And Life Goes On

If you have been counting, which there is no reason you would be, it has been 216 days since we moved away from Oakland and since I started a new job, 83 days since my last post, 27 days since my last row on the water, and 7 days since the Princess turned two years old.  

The Princess sits next to me as I type and we both eat grapes;
please note the door behind her and the stickers--lovely

The longer I spend away from the water, the more I worry that I am losing the feel for the water, the smoothness up the recovery, the softness at the catch, the consistency through the drive among other things, such as fitness and strength.  I worry that for every three steps forward in rowing that I had made, I am now taking two steps back.

Instead of worrying if I am training correctly or what is my race plan for the next 2k, I now worry that I am not going to have enough     (time / energy / motivation)      to workout.  Somewhere, rowing has become a struggle in a mix between the new job (i.e. new skills, more hours, travel, different work style, and unpredictability), a less convenient location to the boathouse, an older and more independent-but-really-more-dependent-in-some-ways Princess, and a husband who gets to be single parent when I travel.

The erg at home has proved to be helpful for a short workout or two.  Not so long ago, i.e. 216 days ago, I begrudged doing short interval workouts, such as 6x500m or 4x1000m, because first, I hate intervals and if you did these intervals right, it is a world of pain.  And second, I felt like I did not get the best mileage for the amount of time spent.  I generally preferred 45 or 60 minute steady state pieces.  Now, I am simply grateful if I have the time, energy, and motivation to erg for a simple 20 minutes--usually still steady state.  Erg splits are becoming less and less relevant beyond reminding me of how far I have "fallen."

Here is what my recent ergs look like.  It is 6:30 in the evening and I am just getting home from work.  Sometimes, the Princess and the husband will already be home and sometimes, it is just the Princess and me.  If the husband and the Princess are home, we try to eat dinner together like a normal family except for the food-throwing by the Princess.  Sometime after dinner, I might erg.  While I erg, the husband tries to entertain the Princess and knows to stay far away from "Mama" while she ergs.

If it is just the Princess and me, well, things might not go as smoothly.  I might turn on the TV to occupy the Princess with Elmo or Caillou (thank god for streaming Netflix even if the selection otherwise is not spectacular).  Unfortunately, with the erg and the TV in the same room, you cannot really hear the TV over someone erging.  The Princess usually loses interest fairly quickly.  She did once take the TV remote and turn up the volume until she could hear her show.  I had to stop and turn the volume back down before our neighbors could complain.  And I had thought she only knew how to use the remote to turn on and off the TV.

The erg in the corner of the family / living room;
barely enough room to clear the elbows at the finish

Usually though, the Princess might do puzzles or wander around, looking bored and waiting for me to stop erging. She generally knows not to bother "Mama" while she ergs, although there have been a number of times when the Princess will come up to the erg speaking in some gibberish (not English or Chinese).

In the book Assault on Lake Casitas, Brad Lewis describes some of his mental preparation for the 1984 Olympics.  He and his doubles partner, Paul Enquist, did "shadow rowing" on an erg, practicing their mental focus by executing different scenarios--pretending that they were leading or that they were behind the pack, but making sure they stayed focused.  They even had other people try to distract them in different ways, from shouting obscenities, reading provocative passages to pouring water on them.  No matter the distraction, they stayed focused and it paid off.

Well, my erging at home has been anything but what Lewis and Enquist practiced.  I was really surprised at how distracting the Princess can be just by running around, eating, whining, or making a mess.  Sometimes, it is really hard to just hold a stroke rate or a split, plus or minus two seconds (which is not really consistent or "holding a split"), never mind technique.

One time, I had my eyes closed for a few strokes when the Princess came up and tapped my leg to ask help with her Mr. Potatohead.  I nearly jumped out of my skin.  I managed to not send the handle flying and then, told her to wait until I was done.  She eventually lost interest and found something better to do.

This is probably not an example of good parenting nor is it an example of good erging .  For now though, it will have to do.

I have not yet found steady footing in this new situation and I know that very soon, I am going to have to face the facts and determine what are my goals for right now and what can wait.  I am afraid those 27 days off the water might become 270 days.  In the meanwhile, life goes on...