Now is the time of year when “real” rowers are finishing up the fall racing season by traveling to regattas where they can experiment with the effects of frostbite on psychological health and athletic performance. Feeling icicles form inside your socks can have a profound effect on how you make life choices going forward.

Anyway, for the rower without a crew, it’s a bit different. We have…the machine. The Concept2 Rowing Ergometer. (Please, do not ask about the Concept1.) You may have seen one or two of these lonely machines at your gym. Usually because one of the original business partners who has now moved on, was an oarsman in college.

Hint: If it’s your first time at Cross-Fit, you sit facing the big round part.

So regarding my workouts…
Whenever I post something on the internet about my ergometer workouts, the most immediate and common responses from other rowers are along the lines of “What was your 500m pace?” or “How long was your piece?” or “That’s nothing, I once rowed the machine continuously for fourteen months.”

All these responses to say, “Don’t be posting this noise unless you are PERFORMING!” (Rowers are somewhat competitive.)

Well, today I’m going to answer these questions by admitting that my pace is really fast. Yeah. Like, probably as fast as you can go on a rowing machine.

So fast.

How do I do this? What is my secret?

I will tell you.

I use a combination of my incredibly powerful legs and quantum entanglement.

I’ll explain. When I start my workout I’m on my machine in my combination rowing/reading room. Twenty minutes later (the time doesn’t really matter) I find myself once again in the exact same spot in my rowing room but now, the monitor on the machine reports that I have traveled thousands of meters!¹ Freaky stuff right?

Manipulating the time/space continuum has allowed me to record incredible gains in my performance. You should try it out for yourself!

Speaking of tough workouts, have you ever been in the thick of it and you feel your blood sugar level just bottom out? Like all of a sudden, your body is actually hollow? Sometimes I think, “This is it, I’m going to vaporize into the ether.” And then I think…”I’m actually OK with going out this way.”

My likely obituary photo:

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¹ The monitor also shows an elapsed time value but that’s just for helping you realize how much time you could have spent making out with Olive Oyl, eating cheeseburgers or selling broken electronics on E-Bay if you hadn’t been traveling through the quantum realm instead.