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Thursday, February 10, 2011

Bringing me back

Another sub-artic freezing cold day.  Another day working out inside.  Except today I refused to step my Saucanys on the treadmill and instead reverted back to my college days and hopped on the erg.  Er...what?

An erg.  That's short for an ergometer.  Rowing machine to you non-rower types.

The erg is an evil little machine that had my blood, sweat, tears, the evening prior's alcohol, vomit and any other bodily fluid you can think of on it for 2 wonderful years when I was on Loyola College's Crew team. During our off season, when it was too cold to be rowing in Baltimore's *pristine* Inner Harbor (oh if I try hard enough, I can still smell that nasty smell...), we'd load into the Loyola College vans at the ungodly hour of 4:30 am, still reeking of Milwaukee's Best, Boone's Farm and stale cigarette smoke.  There, on the upper level of our beautiful boathouse, sat a row of ergs, eagerly waiting to torture us for 1 hour or more.  With every pull of the handles, I regretted every ounce of alcohol I consumed (just hours before) and the entire cheese pizza I inhaled (also just hours before).  I had blisters so bad on my palms that the skin rubbed off on the handles.   I'd strap on my 15 lb Sony (Sport!) Walkman and jam out to Salt n Peppa's "Push It" and Violent Femmes's "Blister in the Sun" and get her done. It really wasn't pretty.

Oh I could go on and on and reminisce about these glory days, but don't worry...I won't.

But I will tell you that after spending 15 minutes reliving my nightmare "erg" days of college, it made 30 minutes on the "mill" seem like a dream.  Well...almost.

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