mechaieh ([info]bronze_ribbons) wrote,
@ 2009-06-23 18:37:00
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Current mood:cranky
Current music:Catie Curtis, "World Don't Owe Me"
Entry tags:tennis

Grrrr.
Lleyton Hewitt, you male chauvinist twerp. Granted, I would have been rooting for Del Potro anyway, but now I really want him to win. I hope he bagels you in three.


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[info]dichroic
2009-06-24 01:11 am UTC (link)
Funny. Last I heard women typically have *more* endurance than men.

I'm speaking as an exception here, because I am *not* naturally good at endurance - and my husband is. But I'm an exception who has rowed 5 marathons! And I'm nowhere near as fit as any elit-level tennis-player and have to fit all my training around a full-time job. I can't imagine where he gets what he's clearly thinkin of as his data.

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[info]xanthophyllippa
2009-06-24 02:17 am UTC (link)
How long does a marathon row take? And how do you ever get the track marks out of your calves??

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[info]dichroic
2009-06-24 03:47 am UTC (link)
3 were on a rowing machine, two in the boat. No track marks on the erg :-)
Generally by the time you've gotten enough training in to row a marathon, you've gotten the slides adjusted correctly enough not to have much trouble with track marks. My hands were in pretty bad shape afterwards, or course. On the erg, it's mostly just muscle soreness.

As for how long - if you're me, 5:03 in a single. (I wasn't even trying for speed!) My husband and his partner finished in something more like 3:30, setting a course record for their event. My PR on the erg, last March, is 3:57:54.

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[info]xanthophyllippa
2009-06-24 12:40 pm UTC (link)
There is not enough money in the world to get me to do a marathon on the erg. Well, maybe there IS, but they'd have to throw in a bionic windpipe to get me past the erg cough.

Have you ever done Death Row?

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[info]dichroic
2009-06-24 12:53 pm UTC (link)
Might not be as bad as you think - you're never actually rowing all that hard at once during a marathon, but instead at a pressure you can sustain a Really Long Time.

Worst cough I ever had from erging was from racing a 500m piece, without anywarmup to speak of. I coughed for two days afterward.

What is Death Row? (can't exactly google it :-)

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[info]xanthophyllippa
2009-06-24 03:02 pm UTC (link)
Oh, good point - hadn't though of that. Death Row is an 18-mile row in I think Minneapolis (maybe Duluth; I know it's in MN) that's upstream rather than downstream. Not as long as a marathon, but still.

I hear you on the 500m sprints. My crowning achievement was pulling a 1:56 split, but it gave me a barking cough that made me sound like a golden retriever with bronchitis. Not pretty.

So, here's a tacky question - my friends who do longer canoe races were stunned when I said rowers don't pee in their boats. (Something about having to flip the thing above our heads to carry it makes that rather unappealing.) Do marathoners just hold it?

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[info]dichroic
2009-06-26 03:23 pm UTC (link)
In most cases you're sweating enough not to have to pee much. However, the first marathon I did was in a double with a 62-year-old man. Who had taken a bunch of ibuprofen beforehand. We pulled over to the side of the river for *6* pee breaks! Not too easy, getting in and out of a boat in calf-deep water, but we managed. (I carried one of those funnel thingies you can get at camping stores, so I could pee standing up. And since we weren't rowing that hard, I did use some of those opportunities.)

I rowed with Dave because he'd done it before. I knew he wouldn't be pushing me to get it done fast but that he would finish. It turns out that if you're going to sped five hours and 43 minutes in a boat with someone, being good company is as important as being a decent rower, and he has stellar qualifications on that score.

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[info]xanthophyllippa
2009-06-24 02:14 am UTC (link)
Completely baffling. I'd like to tie him to the netcord and see if I still have the amazing ability to rip a cross-court forehand at such an angle that it kisses the cord and then spins back towards the service side like I used to when I was still playing competitively.

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[info]nineveh_uk
2009-06-24 08:07 am UTC (link)
Has he never watched the women's champions play? Actually, I think that extending to five sets (which I heartily support) might have some initial effect on the game, simply because a lot of female players start young, and they might not have the strength for a five set match because of their physical development (much like Andy Murray, whosed build meant that he took longer to build up endurance). But that is something the game will adjust to and be better for. If cross-country skiers didn't have to race 30km, there would be more young champions. But racing 30km is part of being a complete skier, so there aren't.

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