Cheese/Meat/Jagermesiter

After my recent skiing trips which have been pretty much a festival of meat, cheese and jagermeister I did not hold out much for todays weigh in and time trial. I am sat at my work desk literally dripping in sweat whilst I write this so I'm going to keep this very short and sweet. Remarkably I have lost a few llbs, now weighing in at 14st 9. I suspect four days of fairly non stop skiing has helped burn a few calories. On Chris' recommendation I made a switch from resistance 10 to 7. This is perfectly legal. It just means you have to pull more frequently than force 10. This helped although was still nackering. I decided today that I should not fanny about. I think you really have to throw yourself at this sport, and chuck your all in. Long story short I did in in 7 mins 38 secs which is a fair chunk quicker than last time. I'm pretty pleased with that although with increased fitness I know I could shave 15 seconds of that. My problem is when I row really quickly, I have to literally stop for a few seconds which will be costing me dearly. I'm going to go on a jogging campaign as sub 7.30mins is in my sights. The thought of shaving forty seconds off a time which has nearly crippled you is a touch intimidating. I think the answer lies in aerobic fitness. I'm happy with strength but fitness is letting me down. Anyway enough of rowing, I'm off to watch England rip through the Welsh! ciao

ERGO Broke

The Ergo in my gym is missing its timer, so last night I counted 50 strokes then got that heart burn feeling in my chest and sick feeling in the back of my throat. I went home.

Having just read the above back I realised it could be taken the wrong way. So I'd like to clear up that I did 50 strokes of the rowing machine.

As Ever
Chris

PS

I had to walk past this on the way home from the gym. It reminded me of a happier time.

Results

I started off confidently pulling a consistent 1m 50 per 500 without too much effort. Easy street. This lasted for about 500m and then I hit the wall...a little earlier than anticipated! The remaining 1500 was spent at a fairly uncomfortable 2mins per 500m. To put things into a bit of context for non-rowers, if I want to get to 7mins I will need to be pulling an average of 1m 45 per 500. As you can see I have a long way to go. Bearing in mind I thought I was going some at 1m 50 per 500 now I realise that getting to 7mins for 2km will be a stretch indeed. So how did I get on? The answer lies in the photo. For a bit of a pudding I didn't think it was too bad. Clearly a million miles away from target but potential all the same. For me the worrying thing is was that when I started the quickest I got to was about 1m 45/500 and I only kept this up for a a few strokes. The thought of maintaining this pace for 7mins is a touch daunting. I had to stop a couple of times to get rid of a touch of cramp so I'm sure with increased fitness it won't be too tricky to shave off 10secs at least. My mission for this week until the next time trial is to work on fitness. This week I shall mostly be running.

Just so you know what we're competing against the current record in my age category is (ie the fastest category) is Matthias Siejkowsk of German who completed 2k in 5:37. Not too shabby. If we were going head to head he would have been showered and changed by the time I finished. The good news is I pretty much equalled the world record time of Frederik Osborne of the USA who completed the test in 7mins 57 in the 80-84yr old category. And on that bombshell..

Saddling Up

I sat in the gym with my bottle of water eying up my nemesis..the ergo concept II rowing machine. This machine is to be my home indefinitely until 7 mins is achieved. It's an unforgiving looking creature, something straight of Rise of the Machines. After popping on the scales for the official weigh in I had a quick warm up, by reading the sports section of the paper next to the radiator, then plonked myself in the racing position. I thought I'd take a picture as proof of my attendance as the gym was empty. However, just as the flash was going off a chap walked in. That must have been a slightly strange experience for him and an embarrassing one for me. Not to worry, I had to regain focus again as it was competition time.

Weighing In

14 stones 13lbs. For the sake of public embarrassment I was pleased not to be on the wrong side of 15stones but as you can see plenty of work to be done....

I thought he wouldn't remember.

Back in July 2005 my small work gym was in the middle of a fierce battle for the fastest times on the Ergo indoor rowing machines. It was an overly testosterone fuelled competition between a couple of us computer nerds, desperatly trying to stay fit instead of growing huge bums, that would eventually consume the ridiculously expensive chairs that our company provided us with so not to feel too guilty about making us work hunched over a humminig PC, bending our bones so we would evolve back to walking on all fours again.
I had just finished a gruelling 2000 meter sprint when the announcement that London had won the bid for the 2012 Olympics. Everybody stared at our little televison and admitted that it was made one hundred times sweeter because we had beaten the French.
A few of my fellow wanna-be rowers joked that if we all kept beating each others rowing times we would be competing in the 2012 Olympics. I laughed saying that we wouldn't have far to go seen as the Olympic rowing venue (Dorney Lake) was only a couple of miles down the road.
That summer I rounded up a few of my mates and put together a 4 man rowing team to learn how to row, and entered a rookie competition at Eton Excelcior rowing club on the Thames. None of us had ever rowed a boat before and one of the team couldn't even swim (we kept that quiet from the organisers).
After 4 hours training on the river we entered our first regatta. We pounded through the heats and final rounds only to loose in the final by a team called 'Salad Dodgers' because of our foul-up at the start line. There are still moments I can't sleep thinking about how we should of won.
November of that year, my wife and I disappeared off round the world for a years break. I came back slightly more unfit than I had hoped.
So now I found myself in a different gym massivley out of shape, haven forgotten my obsession with rowing. Until last week... a sign went up on the board notifying all members of a 2000 meter time trial, and if we could beat the local Athlete, Simione, we got to throw him in the pool. His best time was 7:17. So I jumped on and pulled as hard as I could. Good enough to get Simione wet but along way off my personal best.
It got me thinking about that Olympic race again. With any physical challenge I think it's best to set your sights so ridicuosly high that even if you never achieve your goal, you usually end up far surpassing any achievable goal you might of set otherwise.
So instead of keeping this goal quiet, after 7 pints I stupidly told my brother-in-law ( to be ) that I was going to row in the olympics. Oh dear. Of course i never actually MEANT I was going to get to the olympics, I was simply voicing my ridicuosly high goal to make it into a real challenge.
Last night I received a text telling me about this website. I suppose I will have to try my hardest now. I'll just use the website to log my times and motivate myself to find the real limits of my physical ability, as I believe a 2000 meter row has got to be one of most physically challenging things possible.
Chris