The Competition

Meters: 5,336;
Time: 25:09;
SPM/500m: 2:20-2:22 (and I had to consciously slow myself down)
Total Meters Rowed (TMR): 10,621

Just for fun I clicked on www.concept2.com and went to the RACING link to check out my “competition.” (The quote marks, by the way, are making fun of ME, not the comp).

Thirty-nine men in the 55-59 age group competed in the 2008 C.R.A.S.H.-B. Sprints. Winning time: 6:20.9, by a  Raimund Schuster of Germany. Are you kidding? Doing some crude math here (I am trying make it clear I have MUCH to learn about this game; please let me know If I am succeeding): That’s 3:10 for 1,000 meters, or (ARE YOU KIDDING?) about 1:35 for a 500-meter pace. On the absolute best day of my life in the past 20 years on the Concept2 (forgetting for now the also-fact that I was MUCH YOUNGER) the best sustained 500m pace I was was ever able to hold was about 1:42 — for one minute.

So. I guess I have some work to do, huh?

In my defense (such as it is) I’d like to point that, like I said, I have been on the Concept2 for 20 years and that has to count for something … doesn’t it? And while I have long wanted to do the C.R.A.S.H.-B. Sprints (honest, I have), the fact that I haven’t ever doesn’t mean I haven’t done some other like-minded kind of stuff.

In 1978 (so maybe that was a while ago) I ran the Equinox Marathon in Fairbanks, Alaska. My goal was to finish in “something beginning with a four,” and I did, in 4:59.48 seconds. Stop laughing. The Equinox, as Equinoxers like to point out, is the second toughest 26.2-miler in the U.S., behind only Pike Peak. I have no idea if that is actually a true fact beyond the fact that Equinoxers DO like to say that. Shameless plug: I write about the Equinox in “My Father’s Heart: A Son’s Journey.

I also fairly recently prepared for and ran a triathlon, a “sprint” triathlon, though Lord knows that’s now how I did it. The TC Triathlon in Oren, Utah. The classic “Turkey Trot.”  A half-Olympic-distance race — 5K Run/11-mile bike/quarter-mile swim (yes, in that order). I finished in 1:45 and change, probably a good hour behind the winner. I stuck around to see if I was going to pick up some hardware for what looked like a third-place finish in my 50-54 age category. AAARGH! Starting with the 50s they gave out medals only for first and second. Shameless plug: I write about this Tri in “My Father’s Heart: A Son’s Journey.”

Finally: I am also not a complete stranger to this whole exercise-and-write routine. (And yes, shameless plug, I write about THAT whole experience in “My Father’s Heart: A Son’s Journey”!) Indeed, when I started running in May 1980, I also started keeping a diary (using a thing called a “typewriter,” compiling my thoughts on a stack of “paper”), thinking on my run what I’d write about later. I remain convinced that it was this combination of running-writing/writing-running that turned what had been a series of hit-or miss-attempts into a hit that really stuck. I kept that diary for nearly 18 months, or until I ran that Equinox Marathon. (In that pre-Internet, self-printing age I even got some of it published — a series of entries in a summer’s worth of AlaskaFest magazines, back then the inflight read for Alaska Airlines.) Here’s the take home lesson on that little fact: This attempt at 21st Century publishing will be over and out inside of five months. Promise.

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