Recently, Lisa Hudson and I (Steve Smith) participated in the Indianapolis Indoor Rowing Championships held in the gymnasium of the Indianapolis International School Saturday, Jan 30th, 2010.   I competed in the Men’s Masters division, 30 to 50 year olds.  I find that events like this keep my training consistent and focused.

There were 10 rowing machines lined up next to each other.  Using the Concept 2 indoor rowing ergometer, our computer generated boats were projected up on a large screen so we could see how we were doing against each other.

Lisa  has been getting great rowing experience in the FBD Bootcamp and showed up to test her stuff.  She did that and more by placing fourth in her heat and pulling her best ever at 8:23.1 for the 2000 meters. I was pumped after Lisa’s effort and hoped to pull a sub 6:50 myself.

Like any other competitive event I’ve done I had butterflies in my stomach up until I pulled my first 100 meters.  Then it was about not selling out too soon.   Settling into a steady pace was like trying to tame a wild stallion, but I did.  I was afraid to look at the screen out of fear that I would “bonk” trying to keep up with the faster rowers.  As we approached the finish the crowd began to cheer.  I wanted to go faster, but my body was already in the red zone.  I finished with a personal best, 6:52.8 for the 2000 meter event. Though I didn’t quite accomplish my stretch, there’s always next year.

Here’s some video of Lisa and I in action: