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