Me? Rowing? No chance!

I have decided to learn how to row. I don't know where this will lead but I will use this blog as a journal to record my progress.

Why have I decided to row? My daughters are both keen rowers. I spend many hours taking them to the local rowing club and hanging around the boathouse waiting for them to finish their sessions. I also travel with them to regattas up and down the country. I don't really feel that I have time for a new hobby in my life but I have decided that if I can't beat 'em I should join 'em.

Most weeks at the rowing club someone will ask me if I fancy having a go at rowing. I have always resisted. Why would I want to dress up in a lycra all-in-one rowing suit at my age? I'll be 50 in a couple of weeks for goodness sakes. I also struggle to see the appeal of going out on the river in all weathers and temperatures. These people are obsessed, driven, almost crazy; I have seen them going out in the snow and rain and in sub-zero temperatures. And those early mornings! No thanks!

A happy state for me is warm and dry. When I look at rowers I just see cold and wet. Cold and wet is my idea of misery. I suppose that rowing burns up so much energy that rowers don't feel the cold like normal people. I do hope so because I don't want to be the only one sat shivering in the boat. I do feel the cold. My teeth will chatter and my knees will knock and I will lose the power of speech.

Rowers tell me that, being tall and skinny, I am the ideal shape for rowing. Well, I am not as skinny as I used to be but I am just about tall enough to get away with the extra girth that I have put on around my midriff in the last few years. Posture and flexibility may be a problem. I have not been able to touch my toes for many years and when I sit down I naturally prefer the comfort of a lazy slouch. I will find it very difficult to keep a straight back while sliding backwards and forwards on a hard little wooden seat.

Anyway, despite my reservations, I have now signed up to the rowing club's "learn to row" course which will take up my Sunday mornings for the next six weeks. I am committed to giving it a good go. I have paid my £20 course fee and signed the health questionnaire/disclaimer and now I'm raring to go.

Tonight, as a warm-up, before my first session on Sunday, my eldest daughter agreed to give me a lesson upon the correct use of the Concept 2 indoor rowing machine. She laughs in hysterics at You Tube videos of non-rowers attempting to use rowing machines in gyms and she often comes home from her own gym with hilarious tales of poor technique and incorrect use of that particular instrument of torture. I am pretty keen not to become an object of rowing machine hilarity and so I paid pretty close attention to what she taught me.

My time for my first ever rowing machine 1km was 3 minutes 59 seconds. I was supposed to do this at a capped rate of 20 strokes per minute. I over-rated slightly at 21 strokes per minute. I don't know if this is a reasonable time or not but at least I now have a benchmark against which to measure future efforts.