healthy activity.

Happy trails.

Today was day 2 of the Rowlympics challenge.  I participated by doing one hour online. There was nobody in the online session who was rowing near a pace that I felt like rowing, so I focused on watching a movie and maintained a very easy pace.

Happy trails.

 

Yesterday I signed up to row an hour online this morning, for the Concept2.com “Rowlympic” challenge.  If you are interested, you can read about it at THIS LINK.

This morning I noticed that Tracy Watkins, the 3-time indoor rowing record holder with whom I rowed yesterday afternoon, had also signed up for that hour of Rowlympics.

Before she signed up, I had thought that I would take it in a lazy paced manner and row very easy at somewhere around a 2:20 pace.

But when I saw that Tracy had joined and remembered that her 30 minute session pace of “easy” turned out to be about 2:07/500m, I knew I would want to row with her again to find out what she would do for an hour.

So I stoked myself with coffee and breakfast and more coffee, to get ready for Tracy’s version of an easy hour.

Sure enough, just before the online hour of rowing started, one of the other rowers, Annette, said she was going to “row easy” and Tracy said “me too…”.  I chuckled to myself and typed, “Easy is relative…”.  Annette laughed, “hehehe” so maybe she had rowed with Tracy before too.

Tracy did not disappoint and was good company to keep me going at a non-lazy pace.

When the session finished, everyone seemed happy with the results except perhaps the 3 who were disconnected and labeled as DNF (Did Not Finish).  (But if the DNF people did the entire hour by finishing it offline and entered it in their online concept2.com logbooks, it still qualified them for this first day of the 15-day Rowlympic challenge.)

After the hour was over, I nourished and re-charged, with a dose of freshly juiced spinach and carrots (see photo below).

Happy trails.

Today’s rowing was a 30 minute online piece.  My original target pace was going to be 2:10/500m plus or minus a couple seconds/500m.

Two others joined the session, Jesper T of Denmark and Tracy W of England. Tracy said that it was late and she was going to bed after rowing so she was going to row “easy”.  At least, I thought that was what she typed. So I decided to stick with my plan to aim for about 2:10/500m and to ignore Jesper who would be faster and Tracy who I assumed would be slower.

But after we started, Tracy was rowing at around 2:08-2:10 so I decided to row with her.  The pace picked up and then there was a sprint for the last minute or so.  The result was an average pace of a bit faster than my original target pace but it was nice and its always good to have company while rowing.

After the online rowing was over, I looked to see if Tracy happened to be one of the members of RowPro Rowers virtual club.  I didn’t see her there but this article did turn up among the search results and it helps explain why what I expected when she said she wanted to row 30 minutes “easy” was a bit faster than I would have guessed.  Grandma Tracy, as she is also known, according to the article linked, has set a few indoor rowing records!  Nice!

Happy trails.

Today’s rowing was 30 minutes offline with a target pace of anywhere between 2:10 and 2:15. The resulting pace of 2:12.2/500m was in the target zone.

Happy trails.

 

Today instead of setting up another 10K I looked online in hopes of finding some company and was rewarded with finding two guys in Australia who were ready to row.

So we mutually encouraged each other to do a 30 minute piece.

Happy trails.

Today’s session was a 10K scheduled online 30 minutes in advance with no takers who joined so I did it solo.

Happy trails.

 

Today’s rowing was an extra easy and ordinary 10 K.  A very common effort but it felt wonderful nonetheless.

Happy trails.

Today there was some necessary work to do on the roof and because it had to be done in time so that it would have a few hours to dry before the afternoon rain arrived… I had to do it in the middle of the day.

I weighed myself before and afterwards, because that’s a more reliable measure of dehydration than the feeling of thirst.  I was 3 pounds lighter after working in the sun on the roof, which translates to having lost 3 pints of water.

So I sat around in shorts after finishing the roof work and cooled off while replenishing those 3 pints before doing today’s rowing.

Today’s time on the erg was a very easy 10K.  After the 10K, I was once again 3 pounds lighter!  Though the rowing pace was very easy, the room was a wee bit warm…

Happy trails.

 

Today’s episode of aerobic activity was an hour at an easy pace on the rowing machine followed by a warm down of about 7 minutes.

Happy trails.