Rowing In The Deep

I'm a Biggest Loser fan and pick up a lot of workout ideas every week from watching it. This week the contestants were sent home for a bit, but in BL fashion, had to compete in a surprise challenge shortly after their arrival.  This episode's challenge: race to 10,000 meters on the rowing machine.  "Hmm," I said to myself, "Wonder if I can do that?"

Now let me preface the following with this: rowing is a lot harder than it looks and it works parts of you that you didn't know you had.  In training we would compete against each other in 250 meter sprints  and the most I've ever rowed to my knowledge is 1,000 meters.  10,000 meters seemed an impossible challenge, but I wanted to give it a shot.  Lucky for me that my gym had two rowers and I had Millie who was willing to try that craziness with me.

And so we started. 

• For the first 1,000 meters I  just concentrated on finding the most effective stride, making sure my arms and legs were working in sync (no small feat for me) and that I was rowing with a sustainable pace.  
• The second 1,000 meters started to wear me down...10,000 seemed a lonnnnng way off.  I tried to distract myself by singing songs about rowing  to Millie.  "We could have had it allllllll, rowing in the deeeeeeeeep." and "They see me row-ing, they hating...wanna catch me rowing dirty..."
• In the third 1,000 meters we decided that we only realistically had time to go to 5,000 and even that seemed so far off.  My abs of all things started burning and my legs wanted to give out. I also managed to master the art of rowing one handed while flipping tracks on my Ipod.
• The fourth 1,000 meters attracted the attention of our trainer Jeff who came over to crank the damper (i.e. the lever that controls the weight of your "boat") from five to ten (the heaviest setting). As if our legs weren't about to fall off already...but that's what trainers are for...to push us.
• The last 1,000 meters were a blur of screaming muscles, pure stubbornness, and encouraging shouts from Jeff and Millie, who'd finished ahead of me but said she'd keep going till I finished.  I can't tell you how many times she's done this simple but wonderful act of unity for me.

When we were finished, I had to sit down for a few minutes because my legs simply wouldn't work.  Then I had to stand up and hold onto the wall beside me to keep from falling over...literally.  After that, I had to creep unsteadily around the gym for a few laps just to get my legs to unlock.  But you know what, I was proud of us. Even though we didn't do the 10,000 meters, we still challenged ourselves.  And hey - 5,000 meters is 3.1 miles. We basically did a 5K on the rower (and in faster time than I do a 5K on foot).   We also found our new Friday challenge.

The thing I've learned lately is the fastest way out of an exercise rut is to stop mindlessly banging away at the same ole same ole and find yourself a challenge. More info on indoor rowing can be found at: http://gubernatrix.co.uk/2008/03/indoor-rowing-training/.