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Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Meters Rowed: 10,599
Time: 50:00 (!)
Pace: 2:22-ish
Total meters rowed * : 275,070

Hello!
If you’re reading this it means one of three things:
1) You clicked in from The Wall Street Journal’s “Daily Fix” and my Greatest High School Athletes of York, Pennsylvania, update ** .
2) You’re a rowing enthusiast and you received an email from me alerting you to “My Rowing Heart” blog.
3) A friend zapped you the link.

Whatever the reason, you’re here. Thanks.

“My Rowing Heart” is me blithely blogging as I (attempt to) prepare for the C.R.A.S.H.-B. Sprints World Indoor Rowing Championships February 22 at Boston University. It is my not-subtle reference to “My Father’s Heart: A Son’s Reckoning with the Legacy of Heart Disease,” my book published last year and coming out in paperback on February 8.

(I am under NO illusions about the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s, by the way. Anyone can pay to play. I’m in that category. I’m gonna get smoked.)

Meanwhile, you’re right: “My Rowing Heart” is an obvious ploy to try to drum up interest (and sales) of “My Father’s Heart.” To say anything else would be a flat out lie.

But I think me and my connection to indoor rowing and the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s is an honest one. “My Father’s Heart” is a memoir of my father who died of a heart attack in 1969. He was 50; I was 16.

That’s why today’s 50-minute row – a personal best for both time and distance. Dad would have been 90 years old today. If only. Happy birthday, Dad.

It was just the two of at home that night in York, Pennsylvania, long ago.  “MFH” covers A LOT of ground – including a couple of pages excerpted here on rowing and the Concept2. I’d been on the Concept2 for nearly 20 years when I received my own diagnosis of heart disease in 2005. The doctor said that he couldn’t say so definitively, but yes, the fact that I was (and had been for so long) in such good shape likely is what has kept me alive.

Thanks, Concept2.

I hope you believe this, too: I have long wanted to do the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s. Honest. In fact, I planned to use the race as the final chapter of “MFH” – an affirmation of self, of still being here and in shape — until the opportunity to participate in a triathlon with my 16-year-old son came to me from out of nowhere and I went into a quick two-month training routine to get it done.

How I got that triathlon “done,” by the way, will be instructive in how I will, for sure, get it “done,” in the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s. The triathlon was of the “sprint” variety: quarter-mile swim, 11-mile bike, 5K run. I finished a solid hour behind the winner and a good 30 minutes behind the winner in my 50-54 age group. I expect that same sort of results from my C.R.A.S.H.-B. performance.

I am doing the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s for fun. As an impetus to crank up the get-in-shape dial these past few months. I get it completely that for many of people rowing is a defining gesture, a lifestyle statement. I get that. I respect that. It is for me, too, in its own way. But I don’t pretend to be a member in good standing in any club except my own.

Which isn’t to say I’m not coming at the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s as hard as I can.  I am. I have been pointing to the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s, training for it, blogging about it, since September 12. I’m doing time trials and intervals. Today’s 10,599, while my p.r., isn’t my first 10k pull.

Sitting on the machine these past few months, I have thought a lot about my father. I always do. But I’ve thought about other things, too. As a Pennsylvanian in good standing, I have cheered for the Philadelphia Phillies (and remembered Johnny Callison), tried to keep this C.R.A.S.H.-B. quest in perspective, turned my garage into my “boathouse,” the Woodspring Lane in front of my house into the Woodspring “river.” And then there is Lolo Jones. What, you don’t remember Lolo at the Beijing Games?

So.

I am learning as I row.

I am getting it done.

I haven’t a clue.

I am having fun.

Thanks again for clicking in. Come back soon. Tell a friend. Drop me a line.

Steve McKee
My Father’s Heart

* Total meters rowed since September 12, 2008.

** To view The GREATEST YORK ATHLETES on “The Daily Fix” at WSJ online, click here and then scroll toward the bottom.

Or click here to read the most recent entry to “My Rowing Heart.”

The C.R.A.S.H.-B.'s made me do it …

Monday, January 19, 2009
Meters rowed: 6,471
Time: 30:00
Pace: Pyramid – 1minute(1rest)-2m(2r)-3m(3r)/3m(2r)-2m(1r)-1min
Total Meters Rowed: 264,984

I am doing the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s so I can do workouts like this one. A “pyramid” routine that I cadged from the Concept2′s Web site training site. One minute at sub 2:00, one minute “rest” at 2:25, two minutes at sub 2:00 and so on up and down. It was an awful workout; it was a wonderful workout. It was exhausting; it was exhilarating.  I hope I never do it again; I can hardly wait to crank it.

Yes, I am doing the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s so I can do workouts like this one. I realized that yesterday somewhere toward the end of all the agony this pyramid produced. The sequence is important here. I am NOT NOT NOT doing this workout so I can do the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s. Yes, the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s are out there waiting for me (laughing at me already, I am sure). And so to prepare, workouts like this pyramid are necessary. But like I recall Col. Potter once saying on a M*A*S*H episode about another hair-brained scheme of Lt. Kinger’s to get out of the army; “This one has a lot of reverse topspin. This is why I am doing the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s: Because I would never in a zillion lifetimes sit down and do a workout as awful as this one just because, just for fun, just to “do it.”

To paraphrase the late, great Flip Wilson (as Geraldine): The C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s made me do it. Indeed, there is something of the devil in the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s, I suspect. And (more paraphrased Flip/Gerladine): “What you do is what you get.”

Yesterday I sat down on the Concept2 and busted my gut, broke my heart, seared my lungs, pounded my quads. Because the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s told me to. The down slope of the pyramid — three-minute sprint, two-minute rest, two-minute sprint, one-minute rest, one-minute sprint– was 10 minutes of mind-bending horribulisiosity (I am falling back on my four years of high-school Latin to find words – even made up ones – to describe how it felt). What I did was what I got. For one of the first times ever, I think, railing at Dad for dying of his heart attack at 50 years old wasn’t enough motivation enough to stay with it. When I rolled from the final two-minute rest into the two-minute sprint, THERE WAS NO REASON TO KEEP GOING BEYOND THE MERE FACT THAT I HAD TO. But I am 56 years old and I did it.  C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s, thy grip is powerful.

Garage Guy, up and at 'em

Friday, January 16, 2009
Meters rowed: 6,255
Time: 30:00
Pace: 2:22-ish
Total Meters Rowed*: 258,513

The Woodspring River was iced today, long streaks of it running parallel to the banks. Still temperature: 9 degrees; with wind chill, 1.  So I kept the doors to the boathouse closed today, not even trying to give it a go by throwing them open. This returned the “boathouse” to its original architectural intention as the garage in front of the house and made the gently flowing Woodspring “River” just the quiet street in front of the garage. And a suddenly small garage at that, what with both cars hiding within. That leaves just enough room for the Concept2 to sit parallel to a side wall — my right elbow just inches from the wall, my left just inches from the Audi Allroad.

Today’s 30-minute pull, by the way, was supposed to be 40. Got a too-late start at 6:40 a.m. But I’m not complaining. I got up when I didn’t want to. The C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s are out there, somewhere, waiting for me, waiting to take me down, I’m sure of it. I had to get out to the garage today, if only in self-defense. 

*As of September 12, 2008

You & Me, Dad

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Meters rowed: 5,471
Time: 25:00
Pace: one minute sub-1:50 sprints at minutes 5, 7 & 9 and 15, 17 & 19
Total meters rowed*: 252,258

This thought came to me somewhere in the five-minute rest period at 10 min. to 15 min., between the two 3 x one-minute all-out sub-1:50 sprints. (The second set of which was maybe the worst five minutes I have ever experienced on a Concept2.)

Am I doing this – this six-month run-up to the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s; this lifetime of staying in shape – am I doing all this FOR my father, BECAUSE OF my father, or, even, TO my father? And it struck me that in all these years of doing “this,” I can’t recall that I have ever framed the question exactly like that – for / because of / to.

When I was 16 years old I watched my father die of a heart attack. He was 50. It was just the two of us at home that night in York, Pennsylvania. Somewhere in that night I made this promise to myself that I would always stay in shape. (Indeed, maybe earlier. My junior year at York Catholic High School, inspired by Tommie Smith and John Carlos and their 200-meter Mexico City Olympic gold and bronze** – AND  black-gloved protest on the medals stand – I started running, fully intending to be American’s next great sprinter at the 1972 Munich Olympics***. Didn’t happen. But out there in the mornings were a couple of dads from the neighborhood – remember, this was 1968, still a pre-Fitness Boom age – huffing and puffing around the track. That registered with me. Getting/staying/BEING in shape, it mattered. And I wanted nothing more than for my own father to be out there with me. That didn’t happen either.

So I know somewhere early on I started getting in shape FOR my father. And I know I am staying in shape now, and have been all these years, BECAUSE OF him. It’s the sudden addition of today’s TO dad, for the first time, that intrigues. This morning, suffering through those one-minute, sub-1:50 sprints, looking for any any any reason to continue, I grasped at the fact that I was doing them – this being in shape — TO dad. Not in that old-fashioned Catholic, offer-it-up sort of way. No. TO Dad. IN HIS FACE. I can do this Dad. You can’t.  And you never could. And now I’m 56 years old. An age you never were. TO dad. That’s what I mean.

This was a good workout today. Best in a while. The first set of 3 flew by. I was at 10 minutes before I knew it. Set two was a lot less like fun. I slowed the stroke count down from 28 per minute to 24, stoking more power. This actually helped. But three one-minute sets at sub-1:50 is what it is. The final minute was agony. I knew I could make it, but only if I was willing. I talked to myself, talked to dad, out loud, begging for help to make it through.

And I could. Even if he never could.

*Since September 12, 2008

**This video of the 1968 200 meters appears to be have an Australian point of view. So it’s worth noting that Peter Norman finished second in this race. Watch it again, this time with an eye on the still much-revered Aussie (who died of complications from heart disease at age 64 in 2006).  Watch how, if Smith in lane three ate up Carlos in lane five to gulp on the gold, Norman in lane six absolutely feasted on Carlos to savor the silver. 

***Instead of me being the great sprinter of the ’72 Games (hard as that is to fathom!), honors went to Valery Borzov of the U.S.S.R. But with a bit of its own asterisk, maybe. This was the 100-meter dash where the U.S.’s Nos. 1 & 2 sprinters, their coach working with an outdated schedule, missed their start times in the heats, clearing the way for Borzov. Though Mr. Borzov did then later blow away the 200 meters outright against a full field with a convincing, look-around, arms-in-the-air victory that you just witnessed if you clicked on the 100-meter dash.

Dear Steve: Shut Up!

Monday, January 12, 2009
Meters rowed: 5,000
Time: 23:41
Pace: dunno
Total Meters Rowed: 246,787

You know, I should just keep my big mouth closed. A couple of days ago I was lamenting a twinge of a pulled groin muscle and how, suddenly, the realization that “getting hurt” could derail my plans for the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s and how the world itself was now about to tilt on its axis. Yeah, well, no, that hasn’t now happened. But get this: Last night in bed I pulled a muscle in my back … while sleeping, while sleeping. Know idea how. All I remember is I woke up at 3 a.m. needing to go and next thing I know I’m unable to straighten up and I’m having trouble breathing. Worse, upon returning to bed I couldn’t find a position that didn’t hurt when I inhaled and so sleep was an on-again, off-again thing until the alarm went off at six. Did I want to blow off the workout, or what? But no. I had been planning a sprint routine, something good and hard and exhausting, but I went instead with just 5,000 meters — my default workout, obviously. I almost but not quite found a place on the Concept2 where I could sit and breathe without hurting and was glad to do it and get it done.

Still, visions of the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s crashing around me before I even got there circled me the entire time. I simply can’t imagine what it must be like to be an athlete (a REAL athlete, let’s say), going for the Olympics, or the NBA championships or … whatever … only to have it all derailed by an injury and snatched away forever.

Actually, when you think about it, over the years there must have been thousands of athletes for whom it should have happened but never did. Competition is terrible … awful … Darwinian. But that’s the very point, right? Survival of the … you know the rest. It’s THE thing what makes competition so can’t-look-away compelling.  Surely there are many people we should have heard about, but never did.

 Well, to correct that, even if just a bit, here’s one. The York Daily Record here in my Pennsylvania hometown is winding up a 22-week series on the Top 10 athletes of all time in every high school in York & Adams counties. (I’m a 1970 grad of York Catholic High; my name is NOT on this list.) This past week the No. 5 athlete at Northeastern was Brendon Falconer (big-league name, no?). He was “only” No. 5 because the Daily Record limited its criteria to high school accomplishments (and whether said glory got the athletes a college scholarship or a pro contract), but that seems fair enough. Falconer won himself a couple of Pennsylvania state championships in track and field. Then he went to Kent State on scholarship and concentrated on the decathlon. Then, for my money, he became the best pure athletic talent south central Pennsylvania ever produced. (I unabashedly admit I am an old-school type when it comes to the merits of the decathlon.) And then for “Fly Man Falconer” (or “Brendon Bird Man”; geez, his future was soaring and, yes, the sky seemed the limit!!), what happened then? Oh, alas, what happened then …

I just made up those nicknames that never were. What happened then is how Falconer was forced to return to earth and yet so admirably, graciously, realistically accepted his clipped wings and walked away.

So yes, for me and my “injuries” and their awful “consequences”? I should just keep my big mouth closed.

I Got a "Hink-Pink" for an "Unfeeling Digit."

Friday, January 9, 2009

Meters rowed: 8,471
Time: 40:00
Pace: 2:20-21
Total meters rowed:  241,787

Fair warning: The payoff here  isn’t going to be worthy of the buildup, which is going to be sorry enough anyway.

So, iiiiiiiiiiif you’re still reading: Ever play a rhyming word game called “Hink-Pink.” You give a cryptic clue for a “Hink-Pink,” where each word is one syllable and they rhyme?  A Hink-Pink for an unhappy boy is a “Sad Lad,” that sort of thing? A Hinky-Pinky is two rhyming two-syllable words, a Hinkidy-Pinkidy two three syllable words and so on? We used to play Hink-Pink with my mom and dad all the time, especially when we were camping.

So: I got a Hink Pink for an unfeeling digit.

Today’s row? In a word, “Brrrr…..” Before I sat down on the Concept2, I threw open the garage door in an ill-advised face-off with the temperature: 27 degrees, according to the thermometer on our Audi Allroad, which I turned on afterward just to check. I warmed up soon enough on the row and it was actually quite pleasant. “Bracing,” let’s call it. My hands, on the other hand, are still screaming at me. My fingertips stung start to finish. Every so often, mid reach, I’d release one hand and quickly clench-unclench in an attempt get the blood out there to the extremities. Never happened.

The sick part is I kind of enjoyed it. Really. The man and the challenge and all that. (“The Man and the Challenge”! That was the name of a TV show from when I was a kid. Seriously, I remembered that just as I was typing it. Maybe it’s because I have recently written a memoir — hey, it’s been a long time since I blatantly plugged – but I love the way memory works.) 

Anyway, yeah, sick. I’m rowing away and my fingertips are screaming at me and I’m figuring somehow or other that this all raises my workout to the stuff of legend. Geesh. 

Oh, right, yeah:  A Hink-Pink for an unfeeling digit? A “Numb Thumb.” Hey, I warned ya.

Back Home in Pennsylvania*

Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Meters rowed: 5,481
Time: 25:00
Pace: one-minute sprints at sub-2:00, sub-1:55, at minutes 5, 10, 15 & 20
Total meters rowed: 233,316

DATELINE: YORK, PENNSYLVANIA – Yes, we are back in York now after two weeks up in Brooklyn, N.Y., for the holidays. Back here in the city that prides itself as the First Capital of the United States. Which, actually, isn’t exactly really true, though it’s close enough to make the claim and whose going to bother arguing it now anyway except maybe this guy?

Being back means, among other things, that I’m back in my boathouse/garage, the Woodspring “River” flowing in front of me. (It’s really just Woodspring Lane, the street in front of my house, as this blog entry explained.) Have I mentioned before how much I love this boathouse/garage of mine? Even more so now after having done my workouts in Brooklyn with the Concept2 stuffed into a third-floor overheated bedroom in our house in Boerum Hill. Here in York I can throw open the garage door no matter the temperature (we’ve got snow on the way today, says Weather.Com), and with my breath coming in puffs and my finger tips tingling in the cold I take off down the Woodspring.

Hey, you need to find your motivation where you can. It is good to have the rowing machine, and me, back where it, and me, belong.

Still, for all that back-home-let’s-go emotion, I almost almost almost didn’t work out today, and once I got to the machine I almost almost almost didn’t go for my planned sprint workout. Two days ago while cooling down and stretching out I slightly pulled my right groin. Didn’t think a whole lot of it, really. I figured the straight-ahead motion of rowing wouldn’t aggravate it, but it did. This a.m. I could feel it, just a touch, with every stroke. My biggest worry was that I’d alter my motion — on purpose or not — to try to compensate. An eventuality that has screwed up better athletes than me. I don’t think I did, so I am not worried. Or at least I am almost not worried. Because this is something, I’d have to say, I hadn’t planned on, even thought of, going into the C.R.A.S.H.-B. Sprints: That I might get hurt.

*With apologies to Jim “Gomer Pyle” Nabors

Well, at least the holidays are over …

Sunday, January 4, 2009
Meters rowed: 5,000
Time: 22:49
Pace: 2:14-15-16
Total meters rowed: 227,835

Tuesday, December 31, 2008
Meters Rowed: 5,000
Time: 23:31
Pace: sub-2:20
Total meters rowed: 222,835

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I don’t know how professional athletes do it. I mean, how they work through the holidays, stay focused, bring their A-game every night. There were five NBA basketball games on Christmas day. Five! If Christmas is one of the big days on your calendar, and you’ve got kids and the whole bit, playing a basketball game on national TV must be just about the last thing you feel like doing, at least until you get out there on the court and turn on the switch. Or maybe basketball and Christmas have been so inextricably linked your entire life that hoops and holly are the reason for the season. But  I dunno. I seem to recall one year back in the 1980s when the Boston Celtics were playing on Christmas Day against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden and Kevin McHale took the train down that day so he could be at home Christmas morning when his kids came round the bend to see the presents under the tree. I remember thinking that were I a pro ball player, I’d want to do it the same way. Of course I’d want to be home on Christmas morning. I also seem to recall that one Larry Bird — Larry Legend - was very, very pissed off that the long-armed, impossible-to-stop McHale could have such an attitude toward James James Naismith‘s holy game of basketball. 

This is all to explain, or maybe explain away, why there are only two Concept2 workouts with this entry, when there should have been three, at least. And the workouts I got in these past seven holi-days were nothing-special, maintain-at-best excuses for the real thing.

Any pluses? Sure. You have to be able to find the pluses. That 22:49 5,000-meter pull to start off the new year. Hadn’t planned on it, but it felt right so I went for it. Also, I didn’t blow off the holidays completely, and counting up my December workouts, I posted an even dozen. That’s three a week, or very nearly. If I can keep doing that until I’m 87 years old, I’ll take it.

Of course, I am conveniently forgetting or not remembering, that the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s - my stated grail for all this – are now but seven weeks away.

(And yes, Boston Celtic fans, you’re welcome for the videos on McHale and Bird. What, you didn’t click? Go back and find them! Those were the days, huh? The current Garnett-Pierce-Allen excellence notwithstanding. I assume if you’re a REAL Celtics fan you’ve already seen these, but it never hurts to see them again.)

Of mice and exercising …

Friday, December, 26, 2008
Meters rowed: 5,000
Time: 23:14
Pace: sub-2:20
Total meters rowed: 212,835

Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Meters rowed: 5,000
Time: 23:22
Pace: sub 2:20
Total meters rowed: 207,835

What was I thinking, exactly? What made me think going in that the hectic holidays were the prime time for ramping up the rowing? I’m lucky I got in the two quickie, joggie workouts I did, and I’ll be luckier still to get in the pair I have planned – Sunday and Tuesday — before we’re into 2009, and then another on Friday Jan. 2, before the holidays are officially over and we’re back to real life.    

Please tell me this has happened to you, too. And if, like me, you need an encouraging word or three about how to stay with it during the holidays (it is never too late!) click here and best of luck getting to that next workout before that next party …

Quick Tips: How to Stay Active and Exercise During the Holidays: “Try to plan your workout schedule before hand.” (Well, I did, and it proved ridiculously unrealistic! But you can hold me to the three 5,000-meter jogs I still have planned.) 

Boost Exercise During the Holidays. Yes, it says BOOST. “A few tips: “Hiking. Bowling. BONUS WORKOUTS AT THE GYM!” [My caps and exclamation point.]

How to Exercise During the Holidays. “Schedule a hard workout on the day when you’ll be partying that night.”  Just like I said.

Hope this helps.

10,000 meters of hope …

Saturday, December 20, 2008
Meters Rowed: 10,000 (!!)
Tine: 46:51
Pace: sub-2:20
Total Meters Rowed: 202,835

How ’bout 10,000 meters? Yeah, 10,000!

“Beware thoughts that come in the night.” So begins “Blue Highways,” that wonderful narrative of journey and discovery by William Least Heat-Moon. I checked to be sure I was correct (and I was) with those opening words, because they are what popped into mind when I first said “ten thusand meters” while yesterday trying to decide what kind of workout to do today. My 10,000 thoughts didn’t come in the night, but there was about it that same kind of 3 a.m.-what-are-you-thinking, you can’t-be-thinking-this kind of feeling that I can best describe as an exhilarating dread.

 Ten thousand meters? Yes-No! Go-Stop!

In the end, though (and in the beginning and the middle, too), it was the perfect idea. I knew I wanted a long pull. But suddenly 8,000 meters, my current max, didn’t seem far enough. Besides. We have reached York Catholic High School’s Christmas break. Remember what it felt like to get to Christmas vacation when you were a kid, those two weeks off stretched before like eternity itself? That alone merited its own celebration, its own official marking. Ten thousand meters? Yes-Go!

As for that sub-2:20. I mean it: I had no intention of it doing it, but I did it. I can honestly say it just happened. Really. I would have been satisfied with 2:30. In fact, getting started, with all those meters out there in front of me, I actually tried to slow myself down. But sub 2:20 it was, as if the Concept2 had decided for me. Why fight it? Yes-Go!

One more thing: Give me a long-slow 10,000-meter, sub-2:20, 46-minute pull over a short-fast 2,000 meter, 1:50 (if I’m beyond lucky!), 7:20 push any day of the week.

Finally, an author’s note, re: “Blue Highways.”  Heat-Moon’s book came out in early 1983, right when I was turning the key on my own discovery-journey book idea that in 1986 became “The Call of the Game,” my yearlong effort to travel the country attending sports events. “Blue Highways” was an immediate sensation the moment its rubber met the road. It fueled my trip, powered my dreams, motored my imagination. “Call” was not, let’s just say, quite the blockbuster “Blue Highways” was. Indeed, alas. But I will always remember how, as I was driving the country, that book gave me hope. A wonderful feeling, that – and I hope you have experienced it too.