Row, Row, Row Your Boat…

[Written 13 JULY 2014.  What is time anyway?]

This March I switched from doing mommy-gym to what they call the ‘Newbies’ (Grænjaxlar) at Boot Camp.  (Lets take a short moment to marvel at the fact I enjoy the heck out of boot camp!)

Now, seeing how I’m still in sorry shape, it took me about two weeks to injure my right heel (plantar fasciitis almost certainly, just like my left heel two years ago), so no more running for me.  Instead I switched to using a rowing machine when everybody else went running, which much to my surprise, I really enjoyed.  (I’ve always hated running.  Shocking, I know.)

Anyway, the Boot Camp center has a few newbie challenges and one of them is rowing 10k in one go.  (Another was swimming 1k for 10 weeks.  I also did that.)

Now, I’d never actually done 10k at once, so when I finally got my act together to do it (in June!), I decided to play it relatively safe and maintain a 2:10-2:15 min pace (that’s the time it takes to row 500 m).

(Just for the record, I’ve managed to clock a 1:28 min pace for a short burst when very high on adrenaline, but can pretty reliably do 500 m in 1:45-1:50 mins if not too tired and feeling competitive.)

So, I did my 10k while listening to an episode of RadioLab (not the most exciting, but hey, it was interesting!) and ended up with a time of 44:45, which according to the 2014 Concept2 rankings puts me in the 75th percentile of rowers, which I’m pretty happy with for a first try!