#erg piece

[yougotamonsterinyourparasol]

Still cant get the taste of puke out of my mouth from my piece today.... -.-

[coxswaincatch-blog]

The last stroke of an erg piece

Feels a little like this:

[humble-narcissist]

completely crashed on my steady state 10k today

I don't know what happened. I started out strong. Pulled as I usually do, then my splits just started rising, and it felt incredibly difficult to keep it under 1:58 at 20 spm, (usually I can pull 1:55 at a 20 without TOO much trouble). I ended up with a 1:57.5, 2 beats over what I pulled on my last 2 10ks. Just ew... The last 4k was torturous, but I kept going just to hold that 1:57.5 for the last bit.

[coxincowboyboots]

3 x 2k

It inspires fear.

Deep, consuming, whole-bodied fear.

That was our workout today, and I always do the erg workouts with the girls.  I cannot cox them if I do not sweat with them.  How can they respect me if all I do is sit and yell?  Where do I get any authority if I just show up and tell them what to do?

At least that's how I feel.

So I stewed over that 3 x 2k.  I worried about it alllllll day.  I hung out with the boyfriend and complained (mostly out of fear of self and inadequacy), but he's a rower, so he wasn't buying any of the shit I was selling.

The time came, and even though I knew that the times our coach gave us were suuuuuuper generous, I was scared.  

I'm not sure what of; maybe I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to do it, even though it's just pain.  I can get through pain.  Maybe it was fear of not measuring up, even though I am only 5' and have erged a grand total of about 15 times since March. (Yay, injuries!)  But maybe I was weak.  

Weak in the mind.

Maybe I had quit in me.

But with one 2k down and 28 seconds below the time my coach gave me, I remembered I don't know how to quit.

It sucks.  It's awful.  Everything is on fire and you are going to die during a 2k, but you never, ever stop rowing.

So I didn't.

The coach said if we came within 12 seconds on our second one, we didn't have to do a third.  And I realized, while sprinting that last 400 just to be sure, that no 400 meters, no insane 40 strokes, no mental and physical agony, could be as bad as doing another 2k.

And you know what?  Not a single person on our team had to do a third, and I felt almost good.

I remembered that I can push myself.  I can take that rage and fear and pain and make it do something, because I don't have quit in me.

And now I know that I can ask that of my girls.  If I can do it, they sure as shit can.

[the-rowing-commandments]