Ethereal Rowing

Today’s indoor rowing main event was an online “celebration party” to celebrate Anne Badane’s having rowed more than 20 million meters.  The online session was maxed out, with 16 rowers participating.  It was a merry crowd and a happy thing to be celebrating in the small world of indoor rowing.

Before the Celebration Party 20 minute session began, Anne announced that she’d be giving a prize to the person whose distance during the 20 minutes had the most zeros and/or twos.  There were four winners who each had 3 twos in their final distances.  There were actually five, but one of them was Anne.  The winners were Damien Roohr with 5,222 meters, Doug Rolland with 4,222 meters, Albert Kavsek with 4,222 meters and Vincent Guéret with 5,222 meters.

As for me, I chose to aim for an easy pace that would give a target heart rate of about 130 and then during the final minute of the session, I went faster to the finish.

After today’s main event of the 20 minute celebration of Anne Badane’s 20 millionth meter, I did two supplemental 3K pieces at even easier paces, to bring today’s total distance rowed to over 10K.

Happy rowing to you.

Today’s indoor rowing session was another 10,000 meter piece.  It was done at a gradually increasing and mostly easy effort, with the main exception to “easy” being a single kinda hard 500 meter sprint.

The rowing session was done online but it was a solo session.  Mental focus on rowing effort was maintained throughout.  Time flew by.

Happy rowing to you.

The above cartoon was found on the Condé Nast website as one of the results for images when I searched for “rowing” and “sleep”.  I thought it was particularly appropriate after the especially good night’s sleep I had last night, which was greatly helped by yesterday’s rowing.  After yesterday’s inspired-by-lively-company half-marathon, I felt extremely relaxed and slept about 30 minutes longer than average and very soundly last night.

For that reason (good sleep), I’d like to row fast and hard or even race every single day, but there is a real danger of over-training if a person does too much too hard and I don’t know what my own boundaries are.  So I lean toward taking it easy, most of the time. If you’ve never heard of the over-training syndrome, it is something you should read about and take special care to avoid.  Rowing is ethereal but over-training syndrome is dismally earthbound and can drag a person down, down down. I’d rather stay “up,” so I try to avoid over training.

When in doubt, row easier during long rowing sessions and be moderate with the amount of racing you allow yourself. Racing is fun and the “pain” is like the pain of jalapeño peppers.  It  goes away and gives you an emotional boost and desire to do it again.   A person can overdo it with jalapeño peppers and also with exercise and racing, but in moderate and reasonable amounts, they can both be positive, healthy addictions.

Today’s rowing was a recovery session, 8,000 meters, with a couple intervals and sprints in the mix.

Happy rowing and peaceful sleeping to you.

Today’s indoor rowing session was scheduled a day in advance.  It was another half-marathon and two (TWO!!!) other rowers signed up for the session.  Only one of them showed up though.  The guy who showed up was located in Oklahoma.  I told him that I’d pace him/row alongside him, if he didn’t row too fast.  He didn’t row too fast, but he did row a bit slower than the range of paces I’d anticipated and so… after about one or two kilometers, I decided to pick up the pace, so I’d be finished with the session before dinner time.

It was just as well, that I didn’t row at his pace because he had some kind of connection problem before half the distance was completed and I rowed most of the distance alone anyway.

Happy rowing to you.