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Day At The Races
Feb. 8th, 2009 05:47 pmSaturday was bracketed by two completely different sorts of virtual races. I spent the morning out on the shores of Tempe Town Lake, chit-chatting with my fellow rowers while waiting for my turn to compete in the Arizona Indoor Rowing Championships. The event was scheduled to begin at 7 am, and my race was scheduled for 10:30, but I was suspicious of this timing because in previous years events had been moved around at the very last minute and I'd missed my chance to race.
Well, the good news was that the Tempe Rowers Organization knew better than to switch things around. The better news was that it was awesome to hang out with my fellow rowers and coaches for the morning to catch up on rowing news. K and I don't get to see many other rowers out on the lake at 5 am, and besides, nobody's very social at that hour anyway. So one of the big benefits of having competitive events is that they provide an opportunity to see how everyone is doing--it's kind of like a reunion with one's extended family.
By and by, it was my turn to race. There's no way to break up this race into a blow-by-blow account, except to note that one guy got it into his head that he should cheer for me in the middle, I didn't appreciate it, and I snapped at him (we straightened things out afterwards). I should note that 2000m goes by extremely fast when one is used to rowing 21,097m at a time on the erg. I could feel the benefit of those bouts of 21,097m because I felt great from a cardiovascular standpoint. I'm just lacking power application, which I can only really get by some focused cross-training and by doing more interval work on the water.
It's hard to know what to make of the outcome of the race--I was pleased with my time (7:43.9), although two other "important" rowers beat me: a junior rower (it was her second race of the morning (!)); and a masters rower who is a pretty powerful woman (firefighter/ironman triathlete). My time was also 6.4 seconds slower than my personal record, set back in college. But we haven't been training for 2k races, so I have a handy excuse. And it's nice to know that there's some good competition for me out there. Motivation to get up in the mornings.
I spent the middle part of the day occupied with domestic activities (grocery-shopping, cleaning the bathroom sink, baking bread, doing some gardening consultations with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
trifold_flame, and cooking soup). Then it was time for race #2: the Roller Wars.
This was an event orchestrated by a bunch of the bicyclists over at azfixed.com to raise money for their team riding in the MS-150 (a 150-mile fundraiser bike ride for multiple sclerosis research/prevention). Seeing as I don't ride a fixie and I live within walking-distance of the venue (Boulders on Broadway), I walked over. Altogether, I got my butt kicked in the roller races by some fast-spinning ladies (the race was pretty much all speed and not power), and had a fun time getting to know the fixed-gear crowd. Cool people, to be sure.
Anyway. I should really be grading papers. There's so much more--brunch this morning, all of the rest of the fun of the roller races, but I suppose that's a story for another day.
Well, the good news was that the Tempe Rowers Organization knew better than to switch things around. The better news was that it was awesome to hang out with my fellow rowers and coaches for the morning to catch up on rowing news. K and I don't get to see many other rowers out on the lake at 5 am, and besides, nobody's very social at that hour anyway. So one of the big benefits of having competitive events is that they provide an opportunity to see how everyone is doing--it's kind of like a reunion with one's extended family.
By and by, it was my turn to race. There's no way to break up this race into a blow-by-blow account, except to note that one guy got it into his head that he should cheer for me in the middle, I didn't appreciate it, and I snapped at him (we straightened things out afterwards). I should note that 2000m goes by extremely fast when one is used to rowing 21,097m at a time on the erg. I could feel the benefit of those bouts of 21,097m because I felt great from a cardiovascular standpoint. I'm just lacking power application, which I can only really get by some focused cross-training and by doing more interval work on the water.
It's hard to know what to make of the outcome of the race--I was pleased with my time (7:43.9), although two other "important" rowers beat me: a junior rower (it was her second race of the morning (!)); and a masters rower who is a pretty powerful woman (firefighter/ironman triathlete). My time was also 6.4 seconds slower than my personal record, set back in college. But we haven't been training for 2k races, so I have a handy excuse. And it's nice to know that there's some good competition for me out there. Motivation to get up in the mornings.
I spent the middle part of the day occupied with domestic activities (grocery-shopping, cleaning the bathroom sink, baking bread, doing some gardening consultations with
trifold_flame, and cooking soup). Then it was time for race #2: the Roller Wars.This was an event orchestrated by a bunch of the bicyclists over at azfixed.com to raise money for their team riding in the MS-150 (a 150-mile fundraiser bike ride for multiple sclerosis research/prevention). Seeing as I don't ride a fixie and I live within walking-distance of the venue (Boulders on Broadway), I walked over. Altogether, I got my butt kicked in the roller races by some fast-spinning ladies (the race was pretty much all speed and not power), and had a fun time getting to know the fixed-gear crowd. Cool people, to be sure.
Anyway. I should really be grading papers. There's so much more--brunch this morning, all of the rest of the fun of the roller races, but I suppose that's a story for another day.
