2ks Make Your Body Hurt Bad

Current soundtrack: Atom Heart Mother, Pink Floyd

Currently, I'm sitting on my bed, attempting to decompress, relax, recover, mellow out post-2k test. I went down this afternoon for my scheduled test at 4. Josh Richardson went just before me, and 30 seconds after he finished, the power went out. For 2 1/2 hours. While the erg is battery powered, the testing equipment is not. So, while I was warmed up, GU'd up, ready to go as he finished, I had to wait for 2 hours. It wasn't all bad, Fritz told some great stories/facts about the body and people testing it. If the power didn't come on 6, Callahan told Silas, Brad and me that we were going to do a 3-way test, just for time, no numbers. Thank god that didn't happen. At about 5:50, the power came on and I was up. I warmed up a little and took my last Gu Hardrock and went for it. I started out pretty ok, settled into a rhythm around 1:33/4 and went for it. The first thousand was decent and I didn't feel too dead. I went after the third 500 and started negative splitting, but not by much. Had a decent last 500 but really couldn't sprint it below 1:30 with a couple strokes at 1:29, and ended up with a 6:12. Slightly better than last year, but not great. There are reasons I'm not at my optimum to do a 2k right now, but I'd say the most pertinent one is that I need to train more. If things go decently this summer and I decide to continue training, I think that a good long year of solid basework and getting to train on my own terms with lots of volume could really benefit me and I could do much better than I am right now. My V02 was good, Fritz was very encouraging about that and not disparaging about the erg score just said to keep working hard. At least it's over with.
The 10 minutes after it may be the most uncomfortable I've ever experienced. Maybe not, there may be some memory I'm luckily not thinking of right now, but they sucked. For 5 minutes I couldn't get up or cool down, then at 5 minutes they took some blood for lactate and something else. Even once I got up and was slightly more conscious, the consciousness only served to let me know how shitty I felt. I sat for a bit, then lay down, then sat some more, then tried to drink some water, then watched Silas go. He had a good piece and had even crazier numbers, so that was good for him. I was still struggling, but it was getting better. Slowly I felt kind of normal, although even now I feel pretty wobbly and sucky. Forgot what 2ks do to a body. Anyways, it's over and I don't think I shamed myself TOO horribly. I beat a few starboards on the erg, but obviously I want to do much better and think it's possible. Whatever. Came home, watched an Olympic Biathlon DVD with Dave, and now I'm sitting in bed, drinking SPR-3 recovery drink. 7:30 practice tomorrow should be joyous. At least it's in boats.

In other, non-rowing related news (there isn't much of that here), Dad got me Atom Heart Mother for graduation and I never knew how epic of a Pink Floyd album it truly is. Combining their greatest orchestration with some great mellow, Meddle-esque ballads, I'm really enjoying listening to it. Even better, it makes me want to revisit all those Pink Floyd albums I listened to death in high school. So, good choice, Dad. I'm looking forward to the giant cow print. My pre-erg music was Rihanna's "Umbrella," which is kind of on the other end of the spectrum of music, from avant-garde psychadelic rock to shitty (read: GREAT) mass-produced hip-hop/pop. Perhaps I'll add a music review section to this thing.
Anyways, D-Day is done, now it's on to things I can better handle, and I'm feelin ok. Just need sleep and drinks to make my head feel less woozy. Annnd ending note... I like my old-school Stanford baseball hat and can't stop wearing it. Makes me nostalgic. Sleeptime.