The Traffic Tranquilizer

I went to the workout today.  I was nervous as a....I don't know.  You can fill in the blank. There was good reason too!  I had no idea what we would be doing but sometimes I fear the unknown.  I think I had a feeling about today.  Turns out we were testing today.  It was to see where we stood on the physical readiness test.  This is a test where we can earn time off every quarter.  I'd known it existed but never put myself in a category where I thought I would ever get to the point of making it through one.

We walked in and the rowers were set up and we hung around talking for what seemed like forever.  It never takes that long to get started.  Then the Sarge was walking around with a clip board and taking names, ages and weight.  Then he told us to grab a rower and do 50 pulls at level 10.  Easy enough.  Then we had to set the display for a 2000 meter timed row. This was the test.  Row continuously until the meter showed 0. This had to be the hardest thing I've done in a couple of weeks.  We've done more than that before but never without at least a slow row at some point.  I had to pray a couple of times and kept my eyes closed even more than that.  I grunted out the last 1000 meters it seemed.  He told us not to stand when we finished.  Of course one of the macho guys who finished first did just that and fell flat on his butt.  We learn by seeing and after that everyone stayed put.

When I finished I told the lady next to me that I thought I breathed (grunted) so hard that I imagined there was blood in my lungs.  Sort of tasted like it.  We did some more things after that but I would prefer to talk about what happened on my way home.

I left just in time for the commuter train to catch me but I was so tired I didn't even care.  I sat there in an impossibly long line of cars unable to think about anything but looking straight ahead and my breathing.  When the train finally passed, we were moving again and I must have gotten cut off 5 times in 5 miles but I didn't care.  I just kept moving.  I was so zoned that I stayed in the lane I was in not caring that the other one seemed to be moving faster.  That was a wise choice.  Further up the road there was a wreck that blocked both lanes but I was fortunate enough to be in the lane next to the empty turn lane. I went around it.  The road was free and clear from there on out.  I hit every red light imaginable but i didn't care.  I got to my final turnoff before home and hit another mini-jam.  No worries.  I could only focus on the car in front of me.  I would say I didn't even really notice that car but I'd be lying.  It had a bumper sticker that said something about Rush Limbaugh being a genius.  I might have let out a small smirky sound.

So basically a hard as hell workout seemed to have a tranquilizing effect on me and my bad-assed road rage. I would say it was a good thing if I weren't sitting here afraid to talk because I think I killed my voice while rowing to hell.  But I'll live I guess. A friend suggested I try ice cubes for ice cream to soothe my sore throat.  Which do you think I chose? Hee-hee.

My quote today is a long one and I'm not a racer but that doesn't mean I don't understand it.

Have a good night!

Quote of the Day:  Marathon runners talk about hitting 'the wall' at the twenty-third mile of the race. What rowers confront isn't a wall; it's a hole - an abyss of pain, which opens up in the second minute of the race. Large needles are being driven into your thigh muscles, while your forearms seem to be splitting. Then the pain becomes confused and disorganized, not like the windedness of the runner or the leg burn of the biker but an all-over, savage unpleasantness. As you pass the five-hundred-meter mark, with three-quarters of the race still to row, you realize with dread that you are not going to make it to the finish, but at the same time the idea of letting your teammates down by not rowing your hardest is unthinkable...Therefore, you are going to die. Welcome to this life." -- Ashleigh Teitel