The rowing experience today was a first-time, brand-new indoor-rowing inspiration-getting experience for me, thanks to some rowers who uploaded first-person videos of their participation in OTW races.
I played a first-person video recording of a rowing race and rowed on the C2 at the same time. It was a lot of fun.
The youtube video is titled “Turin silver skiffs 2012”. It is 47 minutes 52 seconds long and it is a first person, in-the-boat view of a race that was about 10,000 meters. This link should take you directly to the particular video on youtube: Turin silver skiffs 2012
If you want to try racing against the above video, set your distance to 10K and start the video but don’t start rowing right away. It takes a couple minutes, more or less, before the actual race starts. When he starts rowing, you will see on his dashboard because the time will start counting up on his dashboard. You will see his stroke rate to the right of the time and his pace below the stroke rate.
He races an out-and-back race, which is about 5K each way. His pace is much slower and requires much more effort on his part on the first part because you can hear him breathing hard. When he gets to the halfway point and turns around, he goes much faster and with much less effort (you won’t hear him breathing hard) after he turns around and starts rowing the return trip.
I played the video while I rowed 10K with RowPro 5 for the Mac on the C2. The perspective was a bit of an adrenaline rush and I could see that it would be a LOT of fun, for some rowing software to be available like that, to run on X-Box or whatever and connect to Concept 2 rowing machines. There are a lot of possibilities, including real racing with other people all having a more immersive experience of something closer to a real race than what is as of now available via RowPro.
I haven’t heard of anyone else trying this while using a Concept 2 rowing machine with or without RowPro software, though I’m sure others must have watched videos of rowing while rowing. I know I’m being slightly redundant by saying so, but it would be really GREAT, to be able to have that perspective while doing indoor rowing and ESPECIALLY so if it would be in direct relation to what a person is actually doing on the machine.
There are quite a few other comparable rowing videos on youtube, so I think those will be my experiments for inspiration in the near future.
If you’re wondering what was done with strength-training today, the answer is nothing. I skipped it again. I’m starting to think I might skip a whole week, before trying the 10th week of the 10 week program, but will take it just one day at a time.
Happy new indoor rowing experiences to you.
