In our gym we have a few good rowers. Being a swimmer, whenever I’m in the gym with them, we can’t help but swap stories about early morning training and best times but we also like to exchange important facts about things like bodyweight to strength ratios, potential one-rep max calculations, the nutritional benefits of beetroot juice and other such things.
Every now and again, you get an interesting insight, like the other day.
Over the summer I had been inspired by them to do some more rowing on the rowing machine in our gym (or erg). I trained relatively intensively on the erg and the rowers kindly gave me tips for my technique.
I applied my own understanding of training from swimming and, since my aim was to improve my 2k time. My training was often 4 sprints of 500 metres max effort. Over the course of the summer, I managed to get my first couple of 500m splits down by 15 seconds but the last sprint, invariably, was considerably slower than the first meaning that there’s still some work to do before I reach my goal.
The other day, I was so exhausted by the end, I nearly keeled over. By the end of it, I felt I was still as tired from the first set of sprints that I had done at the start of the summer. I unbuckled my feet and rolled onto the floor and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes. Once I had caught my breath, I got up and said to one of the rowers, ‘I thought that with all this training and improved technique, that eventually the sprints would get easier.’
He replied with, ‘The sprints never get easier. You just go further in the same space of time.’