Did It Again, Rowed A Half Marathon

I have been meaning to row one again for a while. I started working towards it in 2024 after my discovery. I intended on doing it around the new year but I got violently sick so that didn’t happen. Last year my mind was too occupied planning a trip.

My sister has been training to run a half marathon again so when she told me I knew I wanted to try to row a half marathon around the same time as she ran. Running one wouldn’t work well for me. That’s miles of being overwhelmed by my terrible eyesight and just getting mentally burned out from that. I trip over air if there is a dip or shadows if they catch my vision sometimes. When it comes to running I am much more of a sprinter too.

With the rower at least I don’t have to worry about obstacles getting in my head. I still get the pain and wanting to quit but at least I could put my head down and keep going.

Today’s pace was a lot slower than the last couple of time I have rowed the half marathon. That’s okay though. The last times I did it I was hitting longer rows much more frequently before doing the half. This time I Did a 10000 meter row once. Maybe twice but I am not sure on that one and don’t feel like looking it up right now. I did a handful or two of 5ks since the summer but not frequently or regularly.

The first half didn’t feel too bad at all. I forced myself to keep the pace down. It was nice and cool in the garage and not humid outside. It was also not too dry. That is the biggest reason chose to do it this morning. My heart rate stayed steady without getting too high and my breathing stayed steady. If I had been doing more longer rows I would have pushed it a bit harder but I just wanted to be sure to get done with it rather than crashing and burning.

The second third felt great. I upped the intensity just a bit once I saw that 10k on my watch and then a bit more when I passed half way.

The last few thousand meters were tough. By that time my legs did not want to go anymore and my ass was on fire from sitting. I had to get up a little more often to take a couple of steps. I truly wanted to quit. Somehow I managed to persevere and finished it. The blister were starting towards the end. Thankfully they weren’t that bad with it not being too humid or too dry.

Now I won’t lie and say I enjoyed it. I do and will continue to enjoy the accomplishment of it. It is good to do hard things. It’s good to do things that are not what you want to do but are good for you. I would much rather lift heavy than do this longer stuff. Special thanks to B for the motivation and inspiration to do this. You have been such a positive influence on my life for years and have crossed my mind at least each time I have done these rows.

Next time I will do better for sure. Hopefully next time is not about 5 years from now like today was from the last half marathon row.

Music was Alkaloid. When that ended i switched to Illogicist.