Piece by piece, I come apart …

Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Meters Rowed: 6,516
Time: 30:00
Pace: 2:17-ish
Total Meters Rowed * :  291,586

Sunday, January 25, 2009
Meters Rowed: 5,000
Time: 22:00
Pace: 3 x 1,000m @ sub-2:00 w/ 500m rest
Total Meters Rowed * :  285,070

Friday, January 23, 2009
Meters Rowed: 5,000
Time: 23:07
Pace: 2:22
Total Meters Rowed * : 280,070

Real life intrudes.  I am up in Brooklyn for a few days, mainly to do a book interview on the Dr. Memet Oz Radio Show on the Oprah Radio Network. This is a good thing of course. No complaints here. But it’s got me away from my Woodspring River Boathouse and out of what I was feeling was a pretty good groove. (Sunday’s disaster of a row notwithstanding, and about which more in a minute.) We’ve had some snow and with it a change in the weather, and with THAT has come my first sinus infection in I can’t remember when. Indeed, had it hit just 24 hours ago I’m not sure they would have wanted my voice on the radio. I brought my workout gear and had hoped get to the Y either today or tomorrow, but now I don’t know. Realistically? My next workout probably isn’t until next month. Well, OK. February 1. Super Bowl Sunday. But still.

Now, about Disaster Sunday. I mean it when I call it that. I completely broke down. There is no other way to say it. Perhaps I put the wheels in motion, or at least gave them a good greasing, the night before when I  stupidly, stupidly, stupidly did some ill-advised math.  I subtracted the likely winning time in my age group at the C.R.A.S.H.-B.s (6:20 or so) from MY likely time (7:50 if I’m REAL lucky) and the remainder — 1:30; a minute and a half, ninety full seconds – started to look like something akin to a complete lifetime. Worse, this image camped in my brain: me on the Concept2 at Agganis Arena at Boston University, still rowing like a fool while all the rest of the machines have gone silent, their rowers long done, everyone ready to move on, you know, to the next race, come on, if only this guy could, geez!, hurry up!

That was the spectral companion I brought with me to Sunday morning’s row. The plan was for three 1,000-meter sprints at sub-2:00, sandwiched around 500-meter rest rows. The first 1K I felt uncomfortable and out of sorts, but, OK , maybe I wasn’t warmed up enough. The 500-meter rest was, of course, way to short, and I was into the next 1K sprint before I knew it. This one actually felt OK. Not great, OK. I was halfway home! Bu no, the mind game didn’t take. By the time I was done the second sprint I could think only that I still had a third to go and it was going to be awful and horrible and even terrifying.

The 500 rest flew past. Sprint, steve, sprint! I cranked from 2:22 or so and within three strokes had it under 2:00. But I couldn’t hold it.  Within 100 meters I was slipping past 2:05. And then, somewhere around the 500-meter mark I remember saying out loud. “Come on, Steve … try.” And I did. I tried. I swear I did. I brought it again back under 2:00.

And then it happened. And it had never happened before, not like this. I didn’t just break down. I came apart.  The garage space closed down around me and for an instant I was claustrophobic. And then this wave of absolute weakness rolled over me, coming at me up my legs and up my arms and hitting me full in the face.  I was helpless to do anything about it. And I thought this in the moment: My body became a special effect like in the movie. I could see it from the inside. Suddenly it just fragmented around me into a zillion little pieces, each un-con-nec-ted and dis-con-nec-ted one piece from the other and there was nothing I could do about it. I mean, that is EXACTLY how it felt and what I saw.

And then I stopped, a good 400 meters left in the sprint. I just flat out stopped rowing, the handle coming to rest on my legs. I regrouped, but only barely. Who knows how long I sat there, unmoving? Probably less than a minute. But sit there I did, thinking thoughts I shouldn’t be thinking – me at the C.R.A.S.H.B.’s, still row-row-rowing my boat when everyone else is done. Come on!

* / * / * As of September 12, 2008