I was a “talented” collegiate rower, now turned runner. Ask me anything (spoiler: the talent doesn’t translate…)

I was a relatively good rower for my weight, and switched to cycling. It translated fairly well. Maybe you could find success there?

I did something similar during university- after I couldn't run fast anymore after a work accident, I quit the xc/track team eventually went over to the rowing team as a walk-on my senior year. It was loads of fun and I got really fit again. All the strength training definitely helped me when I eventually returned to running a few years later after having my first kid.

I'm tall and put on muscle easily, so it was a good fit. I later learned one of my grandpa's cousins in Europe was an Olympic rower, and two of my distant cousins are competitive cyclists trying for Olympic spots in the longer track cycling events. I'm too old to do a new sport competitively, but it is always interesting to see how well other sports can overlap. In mountain running there are lots of xc skiers, biathletes, cyclists, ski-mo, and stair runners (also lots of rowers in stairrunning too).

Rowing is a fun sport but expensive / exclusive, so there aren't loads of rowers available out of HS compared to running. Most university rowing programs will have recruitment programs in place for students coming from other sports (basketball and swimming were common among the heavyweights) and test them out before taking them on. As mentioned above, doing well on Erg tests is a good measure of fitness, but rowing on the water is a different skill.

is this as bougie as sport as cycling or tennis? How much does your racing rowboat cost?

Do the top racers buy their own oars from some specialty racing rowboat oar brand, from England probably?

Is the big race still Cambridge vs Oxford? I always had the impression this was old-school British stuff.

One last question, can your racing rowboat outrun a very fast fish? Do animals like fish, seals, or squids see you rowing and race along?

To the OP:

I was a rower in college and intermittently as an adult...otherwise I've been a distance runner.

A 2k erg test is the most painful thing I've ever done voluntarily. Worse than any running workout or race, and I've done a lot of running workouts and races.

Is that your experience? Is a 2k erg test the most suffering you've felt, across multiple sports? Or is my suffering scale based on my not being much of a rower, esp given my 5'10" 145 pound little body.

Put another way - does a talented rower suffer during a 2k in a similar manner as a runner might during a mile race? Or do you think it's worse for the rower?

In rowing the relationship of speed to power is cubic (it takes 8 times more power to go twice as fast) while in running it is nearly linear.

Which is why losing weight 'works' in running, but doesn't (so much) in rowing.

Also why it's pretty easy to tell the difference between an elite distance runner and an elite rower. :)

Or another way to think of it rowing is more about Absolute VO2Max while running is all about relative VO2Max. Relative to your kg's that is.

You can use this calculator if you don't believe the 8 times part:

My son was a 6'5", 220 lbs D1 All-American in the decathlon at a school that also had a good crew team. I had a guy once tell me, in all seriousness, that it was a shame the crew coach didn't get him and convert him to a rower, he could have been good. I guess he'll just have to live with consolation of being AA in track.

Some years ago I saw that the top 100 men in the marathon averaged 5'7", 120 lbs. Different bodies do different things. There are some big guys who can run good distance times, there've been a thousand letsrun threads on that over the years, but a good body for one sport doesn't always translate to another sport, and it's not just size.

Some top cyclists try running races. Some are really good (Mike Woods was a sub 4 miler), others are scrawny runner size with amazing aerobic engines but as soon as you see them running you realize it ain't happening, just not made for running.

All that said, your times are great, which is what I suspect you were fishing for, and that's fine. Pretty much every post on letsrun, including this one by me, is flexing. You should be rightly proud.

USRowing has a very strong masters rowing program. Join a club and start training.

In my opinion, it's true to some degree - but North America (at the university level) is more definitely open than Europe and profits from it.

I come from a rural blue-collar town, there weren't loads of options for sports in HS, but it was always possible to find a sport or activity. I got into running in HS (we didn't have XC skiing or swimming, and being landlocked no rowing obviously).

As I mentioned earlier, a lot of university rowing programs in North America are aware that there is a lot of untapped talent (most HS don't have rowing) and are pretty active at recruiting walk-ons from other sports (I'm far from the first or last runner at my university to profit from that), it's definitely the easiest and cheapest way to try the sport imho (expenses covered!) Try-outs are typically around the beginning of classes. If you're unhappy with your running and think you can make a boat why not give it a go? Lightweight races are being cut back in some areas, but they haven't entirely disappeared.

However that's not the case in Europe (my experience is that its mainly a high-end club sport here, good luck paying club fees or finding training times that don't clash with working/lecture hours).

Coached a girl in HS who did both running (better at MD than XC) and rowing. Her elder sister was on a rowing scholarship. Her dad at one time thought that she could get partial rowing AND running scholarships!!! She went on to drop rowing for College to focus on running and got a medal in the NCAA mile indoors a few years back (then did NCAA XC two days later!!). She ran 2.11 in HS (could perhaps have run faster without the rowing as well!), then 2.05 and 4.12/4.33M in College.

Have you tried stair running, hyrox, or ocr? Cycling TTs? Skimo? You have power, endurance, and long levers that people in other sports crave.

Yep, a 2k time trial on the erg, what we did most (along with 5k’s on the erg), is truly brutal. It really does feel like an all out max effort for a bit over six minutes straight. I’ve never raced shorter than 5k but I assume it’s the same kind of agony that milers talk about.

You might enjoy this short read about Lynn Jennings who has taken up rowing and with some good success. If you're too young to recognize the name, Lynn was an Olympic medalist at 10,000 and multiple time World XC champion.

I was not a talented collegiate runner (D3 walk-on) and I was never a real rower. However, I wanted to chime in and say that two of my most satisfying athletic achievements are the two times I broke into the 6:xx range for the 2km on the ERG (as an old guy).

The ERG has been great because as I gained weight in my forties and as I had various injuries related to my running form, the ERG was a lot more forgiving than just piling on more mileage as a runner. Gaining 15 lbs over the last decade has hurt my running a lot more than it hurt my ERG times.

Yes. The thing with running is that you also have to budget some amount of energy for "staying upright" and not collapsing. When you are on the ERG, you can go deeper into the well because you are seated. I think the one event in running that feels like a 2km is the 800m. You are in a pain tunnel that you can't enter in longer races (if you want to finish them).

If you would get blown out of the water by the rowers in IVY leagues IDK if you are as talented as you say. Almost every human in the world will be assessed around their running ability. There is a massive financial and location barrier for rowing that means the top 100 in the nation would equate to probably the top ~2000+ in the nation in running. (every kid does the mile in PE) With running some farmer kid in Kenya can be the best 5k runner in the world with little investment except some time training. the Depth in running is much deeper than any other sport in the world except for maybe mens soccer. This isn't to say what you have done isn't impressive just putting perspective of the depth of running. is pulling from a pool of almost the entire worlds population so the depth of competition is great. where with other sports (except soccer) the top athletes are great but the 100th best in that sport isn't equivalent to the 100th best in running or soccer and with rowing it's not even close. similar thing with winter olympic sports often very expensive and location based.

As for the running good job don't think that you have maxed out your potential like you said enjoy the consistency slowly increase volume year over year and the intensity on workout days and you can keep improving into your 40s since you are new to the sport.

VO2Max is just 1 metric running efficiency is the other which is very hard to measure but we know the more you run the more your running efficiency tends to improve. Sounds like you have a monster VO2Max so just need to put the time in to get the other part.

1. You still weigh too much. 2. Rowing can make you aerobically and muscularly strong (which both translate to running) but it can't impart the physiologic talent needed to run really fast (that is to say, talent is multifactor).

All things relative though. Good luck training and achieving your personal goals.

Rule # 1 of being a serious runner: you must insist that you have no talent for it, and your success is only a result of hard work.

Then you can dismiss the ones who beat you as naturally talented freaks, and the ones you beat as lazy bums.

Is it really this dangerous ?

desmoinesregister.com

Parents of drowned rower sue Iowa State for negligence before 2021 training death

@DMRegister

Yaakov Ben-David and fellow ISU Crew Club member Derek Nanni died March 28, 2021, when the boat in which they were practicing capsized.

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