erg tests

I wrote this for this week's Varsity, but it was a bit long. Here's the long version;

“We’ll have an ergometer test on Tuesday morning”. All of the trialists’ hearts filled with dread at the announcement.  You see, erg tests are the exams of rowing.  Erg tests are when we see how the hard training is paying off.  They are when we see whether the hours of rowing, weight-lifting, and erging are working. When we see whether the early mornings, the sore muscles, and the constant exhaustion are worth it.  “Exactly how many red blood cells have you grown this season?  Exactly how much has your muscle tissue developed?  Exactly how well does your cardiovascular system work? Exactly how much suffering are you willing to endure?”  These are the questions the erg asks us.

Unlike seatracing, the other major metric of rowing ability, an erg test is a race only against the erg. It is a battle of your will against a machine which, in essence, is a fan connected to a chain.  Most of the time, you do have an idea of what splits other people are pulling, and what you should be pulling. However, when it comes down to it, you have no opponent, only the erg.  The ergometer rowing machine is one of the most controlled tests in athletics; there is no weather factor, no opponent factor; only yourself, the erg, and the training you have under your belt.  

The morning of the test I woke up bolt upright at 6am, already a nervous wreck for my erg test at 9am. I had spent much of the previous day visualizing my race, how much it would hurt, and how I would manage the pain.  I went through my pre-race plan to a t; four pieces of toast with jam, two cups of tea, stretching routine, 10 minute steady state erg warmup, core exercises, carbo-gel, 11 minute erg power pyramid, and a twenty stroke piece to get the feel for the high rate.  The tension was palpable as the minutes dragged on before the start. 

 Finally, the piece started, with me bolting off with five fierce strokes to get the split as low as I could.  I settled quickly, to find my planned split feeling surprising easy.  It took an enormous amount of self-control to stick to my race plan instead of going faster, along with the knowledge that my body would start to hurt immensely in about five minutes.  

With an erg test, you can’t think about the piece as a whole.  If you do, despair is inexorable as the pain escalates.  Instead, you must break the test into manageable chunks, and think to yourself “I’m going to pull this split for one minute” and pretend the rest of the piece after that minute doesn’t exist.  

I chunked through my test, section by section, 500m by 500m, until the end was in sight, and then went ballistic.  As you begin the final sprint of a test, you stop thinking as a rational creature, and become obsessed with making the erg-split faster.  The screaming pain from your legs and lungs becomes so great that you stop caring, and you forget about the reality outside the erg.  Time either speeds up, or slows down, or sometimes stops, as the meters tick away one by one.

Suddenly, and often surprisingly, the test stops, and you are transported back to a reality of pain.  If I were to make a film about erging, I would emulate the opening scene in "Saving Private Ryan":  The film is black & white and silent during the sprint, before an dramatic emergence into a violent, loud, and colorful world.  Every tissue of your body screams in agony; your legs, your lungs, your head, your feet, your fingers.  I’ve had teammates report that their teeth hurt excruciatingly after an erg test.  For the first few minutes you can’t move, and the only thing you can think about is how much you want the pain to go away.  The pain does gradually subside for a time, but often gets worse again later in the day.  As I write this more than two hours after my test, I suffer from a severe headache, and from my right ear popping incessantly.  All I want to do is lay down and take a nap.

I was fortunate because I pulled the split I was aiming for.  Some of my teammates had to cope with the disappointment of performing below their expectations.  However, for all of us, those who triumphed and those who foundered, those who are a shoe-in to the blue boat and those who haven’t got a shot, is the pain.  Thank God that is over.