I blame Jürgen Grobler. Or possibly Team GB. Or whoever had the frankly inspired idea to announce the GB Olympic crews by means of a row-past (genius – the drama!) Anyway, whoever is to blame, the point is that I was excited and distracted and not in my right mind around 11 a.m. today. Which was precisely the moment that one of the girls in my rowing club emailed everyone to find out if we were interested in entering the Cardiff Half Marathon in October. That’s a running half marathon: 13 long miles of RUNNING. Not rowing: running.
What remains to be seen is how I will train for this monstrous event around my existing weekly commitments of three outings on the river and one bootcamp session which, given my tendency to fatigue, will leave me one running day to play with every week. And how I’ll cope with running on tarmac when I’m used to forgiving, mossy forest trails.
However daunted the new Olympic rowing squad are feeling about the prospect of the Olympics and the pressure to win, it’s nothing compared with the apprehension that has overcome me with the thought of all those miles between me and the finish. “New chapter”, tweeted Pete Reed this afternoon. I know what he means.
