Ethereal Rowing

Yesterday’s rowing session wasn’t posted so this post covers yesterday and today. Each of these two sessions was done while watching a video and focusing on the video, not the rowing.

Happy trails.

Today’s rowing was an easy half marathon which was done while watching a baseball game.  The Diamondbacks were ahead in this game from the time I started watching and rowing… and they stayed ahead and won the game, so though I rowed leisurely like yesterday, it was done with a bit more energy than yesterday.

Happy trails.

Today’s rowing was done while watching part of a baseball game.

Happy trails.

Today’s rowing session on the Concept 2 erg was a quick and easy 10K to the accompaniment of a 2:12.8/500m pace boat. That pace of 2:12.8 was easy but due to the warm room temperature, I needed a sweatband to help control the sweat which eventually appeared and bathed my head and face. Its a good way to help clean out the pores and stimulate circulation.

Happy trails.

Today’s rowing session consisted of a single 10K piece.  It was done with a very moderate target pace of 2:13/500m and no target heart zone.  Heart rate never rose above the top boundary of heart rate zone #1.

Happy trails.

Today’s rowing was an easy 30 minutes while focusing on a video.  The video was produced in Canada and it is the most recent of several documentaries I’ve watched which focus on the dangers and toxicity of sugar.  It mostly covered what I already was aware of, but there was one new test result which I hadn’t yet heard of:  sugar causes a degree of dementia.

I already had enough reasons to do all possible to remove excess sugar from my diet, but that fact alone would be sufficient reason.

Happy trails.

Today I used an alarm clock to force early wake up.  By the time chores were done and errands were run, I decided to take a nap and not do any rowing today.  So I took a picture of the cup you see above and was going to post that, after waking from the nap, as the sole content of today’s blog post.

But after the nap I thought, “What the heck! I can do a LITTLE rowing.” So I checked Oarbits and saw that there was a series of five 1500 meter intervals scheduled.  I didn’t really want to row as hard as I knew most of the others would be doing, but did want some company.  The first one was already over.  The second one had already started.  So I signed up for the last three of the five 1500 meter intervals.

The first of those 3 didn’t work out because RowPro lost connection to Oarbits.  So while I waited for the others to finish that 1500 meter interval, I did a 1K warm up, then did the last two of the 1500 meter intervals in the company of the other jolly rowers online and finished with a 5K warm down offline. Session reports and a couple of screen shots are below.

Happy trails.

 

Today’s rowing was an online 10K scheduled by Frederic N. in France. Romain A., also in France, brought the total rowers to three.

 

Romain may have had computer problems because he typed something in French which included the words “mon orde pue” plus another word which I’m not sure of.  When I later typed those words into Google translate, the English translation suggested by Google was “My computer stinks.” Romain lost connection to Oarbits (RowPro software’s online platform) as soon as the session started.  His avatar froze at the start line and his data at the right of the screen went gray.  So maybe his computer did stink.

Happy trails.

 

Today’s rowing session was fortuitously done online again.  A guy in New Zealand scheduled the session for what turned out to be a good time for me to row.  There were 4 others besides myself, in the countries of New Zealand, Great Britain and USA.

None of the five rowed at the same pace and none of them were racing the others.  It was a session where each person rowed to the beat of his own drummer.

But even though nobody’s avatar closely paced mine, it was still very worthwhile to be in the company of others in a rowing session.  And I’ve heard many others say that if given the choice they would rather row online with other people than alone.  It’s a positive social element.

Happy trails.

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.