Er, uh, ERG

So, I checked out the gym in the hotel on Saturday. After getting over a small disappointment that there were no free weights or weight machines, I was ecstatic to find an erg machine that wasn't ancient!
If I wanted to build up my arms and shoulders here was a great way to do it.

Since I haven't REALLY been on one of these machines seriously since my college rowing team days, I decided to do a workout based on time and not distance. So I set the clock for 30 minutes.

I always find it funny that you can be in superb shape for one sport but as soon as you switch to another, you start to realize how out of shape you are. I was dying. My back is just not used to getting that kind of workout. The funny thing is though, that most of rowing is in the legs (ask any rower) which is contrary to what most people think. So it was easy enough to go fast, with lots of resistance on the machine...but at about 11 minutes I was having a hard time bringing the bar up to my abs. I told myself I would take a 30 second break at 15 minutes. But then it got to 14 minutes and "Funeral for a Friend" was on my ipod and I thought 'no, you can take a break when the song is over' (knowing full well that by then, I would just finish the workout, since I think it is one of the longest rock songs ever). I got my second wind, and I guess I tricked myself mentally to finish the workout.

I also learned a valuable lesson: I should probably add some cross-training into my running training!