Why is Rowing so Expensive?

So I figured I should be using a speed coach or a stroke coach for training but unfortunately the only ones available at Burnaby Lake are being used by the two fastest people who train almost every day. I figured I can just by one, so I went onto the NK website, the company that sells these products to take a look at them.

Holy shit are they expensive! They cost $140 for the stroke coach and $200 for the speed coach.

Incase you do not know what they are, they are simply a counter of how many times your seat moves forward. There is a magnet on the bottom that increases the counter by one and displays it to the rower. There is no fancy magic happening, there are no super expensive parts, there is no real reason why these costs so much.

Well there is, but it is ridiculous. Because there are not a lot of rowers in all of the World, in order to stay in business they companies have to make enough money to stay afloat. This is basics of running a business, you have to make more than you spend.

But since rowers are rowing in the morning and afternoon, there are relatively few jobs out there that allow them to work and make enough money to pay for these expensive items.

If you look at the cost of a single they are basically all the same. The better companies, Hudson Boatworks and Fluid Design sell their 1x for $7,900 and $7,400 USD. The shittier singles Pocock Racing Shells and Kashper Racing Shells sell their singles for $7,750 and $7,450 USD.

It’s quite funny that these companies sell their products to quite a small number of people for so much when none of the rowers can afford any of it.

Knee is Doneskies

Well… it finally happened, what I was afraid of. While training for rowing all semester there were two things I was afraid of: over training and getting sick, thus not being able to train; and over training and hurting myself, thus not being able to train.

The later of the two happened. Last week I was a bit sore in the legs but I just took that as the normal signs of being sore from training. I went for a run Friday evening around Burnaby Lake and finished in a decent time given that I haven’t really run that distance in a while. But when I stopped running my knee was really hurting.

It started hurting to the point where I couldn’t bend it. I decided to ice it and keep it elevated. Saturday morning I went to the doctors on the advise of a future-doctor on the team. The doctor looks at it and tells me I have an inflamed bursitis in my knee and I won’t be able to row for a while.

Great, now I am super frustrated and super pissed. When you are competing at this level and you lose a week of training, that is super hurt.

Basically what is wrong with my knee is over use, the fluid in the knee became inflamed and slightly swollen. All I can do right now is keep it elevated, keep it iced and not do anything off of it. In a few days I have to go get an x-ray and then the doctor will recheck it out. Right now it is too swollen for him to make a proper diagnoses.

I have been swimming all week to keep in shape, as it is really the only exercise I can do without putting preasure on the lower body. I am going to try and do weights in the next few days in the upper body. My knee is feeling a bit better so I am going to see if I can get out on the water later this week if it feels better.

I can’t believe this happened right when I got a new single out at Burnaby Lake, a brand new one and the fact that when I row I am actually able to clear my blades and stay balanced.

I have a race on April 4th, I have entered it despite my knee hurting and I will make the judgement call the day before to see if I am going to go. The good thing is that Deep Cove has lent me a really nice boat of theirs for me to drive to the island and race in.

Canadian Undergrad Tech Conference

Last week I went with Cory to Toronto for the Canadian Undergrad Technology Conference. This is the first time I have ever been to a conference and the second time I have ever been to Toronto. I definitely would never just pay $700 to go across the country and go to a conference I am semi interested in. Either way, the school paid for most of it so I went anyways.

We left on the Wednesday, flew from YVR at 7 in the morning out to Toronto. We arrived at our hotel, a Super 8, in the middle of Chinatown. We didn’t have much to do, so we walked around the downtown core. We went up to the U of T, Cory wanted to go join some Parkour group there. We headed down Younge street, through the Eaton Centre and I found the Strip club I got kicked out of when I was 17, Zanzibar. Heading back on Queens street we walked pasted Much Music and saw where the conference was going to take place. I then went for a run around U of T, to keep up my training for rowing.

Thursday we slept in, woke up at 10:30 because of our shitty alarm clock and failure of a wake up call. We ran to the hotel and missed the keynote speaker. We then had a guy from CCICT talk about recruiting high school students and girls in CS, followed by a talker from Rypple. We then had a seminar on programming for the Blackberry, both Cory and I decided to opt out of that. That night we half-ass worked on our project for the “inspiration project” we were required to be a part of. Following that, we went to dinner with two guys from U of C. We ate at a Johnny Rockets, a restaurant that looks like something from Back to the Future, or Pop Tate’s from Archie comics.

We also went out and watched the Watchmen that night which is a really good movie, though with a HOLY RANDOM! soundtrack.

Friday, we got to the conference early. On the way there we saw four fire trucks rush off to the School of Culinary Arts. Someone must have failed their project. At the conference we had a discussion from the head of Engineers without Borders Canada, and on how to use AJAX where some douche that reminded me of Travis was asking a million questions. In the afternoon we presented our project and then it was followed by a fancy banquet dinner, again with me in a t-shirt.

Friday night we went to Ryerson University where they had a pub night and it was super cheap. Nothing like you would see here at the Highland. I wish we didn’t have so many taxes on our damn beer and I wish our pub served poutine.

Saturday I was supposed to wake up early to go to the Argonaut Rowing Club but it was too damn cold so I didn’t feel like it. We left our hotel, then went to a restaurant from Pure Pwnage called Maggies (it is on 400 College St.) and it was the best place I ate in Toronto. I have never had such good breakfast at a restaurant (except maybe the Wooden Shoe on W17 and Cambie).

We walked around Toronto some more but where quite bored and cold so we opted to go back to the hotel to use t he internet for a few hours before heading off to the airport to go home.

I think I will try and do it again next year. For now I am have to do my deliverable and make a presentation with Cory.

Things I learned in Toronto:

1. It is cold in Toronto, a jacket is needed.
2. People wear collared shirts at conferences. T-shirts are not acceptable.
3. The airplane is a perfect place to get 5 hours of homework done without distraction.

Awesome FML

This is awesome.

Today, I was running to my car, slipped, and slammed my head on the car door. I started driving to the hospital because it was bleeding profusely and I was dizzy, I called my mom to tell her what had happened. She said I was grounded for “goofing off” and that she was “sick of my shit”. FML

Remustering

I’ve been watching (aka torrenting) this show from Discovery Channel called Combat School. It is about a platoon of soldiers from the Royal Canadian Regiment as they prepare to go to Afghanistan.

Now I have been thinking for about three years now about changing trades in the military because honestly, Communications and Electronics is quite boring.

Before I was thinking of going to Military Police because that is something that interests me. However, now I am considering going to infantry. They get all the cool toys.

Bad idea?

Erg-a-Thon 2009

It’s great to be the fastest guy on the team, and be able to show it.

From noon yesterday to noon today our rowing team did a 24 hour erg-a-thon where we kept the wheels of two ergs spinning for 24 hours. I did a number of shifts and got quite a good workout, though now I am lacking in sleep.

Oh the life of a rower.

My team pulled over 285 km in the 24 hours. We also raised the most amount of money, so we get breakfast made for us, and cleaned up after us. It is great!

Now I am going to go off to the MBC to find out the result of the elections, see if I was voted in as FAS rep then off to bed for rowing tomorrow morning.

Saturday I have to miss the traditional novice doughnut row, this makes me quite sad. This row is where we go from Rocky Point Park in Port Moody out to Deep Cove RC, park our boats and then get doughnuts, before heading back. Instead I will be rowing in Ft. Langley with the UFV crews.

Next weekend I will also be earning my Rowing Canada Aviron Coaching Level 1.

Random Stuff

Well I found out Dane Cook is coming to two, the tickets were decently cheap so I picked up two. He will be here on June 4th.

Today’s the rowing team’s 24 hour erg-a-thon. We are in two teams and we will spend the next 24 hours, from noon today, till noon tomorrow, erging beside McKenzie’s cafeteria. My shifts are tomorrow from 6 am to noon.

I got into ENGL 101 now. That makes my current schedule absolutely horrible on Wednesdays.

My week will look like this:

M: 12:30 – 3:30
W: 9:30 – 2:30, 5:30 – 8:30 (at Harbour centre)
F: 1:30 – 2:20

And, to end off the post, a twitter fail.

Summer School

So I have registered for my classes for this summer. Thanks to the lack of classes, I got either shitty CMPT classes or no criminology classes. I managed to get into a CRIM class, though I am trying to get into the distance ed version of the class.

So far I have:

CMPT-383
CMPT-475
CRIM-312

I am still trying to get into:

ENGL 101
CRIM-312 DE
CRIM-413

Hopefully I don’t have to go to St. Jean again.

Fucking Cellphone Providers

So, when I was with telus, I had unlimited texting. I could send texts anywhere across Canada and the US.

When I switched to solo, I got unlimited texting and I asked them if I could do the same thing, they said yes.

I went to Reno last month, sent 71 texts and now they want to charge me $42.

No fucking way. This is absolute bull. When I get home from Toronto I am going to phone and bitch at them and threaten to leave because they lied to me.

Shuffle This

One thing I can never figure out about iPods is why the shuffle function sucks so much. It has sucked in every version of every iPod I have used since 2003, it is almost like Apple never even gave it a second thought.

I always listen to my ipods on shuffle mode, usually because I am driving for a long time, or running and I don’t want to listen to the same stuff. Even iTunes seems to have this problem on my home computer.

What is wrong with the shuffle function is that is doesn’t actually shuffle. It plays the same subset of songs over and over. You will hear the same band and songs all the time but there are so many songs that never get played.

I cannot figure this out, It doesn’t seem like it is hard to make a random list of songs and just play through them.

When will Apple ever fix this!