Free Spirits Rowing

In my efforts to tidy up some ancient and long since redundant threads, I remembered that this one was buried somewhere and at last I've found it - and moved it to the Sanctuary
The last entry was July 2011 and I think it would be fair to say that we've had plenty of new members since then. If anyone (even if they've been here a while) wants to share a few details (where they are from, what they do, erging aspirations, anything) - feel free to jot it here. No obligation of course.

I think it is about time to introduce myself :
My name is Mike, 43, coming from Halle(Saxony-Anhalt), Germany.
I started rowing in 2007 on a Waterrower, I sold it in 2012 and bought a Model D (PM 3) in September and I am very happy with it. I have no special goals, I prefer longer distances(10km+), a FM is scheduled for this year.
I find the FS-forum very inspiring an read here every day, but reading is easier than writing, my english is not the best, sorry.

I enjoy to be a part of the community and contribute some metres to the meterboard and some challenges.

kind regards

Mike

Welcome Mike - your English looks pretty good to me!! Thank you for stepping forward and saying Hi. I look forward to hearing more about your long distance metre munching.

Plummy

Thanks for the welcome! I know it is not the right thread, today I did the February CTC and added 7718 m(1.56.6), I am pleased with the result.

Gesendet von meinem GT-P5110 mit Tapatalk 2

Mike it looks to me like your English and your erging are both pretty good!

Great to hear from you Mike, I can assure you that your English is better than my German

Nice 30 mins and best of luck with the marathon

Welcome to the team Mike

Hi all, time for me to introduce myself having joined up in early June 2012 (and lurked since), four days before I received my C2. I'm a 50 yr. old Londoner living in Tobago. It's a long story, but it ain't as cracked up to be as you might think. I'm a medic (DoctorJon on the C2 forums), was a Forensic Psychiatrist, but became fed-up and disillusioned with NHS management and bullying so jacked it all in and emigrated.

Used to row at school; was lucky to be at a school right on the river with Jim Clark as coach, and fell in love with the sport from the first stroke.

Had one further year of OTW rowing after school age 20 when I joined my old coach's club at Thames Tradesmen. Had a very successful year in a IV, reached Senior 'A' class and rowed in the club's Elite VIII (very interesting experience given the talk on stroke rates on various forums.). Unfortunately, have never stepped back into a boat again with the demands of study, career and then family. God I miss it!

And now I have LOADS of time in an easy paced, stress free job out here, AND FA else to do from midday every day; THERE ARE NO RIVERS!

Psychiatry is the most indolent and sedentary of all the medical disciplines and over the years I ballooned and became very unfit.

Started weights in 2011 to deal with cervical spine problems and became bitten by the exercise bug again. Lost a couple of stone and recalled how as a rower I could eat a fridge full of food and struggle to maintain my weight. I like eating, nothing else to do here, so got a C2 shipped down from USA and been going at it since June 2012, so that I can continue filling all my time with food. Oh yeh, and get a bit fitter.

It has been very interesting and sobering to see how much fitness and "rowing"strength I have lost over the years since rowing. I believe my technique is still good; was interesting to see how that muscle memory remained and returned within a few sessions. But I struggle to get any decent pace up and maintaining decent pace is another matter!

Have some questions about pace and strength which I will ask on the forum proper, but for now, that is me in a nutshell (well most of me).

Look forward to chatting with you all.

Welcome Jon. I'm sure that your rowing experience and depth of knowledge will stand you in good stead here. It must be hell in Tobago

By the way - we're looking for a club meet location - yours sounds as though it might tick some if not all of the boxes.

Bill

Welcome Jon - great to have you with us and thank you for the introductory posting. Bill took the words out of my mouth re a meeting location (I think it has the potential to edge Manchester UK (maybe )

Looking forward to hearing of your progress

Plummy

Welcome aboard Jon.

Welcome to Free Spirits Jon.

Welcome to the good ship Free Spirits Jon, it will come back, indoor rowing is a sport where you get back what you put in.

If you keep putting the metres in you will get stronger and faster

And be able to eat more too

About Me - Jamie Bristoll
I'm just about to turn 44 in July, & have had a really interesting time since hitting the panic button at about 38/39ish.
Gave up teaching at 40, having served 15 years in primary, secondary & special schools.
Bought a model D/PM3 with my last paycheck from Staffs CC, it seemed more appropriate than a gold clock, and definitely more desperately needed, as my fat twin had started appearing our family videos.
Family was a big reason for the change, kids grow up too damn fast to be spending inordinate amounts of time in pointless meetings and filling in pieces of paper that you know full well no bugger is ever going to look at. Education should be about what is best for the kids, not what is best for OFSTED, so I chose to focus my attentions and efforts on my own kids, TillyTickles (9) & MorganMonster (10, going on 17).
Now, working in the family business ( see http://processheatingservices.com/ ) & making use of wonderful technologies like "Call Divert", so's I can be "In the Office" whilst I am really picking them up from school and sliding off to the tennis courts, on bike rides, frisbee-ing in the park, etc. I am very aware that they will soon become grunting, non- communicative teenagers, who hate the sight of me, so I am making hay while the sun shines. Which is also a very good reason for keeping my better half happy, with date nights of drinking & dancing & pool. My curlygirly Samantha will still be here in years to come, when the kids are off at university or in prison.
I've done a lot of reading over the course of this midlife evolution, in search of a meaning to life, above & beyond the usual stuff, most of which we have crossed off the list by this time of life anyway. "Strive to be happy and content with your lot, and live a life without regrets" seems to be the sum of human knowledge in this respect, and that is what I'm trying to do, everyday, cos we'll all be dead soon enough
Having wasted many hours of exercise on fads and lies, and having come to the conclusion that every body is unique, I am currently doing lots of meters, long & slow, and then I'm going to switch to intervals (8 x 2.5mins fast) to see which removes the most fat from my particular body.

Hi Jamie

Welcome to Free Spirits! I noticed that someone had joined the meterboard a couple of days ago with over 400k done already and I see you have done another 2 HMs since then! Looks like you've caught the bug.

You'll find all sorts on here and we love talking about ourselves, so be sure to share all your triumphs and disasters. We're also very happy to give advice (or at least express an opinion) if you have any questions about any aspect of training.

A number of us are doing the Pete Plan and we have a discussion thread devoted to this. I have found it great for building up both speed and endurance and you should have a look at it. Just google The Pete Plan and you'll find a page giving a full description of how it works.

There's also loads of challenges to help keep you motivated, but nobody is under any obligation or pressure to take part in any of these unless they feel like doing so.

Paul V

Great intro Jamie (I think our Scoop may have some competition for eruditely put together postings and so maybe he ought to come out of retirement and prove he's still the best..... ) - you are very welcome to the team.

Welcome Jamie, great intro and right choice.

I'm Kirstin. After twenty years off my husband and I are finally getting back into rowing. We met when we were both rowing for Kansas State University. We have two boys, 21 and 11, and are coming up on our 25th wedding anniversary. I teach a classical education program for homeschool students one day a week.

My main goals right now are hitting a million meters well before I turn 50 (a little over 19 months from now) and getting my first HM done sometime in 2016. First day back was December 9 and today, December 31, I'm already over 75K so both goals should be attainable.

Looking forward to chatting with and learning from all of you.

Welcome Kirstin,

I though you were the first new member for 2016, but I see you joined as the last new member in 2015. Either way, congratulations and welcome!

Happy New Year to all.

Peter (& Ann )

Welcome Kirstin (and hubby). Looking forward to hearing about your progress now you've taken the plunge to get fit and tackling your first HM and million metres

Plummy

Hi one and all, my name is Trevor, and I live in Seaford, on the Sussex coast, England.

I have always loved sport of one sort or another started with table tennis and then moved on to badminton (a sport I loved but very sadly had to give it up due to an injured knee) so took up cycling a bit more seriously. My times were getting better weekly until I could average 22.4 MPH on a 10 mile circuit. Then I had to ease up as it was causing serious pain in the base of my spine which the NHS could do nothing about it or even tell me why or what was causing it. So done a bit of R&R, swing, lindy and A. Tango etc. Still very active (6 shirts a night), but got a bit bored with it after about 15years of it.
3 Years ago moved to Seaford where I started doing more beach fishing, fishing from my kayak, and riding my extremely comfortable FUN! ICE recumbent trike . However the winters were very inactive, so October 2014, bit the bullet and joined the gym. Immediately took to the rowing machine for the all over cardio vascular exercise- great!
At The gym meet a chap called Alan (I think some of you might know him as “Strider”) who told me about the C2 website, so soon was using that just to record my best times rather than anything else. Then he told me about “Free Spirits” so looked into it and thought I would give it a go, and joined in December 2015 (love the meterboard). I think it will do me good joining in some of the sprints rather than the distance work I tend to do. So will try and join in the CTC January for the 5k sprint , if I can work out how to join (should be able to as I used to work in IT (now work using CAD, 3D scanning and 3D printing)).

Big Big thanks to all those that done the design and the upkeep on this website, and keep this club interesting and motivational. =D> =D> =D>
Trevor

Welcome to the fun, Trevor!

You might want to investigate a little thing called the "Nonathlon". You seem like you just the right kind of potentially obsessive who could really get into it.

By the way, I really like the idea of measuring dance activity level in "Shirts per night". Is that an internationally recognized unit of measure? What could the equivalent be for rowing? Puddle diameter?

Welcome to Free Spirits.

Welcome Trevor - and thank you for the detailed history and introduction. Looking forward to seeing your progress.

Plummy

gregsmith01748 wrote:
By the way, I really like the idea of measuring dance activity level in "Shirts per night". Is that an internationally recognized unit of measure? What could the equivalent be for rowing? Puddle diameter?

"shirts per night" is certainly the way i would measure dance activity. thought it was internationally recognized

The equivalent for rowing was the length of paper towel used to mop up the mess. However there was a lot of controversy when someone discovered that some countries were using a 20mm rather than the 8" paper towel, thus having an advantage on bragging rights. Your suggestion of using puddle diameter is so much better, but often i find the puddle is much longer than is wide, so might i suggest a revision and measure the length and width to find out the area. or is it that I'm just to working hard enough for it to count as a work out?
Trev

Any friend of Alan is a friend of mine. Welcome to the team Trevor.