07/16/09

WOD

  Row for Time: 250m, 500m, 1000m

Athletes    250m    500m    1000m

Susan        1:00    2:19    5:03

Cindy        1:00    2:05    4:26

Mark         0:48    1:44    4:07

Dylan        0:49    1:44    3:50

Tyler         1:03    2:21    5:09

Jordan      0:56    2:07    4:43

Camillo      0:53    1:56    4:08

Alex          1:15    2:31    6:25   

In spite of everyone practically begging for another burpee day, I decided that a diagnostic was probably in order. Little did they realize that rowing isn't exactly easy. Seriously, this isn't a little Sunday morning canoe trip down Tempe Town Lake we're talking about here, this is rowing your @$$ off for time.

Why rowing? Because it's a great total body movement which, when done with intensity, is as big a metabolic hit as anything out there. Plus it's relatively low-impact (easy on the knees and ankles), puts the body through a wide range of motion and generates a solid cardiovascular impact. I mean sure… it's no burpee, but it's still pretty good. All that and it's a great benchmark for progress.

So how did it go down? We worked in pairs (going head to head seems to bring out the best in everyone) and everyone rowed the from short to long with breaks in between. Each round was max-effort event.

Camilo and Jordan stepped up first. Camilo is making leaps and bounds in his fitness, but Jordan has beaten him in the row before and she's always a threat. In fact, she's the only woman to have rowed a sub-minute 250m yesterday! Camilo was ready for it though. Alex (after a little form coaching) stepped up and kept Cindy honest while Mark and Dylan threatened to pull the handles off the rowers as they chased each other down. Finally, Tyler and Susan capped off the competition. 

The 500m was a monster. A short sprint is hard, a full out run for ~2 minutes is just brutal. This is the measure of an athlete. Can you dig deep and push through to the end? Yeah, apparently they can. Nobody embarrassed themselves and Mark and Dylan rowed some impressive times. The 1000m was just a chipper. Keeping up a good pace and not burning out was brutal, the final 100m sprint to the end required a little blood / sweat / tears and even those who didn't think they had it in them gave their best.

Next time… they might actually prefer burpees.

-jack