Last 2K erg test - EVER

This spring is a spring of lasts... at the end of my umpteen year rowing career, I took my last 2K erg test today. For those of you that don't row, they are not fun and can drive you crazy if you let them. You sit on a machine and try to hit your maximum output for about 6 minutes, timing your effort expenditure so your body fills up with lactic acid and crashes at the precisely the right moment. It's a true 'max' test. Anyway, the tendency is to get really worked up a few days before because they involve so much pain and the scores are so important ranking you among the other athletes. You really have to work yourself up for them. The whole preparation process (building up, tapering down, getting mentally ready), takes about a week. I wanted this one to go well since it was my last, and hence I barely left the house this weekend and watched a lot of college basketball and Entourage on HBO On Demand. Yeah, how cool am I?

Exorcist Stairs

So I am just watching Georgetown, my alma mater, in the Big East Championship. Right now they are trying really, really hard to lose to Pitt... anyway, they flashed to the Exorcist Stairs in Washington DC. You may know them as the stairs that the priest falls down at the end of the movie, The Exorcist. I know them as the stairs I had to run repeatedly for training in college. The commentators were talking about how Roy Hibbert, the big man for Georgetown, runs them. He apparently ran them eight times with a minute rest. Maybe if he'd run them as many times as I ran them when training (48 times in 40 minutes) they wouldn't be losing this damn game to Pitt....

Too many trips to the store....

So I got completely spoiled by having a cafeteria at my disposal at the San Diego training center... now I have to go grocery shopping, and I end up going to the store almost everyday. Nutrition is my latest kick, so I'm trying to make sure I get all my food groups all the time. I am constantly running out of fruit, or yogurt, or cereal, or oatmeal, or spinach... and inevitably when I get to the store I forget something. When training is your primary activity, you've got to have healthy (or at least nourishing) food around. So having my PB and J or my Wheaties is important to getting recovered for my next workout.

The other side effect is that I'm getting good at cooking - maybe good is not the word, but I can actually make real meals that don't come in pre-packaged containers. A typical daytime activity between practices is picking out a recipe from my Sports Nutrition Guidebook and heading to the store to get the ingredients. Pretty exciting, I know...

March

March is a tough month as rower. The weather starts to get better, and you have a few days in the 60's... then the temperature plummets on you again and your taking your boat when there is ice on the dock at 7 AM. For soft Californians like me, it's like being purgatory waiting for the spring to really hit. I have to bundle up layer upon layer every time I head out on the water - tights, unisuit, short sleeve base layer, double long sleeve base layers, wool hat, plus sunglasses because the glare off the snow that's still on the ground can be intense. Takes your body a LONG time to warm up when it's in the 20's....

So even though it's boring, I quietly hope coach will keep us indoors on the rowing machines while we are waiting for decent rowing weather.... I get my wish about half the time...