“GO! GO! Dig for it! Only five hundred meters left! I think you can do it!” Kirsten, my personal Harvard Rowing Team coxswain, was screaming in my ear. ‘You think I can do it?’ I thought to myself feebly, feeling like ‘The Little Engine That Was Under the Impression He Could, Only to Be Informed Maybe He Really Couldn’t.’ Fixated on the slowly diminishing numbers on the PM3 monitor on the Concept II, every muscle was on fire, and my legs were going south, bent on a nice retirement village in West Palm.

This was the scene at the 2009 World Indoor Rowing Championships (Crash B’s), held Sunday, February 22 at the Agganis Arena at Boston University in Boston, MA. Rowers from the world over congregated to see how fast they could spin a flywheel over 2000m, their progress projected for the audience in the form of tiny boats racing one another on the dropdown scoreboard. High School, Collegiate, Affiliated, Unaffiliated…it didn’t matter…as long as you went to the wall, and beyond, in your race against the clock.

My connection to the Crash Bs began in my local rec center gym. The Concept II ergometer often sat unused in the corner, or in the rare case that someone did climb on, they’d last maybe five minutes, before stumbling off, dazed, red faced, and panting, and wobble their way to the safety of the boutique fitness equipment, anything with a little tv screen to watch their favorite cooking show, or catch up on the latest episode of ‘Oprah.’ No stranger to the rigors of sensory deprivation on a wind trainer during my bike racing days, the Concept II was time efficient, and provided one bejeezus of a whole body workout. I’d go for 45 minutes to an hour, flailing away with terrible form with the damper set on level 10. Eventually, I developed some rudimentary technique, and was amazed at how fit I could come into the early season races by virtue of this object of torture.

My buddy Wesley shared that he too, used the erg as a choice form of suffering and recruited me into the Crash Bs. Last year was my induction into the hallowed ranks of pain, and I was joined by not only Wesley ‘I’ve Trained 364 Days Straight In a Row’ Echols, but good friends Tim ‘Have You Tasted My Magic Bars?’ Dwyer, and Sean ‘Someone Call a Medic!’ Milano. Like childbirth, I suppose, the mind plays tricks on its owner, blocking the actual pain of past events from memory, hence our registration for this year as well. Joined by Chris ‘The Webmaster’ Chappell, and Sean’s friend, Langdon ‘The Marine‘ Andrews, we were prepared to suffer once again.

Chris, it was clear, was the cream of the crop. He uses the Concept II regularly. His daughter rows crew for her high school team, and would be competing along with Dad for this year’s event. We showed up on this cold and rainy February day to test the prowess of surfski/kayak racers against the people who row backwards and actually enjoy it.

Upon check in, every person looked fitter than the next. Unlike the lithe surfski crowd, the rowers are massive…ripped quads and backs like barns everywhere. And these were just the women. You check in, get your yellow card that displays your start time, row letter, and erg number, and marvel at how humid and oppressive the body heat of multitudes of sweaty individuals can alter the biome of the arena. The warm up/staging area is a microcosm of international competitors from everywhere of every age. My neighbor on the erg next to me was doing a steady 1:30. It was all I could do to even get to a 1:30 for several strokes. The four of us warmed up as our heat time drew closer. Good and dripping, we presented our golden tickets to Willy Wonka at the gate of the competitor’s section and were ushered in, finding our ergs.

I had requested a coxswain as I’m not a huge fan of suffering based on my own fortitude; I fold like a cheap umbrella. “What’s your preference?” this young, tawny-haired female rower asked, “I mean, what do you like?” “Hmm… I thought, “I love little oily baby geese, evenings at the beach, ‘The Princess Bride’…’ but then realized she wanted to know how to verbally coach me. My game plan was to treat the distance like four 500m segments. I’d take four or five quick strokes to spin the flywheel up to speed and then hold it there for the next 500m or so before settling in, hoping to kick it in the last 500 with a little something left in my tank.

The monitors were all synchronized, and the screen commands flashed: ‘Sit ready.’ ‘Attention.’ ‘Row!’ We were off! The first 500 flies by, your adrenaline pumping, and the spectators are screaming. The next 500 not so bad, but you begin to feel the opening strains of lactic acid starting to build as you round 1000. This for me is always ‘No Man’s Land’, too far to consider keeping the pace consistently hard, but yet so far along that you just can’t give up now. At 500m left, Kirsten was screaming in my ear. At 300m she was, I think, actually IN my ear, ragging me like a terrier to pull harder. HARDER! “Just 30 more strokes! You can DO this!!!” The last 200 were sheer pain, my legs reduced to quivering masses of Jell-O, slamming the handle back into my sternum and lower stomach with each pull. And then, Thank God, it was over, my HR hovering somewhere close to the 180 mark, 7:06.6 flashing on the readout. Glancing again at the screen between ragged breaths, I spotted Sean’s name immediately behind mine and knew he had either succumbed to the fever he had been fighting off, or perhaps the burrito the size of a rugby ball we had each both consumed a couple of hours earlier (I tasted cilantro at 700 meters.). He managed a blazing 7:08 flat; I had edged him by 1.4 seconds in the final 50 meters. Last year he spanked me royally, cracking the vaunted 7 minute mark with a 6:58, so he was bound to not be happy about that. Uh oh…

Chris, as anticipated, rocked out loud, with a 6:47.9. He had spotted the name of his college buddy on the screen meters ahead of him, and turned up the wick several notches more to outsprint him in the final meters. Wesley ‘Call Me Mr. Overtraining’, turned in a very respectable 7:22.7, despite having paddled 12 miles the day before with Timo. 😉 Langdon, too, turned in a personal best at 7:28.1, this being his first ever competition, along with Chris. You can watch the little boats do battle at http://www.concept2.com/us/racing/crashb/replays2009.asp

Sean, once again, however, put the ‘Crash and Burn’ back into the Crash Bs. With the assistance of two ice packs, and some time on the concrete arena floor, he bounced back enough to have his photos taken for posterity. This man goes to the wall, and crashes through time and time again! As we left the arena, there was already talk of how we all hoped to improve upon our times next year, even though we solemnly vowed to not so much as look at the Concept II machine again until December. It was a fine and pleasant misery…