Rowing challenge hell

I am in that early-forties heart attack zone. I reckon if I make it to fifty I’ll be OK for a couple of decades. But for now it is touch and go. I am deeply unfit. So a 2km rowing challenge with Jon and Cathy at the London Rowing Club to promote Olympic Sport and fitness ahead of this summer was not very appealing in truth, even if Sir Matthew Pinsent was going to preside over it.

And this is strange, because as a child I always wanted to try rowing. But growing up in Lancashire there was no rowing at school, and by the time I got to university at Oxford I was busy working in TV in my spare time. Rowing never quite happened. 

It nearly didn’t happen this time either. A sports injury is obviously a rare thing for me – but I have one right now. I sprained my ankle two weeks ago. And how? In my sleep. Yes, that’s right, it is possible. I woke up with a sprained ankle and can only guess I was dreaming about doing some sort of physical activity. Dreams are stranger than life, after all, and the GP says it is plausible and not uncommon. No matter how bizarre my sprain it has been real, and rather painful. But there is no twisting on a rowing machine, and a quick tryout revealed my ankle didn’t hurt at all, so I couldn’t cry out of the rowing challenge. Even though I knew a man twenty two years older than me was going to beat me.   

I have always blamed my genetic inheritance for my general lack of fitness. Indians aren’t famed for their physical stamina are they, I always thought to myself as a kid. Otherwise I would have had to blame myself. In fact I have only ever been reasonably fit for about six months. That was two years ago when a friend of mine who is a personal trainer decided to take me in hand. I even enjoyed it for a while – or rather the attention it provokes when you constantly talk about coming back from the gym, and appear to lose weight. People compliment you  – which is quite addictive.  But my annual trip to Australia to see family broke my training routine in the christmas of 2010/11, bread and carbs reminded me how comforting they can be and I never got back on the step trainer.

2000 metres of rowing doesn’t seem that far before you start. About ten minutes worth. You break it up into four sections, explained Sir Matthew. The first 500m are quite fast, then you settle down for the second, the third will be tough and then you try to sprint a bit for the final quarter. And that was pretty much how it went. During my first five hundred metres I kept glancing across to Jon and realised he was rowing much slower than me, but was still pulling ahead. My bad technique, I’m told. That and the fact he is much taller, so one pull of his oars goes a lot further than one of mine (and even more than one of Cathy’s, who is even smaller than me) . The middle thousand were tough and I slowed, cursing myself for getting so unfit.

Across the room Jon was still ahead in the final 500m and had started grunting, or rather groaning in a quite regular and primeval way. You know where this is heading don’t you. It was conjuring an image of Jon I really didn’t want in my head. And that is quite a distracting thought – even when you’ve known him as long as I have. I slowed down quite a bit for a few seconds while I tried not to giggle.

I was in my final quarter and Sir Matthew was encouraging me on so managed to pick up the pace a bit, wondering if my heart would hold out. I will save the result for when Channel 4 News decides to put the video up online. But I finished alive, albeit exhausted and bit sheepish. I thought again about how I never understand why people say they feel good after exercise. I always feel terrible. But I gather that’s got something to do with regularity. My rowing experience might just have shamed me into going back to the gym. I still belong to that ludicrously expensive London gym, and it has to be good for something other than taking the kids swimming.

You can follow Krishnan on Twitter @krishgm