Rowing

I started rowing about three weeks ago. I’ve always wanted to get an Olympic medal and since they rarely go on sale and I don’t believe “Searching for Arcane Inane Facts on Google” is an Olympic event yet I took up rowing. I think two words accurately describe rowing, “really freakin’ hard”. I go Tuesdays and Thursdays but I missed the first Thursday to see comedy legend Don Rickles at Casino Rama. Since I missed the first Thursday I asked if I could do a makeup class and was lucky enough to get a spot in the Saturday and Sunday Learn to Row class. The weekend classes were three hours a day so by the end of it on Sunday I worked my abs so much I felt like they could stop a bullet. They’re now back to their normal pudding-like state.

When I went back to my regular team on Tuesday they had all attended the Thursday class that I missed and not knowing that I had attended the weekend session thought they were far and away more advanced than me. “This is an oar Skippy, can you say oar?” I tried to play along, hoping that if I did well enough they’d give me ice cream after the session.

There are two instructors for our sessions. One is a no-nonsense drill instructor kind of guy. If you’ve ever seen Full Metal Jacket you know the type. The other is a scatterbrain who praises us for doing the most basic of tasks. “You got in the boat, good job, good job. You moved your oar, you’re awesome.”

I’m in the scatterbrain’s boat. On the first night I rowed we hit an anchored boat and the dock. On the second night we didn’t hit anything; but, the person sitting in four seat (I’m in six seat so four seat is the first seat behind me with an oar on the same side) kept hitting my oar because he wasn’t in sync with the rest of the rowers.

The third night was the worst so far. The seats in these boats have wheels and are placed in rails so they slide while rowing. My seat was not properly in the slide and consequently I couldn’t row properly and because I couldn’t row in sync the person behind me kept hitting me in the back with her oar handle. On top of that I usually have a very attractive woman sitting in front of me but on this night we mixed it up a bit so we could get a feel for rowing on the other side and I had this terrible beast in front of me. Regarding the actual rowing, well, we got blown into a cove, hit an anchored boat and the dock and then had to be pushed out by a passerby. We also hit the breakwall on the way back but managed to get ourselves out of that with considerable effort. While we were in the cove we saw the other boat whiz by with their instructing shouting instructions at them (in German I believe).

On the fourth night we hit a dock and got trapped in some floating tires that have been setup to prevent you from hitting the dock. They’re going to need more than tires to prevent us from hitting stuff. After our session, the second group was short one person and asked if anybody wanted to row again. Being a bit of a sadist I said sure and maybe I can wear clothespins on my nipples for the ride. I went out again and the ride was so much smoother, the boat was balanced and everyone was in sync but the rowing was a lot harder. I was very happy to get back to dry land and walk on my rubbery legs to my car.