So.
Erg.
Yes. Erg. This is a new word for me, and one with a satisfyingly quasi-onomatoepic quality, reflecting the sound I made, internally at least, when it appeared on my doorstep: the point at which I realised there was no going back.
For a three-letter word it packs quite a complicated linguistic punch, but I’ll stick with the job in hand. To the red-faced, bulging-eyeballed cognoscenti, an erg is an indoor rowing machine, and I now own one. Here’s why.
My London Marathon attempt fizzled out in a puddle of sloth, pessimisim and demotivation that grew with my list of nostalgic injuries: calf muscles, whiney left knee, back pain. It was the last of those — the lower-back twinges — that frightened me off. I can live with sore calf muscles, but the fear of re-living the pain of that post-Berlin herniated disk was enough.
After the brief initial sense of relief, and the fun of recreating abandoned high-calorie friendships, I settled in for a winter of discontent and deflation. London in April 2015 would have been the ideal way to bow out of distance plodding, but it wasn’t going to happen.
It’s given me a strange few months, bouncing between conflicting sensations of liberation and claustrophobia – made exponentially more complex by realising that captivity can be liberating while sudden liberation can, equally, be a trap. Once or twice I thought I might be veering nutswards, but I’ve dismissed that intriguing possibility, and instead, rightly or not, decided that having no plodding destination is the root of my slump.
Nothing is quite as simple as this, of course, but I’m sure that no running is part of the problem, and is therefore a part of the solution.
Except, instead of running, I’m rowing.
More later.
5 comments On Rowing pains
There’s a row going on
Down near Slough
Not that kind of rowing, then.
I’m a big fan of rowing machines. Or, I should say, I’m a fan of how instantly knackering they can be. I’ve never managed more than ten minutes on one without fearing the loss of an eye. Or a lung.
Running is stil the answer for me. I’m struggling, as much with life in general as with a recalcitrant knee and an alarmingly sore achilies. Yet, as ugly as runs can be these days – and when I say ugly, I don’t mean rough-looking, I mean hideous – I never regret a single one.
Good on you, Andy.
Brilliant. You even look like a rower (Dare I say it). There will be spreadsheets. A big online community. Virtual teams and races. You live next to a lake for when you want to step up to open water. A whole new world awaits. An excuse to watch ‘Gold Fever’ (Sydney 2000 coxless four doco. I think I urged people to watch this a couple of years ago). Regattas, Pimms and stripy jackets. You’ll be single skulling on Lake Zurich before the summer is out. I’m more excited than you are mate.
Row row row your boat, gently in the breeze, merrily merrily merrily merrily, burn off all that cheese.
“Row row row your boat gently down the stream, merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream….”
Excellent idea you can even watch telly while you row:-)
You’ll never get far on one of those things…
Sounds interesting though!