Injury doesn’t come bundled with many benefits but one of the few is that it’s forced me to look at other forms of exercise, all of which should prove useful for getting back to steady running. Using some recently acquired dumbbells and a kettlebell, I’ve embarked on some rudimentary strength training though it’s annoyingly hard. As is the merciless seat of my Concept2 rowing machine, or erg, as it’s sometimes mysteriously called.
It’s surprising, and gratifying, how quickly one can get back into rowing. It’s good to make use of the equipment though as it’s an unconcealably large object that doesn’t justify my ownership if unused. I have to keep the beast upstairs in a bedroom as it’s the only place it can go without creating too many domestic political tremors. During the cautious post-injury days, I had four sessions on the machine, the first two of which had me struggling to get much above 1,000 metres. For the other two I did manage to hit 2,000 which is the standard competition distance for rowing. The world record for 2K is 5 minutes 35 seconds. My fastest is an impressively leisurely 8:57, and even that is swift by my current standards. Last week’s 2Ks were about 10:30. Still, that gives me plenty of scope to improve.
Last week I pushed the sessions to a much more satisfying 5,000 metres, which I did twice. I don’t plan to go beyond that distance for a little while. Instead I’ll stick with 5K max but will work on gradually reducing the time it takes. Wednesday’s 5K was 26 minutes 53 seconds and Friday’s was 26:05, so I’m moving in the right direction. My fastest ever was 23:44 which, like the 2K, was recorded during lockdown, when there wasn’t too much else going on. These PBs are surely beatable with a bit of prep and determination though I shouldn’t care too much about breaking records at this stage.
The Concept2 rower is an impressively engineered piece of kit: simple in design but almost indestructibly solid, and accepted worldwide as the standard. It’s what everyone uses: Olympic rowers training for glory and weedy, plump old men panting away in the back bedroom. The activity itself is great exercise that covers a lot of muscular ground. It’s easy to think that all that yanking must make it primarily an exercise for the upper arms and shoulders. But no. In fact it’s not really about pulling at all, but pushing, and actually majors on the legs rather than the arms. A proper rowing stroke can be broken down into discrete parts: 1) the catch, when you reach forward to engage with the handle and prepare to launch yourself into the backward stroke, 2) the drive which is where you use your legs to push yourself away from the flywheel using your glutes, upper legs, abdomen and calves. With the legs almost horizontal, the upper arms and shoulders then take over to complete 3) the finish, the backwards movement and smooth pull on the handle which leaves your torso at a roughly eleven o’clock angle before 4) the recovery, which brings you sliding forwards, arms outstretched, to get you back to the initial catch position again. And so it goes on, fluidly and continuously, forever and ever. Or so it seems.
I also have a Concept2 Ski-Erg upstairs, in my makeshift office. Though it’s not really an office anymore, now that I’ve fled the world of work for the blissful alternative. It’s just a room with a retired computer or two, and a large table piled high with tech-debris. One day, I tell myself, I will sit there and sort of out what’s on my various drives — hard, flash, external, CD/DVD, blah. All those pictures, videos, unfinished novels and stories, preachy essays and the like. Not to mention spreadsheets for everything, and calendars, diaries, plans and schedules. Mostly unfulfilled. Though I do wonder what the point might be of trying to organise this stuff. When I fall off the edge, I’m guessing that no one will be interested in nosing around to see what gems remain. But anyway, there in the corner, offering more potential value, is the Ski-Erg, and today I wrung 2000 metres of activity from it, followed immediately by 5000 of rowing. A reasonable start to the month.
No running yet, but I’m back to brisk daily walks at last (between 30 and 60 minutes most days) without any obvious negative consequences for my lower limbs beyond that benign ache that denotes honest effort and well-earned fatigue. The sort you know will ensure an easy, deep sleep.
The injury has at least forced me to confront the shortsightedness of my training. I should have known, or been able to foresee, that adding minutes with nearly every run was a scheme destined to hit the buffers before too long. Though if I wanted to be kinder to myself I’d remember that it’s so long since I did this sort of stuff regularly, that forgetting my musculoskeletal foibles, and underestimating the importance of some basic principles, are probably forgivable. Either way, it’s a wake-up call. Must do better.
STOP PRESS
Wednesday April 2nd:
Was off out for a walk this morning and decided I might risk a bit of a jog while doing so. It’s two weeks since the injury and seemed like the right time to test it. Result? Pretty good. The entire outing was 37 minutes, and I’d say a total of about 12-15 minutes of that was gentle plodding-type movement. No ill effects so far.
