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"I could get an erg."
May. 14th, 2008 11:03 amI must have said that phrase about twenty times this morning, after we'd finished our third lap and were putting the double away. It just hadn't occurred to me before that suddenly I have enough space for one and am in a living situation where my awesome housemate would be fine with it.
You see, K and I had been talking about our upcoming plans, and one of my big ones for this year will be to finally (finally!) complete the Holiday Challenge.
It wouldn't mean a whole lot to most of you, but the Holiday Challenge is something put on by a website that's near and dear to the hearts of me and many of my Arizona Outlaw teammates. The full Challenge is to row 200,000m between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve.
On a day-to-day basis, that isn't too extraordinary a number (I think it's about 6,000m per day), but it's logistically a bit complicated if you don't have your own erg because you have to add on the extra time it takes to go somewhere with an erg (i.e. the gym) and get on it and get in your daily meters. And you can just forget about breaking up those meters into a morning segment and an evening segment.
And if you miss a day because you're traveling or don't feel well, the meters will start to add up very quickly.
Two years ago, I calculated that I had only ten days to complete the Challenge before I had to leave for Australia. That meant ten days of rowing half-marathons. I was in Seattle for the early part of those ten days and managed to get in five days of half-marathons (that's about an hour and 45 minutes a day) before I just couldn't do it anymore (it doesn't help that there's a bit of a hill between my parents' house and the boathouse where I was erging). After all, if you have to go somewhere to erg, you want to finish as expediently as you can, which means little to no breaks.
Last year, my back was giving me trouble during that time period, so rowing and erging were out of the question. Plus, I just mentally couldn't get myself over to the gym. It's way easier to motivate yourself to do stuff if it's staring you in the face every time you walk through a room.
But this year? I think this year, the late summer and fall are going to be a big time for rowing for me. We really want to go to the Head of the Charles in October, and there will of course be our Erg Marathon in September, and it looks pretty certain that we'll go and do the Louisiana Marathon Row in November. So the Holiday Challenge would be a great capstone.
I could get an erg.
It will cost a bit of money--a brand-new Model D with a PM3 monitor is $850. But if I'm properly motivated, I can save up for it. Heck, I could figure out ways to earn an extra buck or two. It would be totally worth it.
You see, K and I had been talking about our upcoming plans, and one of my big ones for this year will be to finally (finally!) complete the Holiday Challenge.
It wouldn't mean a whole lot to most of you, but the Holiday Challenge is something put on by a website that's near and dear to the hearts of me and many of my Arizona Outlaw teammates. The full Challenge is to row 200,000m between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve.
On a day-to-day basis, that isn't too extraordinary a number (I think it's about 6,000m per day), but it's logistically a bit complicated if you don't have your own erg because you have to add on the extra time it takes to go somewhere with an erg (i.e. the gym) and get on it and get in your daily meters. And you can just forget about breaking up those meters into a morning segment and an evening segment.
And if you miss a day because you're traveling or don't feel well, the meters will start to add up very quickly.
Two years ago, I calculated that I had only ten days to complete the Challenge before I had to leave for Australia. That meant ten days of rowing half-marathons. I was in Seattle for the early part of those ten days and managed to get in five days of half-marathons (that's about an hour and 45 minutes a day) before I just couldn't do it anymore (it doesn't help that there's a bit of a hill between my parents' house and the boathouse where I was erging). After all, if you have to go somewhere to erg, you want to finish as expediently as you can, which means little to no breaks.
Last year, my back was giving me trouble during that time period, so rowing and erging were out of the question. Plus, I just mentally couldn't get myself over to the gym. It's way easier to motivate yourself to do stuff if it's staring you in the face every time you walk through a room.
But this year? I think this year, the late summer and fall are going to be a big time for rowing for me. We really want to go to the Head of the Charles in October, and there will of course be our Erg Marathon in September, and it looks pretty certain that we'll go and do the Louisiana Marathon Row in November. So the Holiday Challenge would be a great capstone.
I could get an erg.
It will cost a bit of money--a brand-new Model D with a PM3 monitor is $850. But if I'm properly motivated, I can save up for it. Heck, I could figure out ways to earn an extra buck or two. It would be totally worth it.
