Thanks for clicking ……

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.”

1. On February 15th, 2009 at 9:12 pm, James McKee said:

   Steve,

   Best of luck to you. I, too, row almost daily on my Concept II in our loft while watching the early 5:30 AM NBC local news.

   Concept II is a Vermont based company and I have seen their rowing machines all over the world, especially in Ireland.

   I enjoyed your book and found it interesting how there have been some similarities in our lives.

   Have things changed at the Wall St. Jnl.?

   Best of luck, relative.

   Jay McKee

2. On September 8th, 2009 at 9:48 pm, Karen Lawrence said:

   Steve,
   Finished the book. Would like to share a few things but you disappeared off my facebook friend list. Could you restablish so we can chat?
   karen

Leave a Reply