Crew team endures winter training on rowing machines

Every mile can feel like two for rowers in the winter. They pine for the graceful feel of flinging a boat over the water, but winter also means a showdown with the rowing machine, or erg.\nThe erg, short for ergometer, is essential to crew team training in January and February, along with running stadium stairs and pumping iron. It approximates the real thing, without the water. Although it does not require balancing a boat and finessing an oar, it makes rowers better at what they do.\nRowers dread the erg, however, because it measures their output on every stroke. That is fine on a good day. But on a bad day, the monitor lets a rower know she is giving up. \n"The erg is honest with you, and it's hard to accept that," said sophomore Laura Stebbins. "The numbers don't lie."\nIn a boat, a rower contends with wind or choppy water. Sometimes a rower "catches a crab," when the blade gets stuck in the water at the finish of a stroke. And no matter how hard a rower thinks she is cranking an oar, she never really knows. \nNot on the erg.\nIU rowing head coach Steve Peterson said the erg is valuable to coaches because a rower cannot hide when it passes judgment. He learns a lot about rowers from how they respond to the monitor's unwelcome news.\n"Do they keep battling?" he said. "If so, that's who I want in the boat."\nMuch ado surrounds a rower's 2K erg time, or the time it takes her to race 2,000 meters on the machine. The mark is a touchstone for crew team data and a criterion used in recruiting and selecting a lineup.\nPeterson likens the 2K erg time to the SAT score: It does not say everything about a person, but it says something. \n"The erg score tells a lot about a person's mental toughness and physiological capabilities," he said. "It won't tell me about her technique in a boat."\nCrew teams can become obsessed with the rowing machine, and rowers often psych themselves out when they have to "empty their tanks" for the 2K. So Peterson does not announce the 2K test. He wants it to be "just another day."\nTraining on the erg ultimately is a measure of a rower's tolerance for agony. Suffering on the erg instills a conviction that carries onto the water. \n"You know once you hit a certain level of pain (in the boat), it's like, 'I've been here before. I felt this on the erg, and I kept going,'" explained Stebbins.\nRowing hurts unlike any other sport, and erging prepares those muscles that scream the loudest in the final sprint of a race. \n"Quads. My quads kill," said senior and Indiana Daily Student employee Laura Lazaridis, whose 2K time of 7:11.6 is the fastest on the team. "Everything hurts, but the burning stuff happens in the quads."\nPersisting under these conditions transforms erging into a mental game, and senior captain Elizabeth Benoit said rowers have ways of coping. Some tune in to the blaring music. Benoit counts strokes or time. Sophomore Stacey Young computes splits, whereas classmate Elaine Deppe thinks of long pieces to get through short ones. \nPeterson likes to create erg workouts that help turn the misery into fun. He said a little excitement in the erg room at the University Gymnasium fosters a positive mindset that gets the team working harder toward the goal: to improve each day. \nFourteen Hoosiers set personal bests during the first 2K test last month. \nErging "encourages camaraderie through competition," said sophomore Courtney Valerious. Rowers support each other but also try to win, even against best friends. \n"You'd want blood with them in the erg room," said Valerious, who owns the team's second fastest 2K time. \nFacing the unmerciful numbers on the erg monitor comes down to "you and your machine," according to senior captain Annie Lawson. \n"It's a love-hate relationship," Lawson said. "You hate the erg because it hurts. But when you kick ass, you say, 'I'm liking this.'"\nSome days a mile seems like a mile. Or less.\n-- Contact Staff Writer Bill \nMeehan at wmeehan@indiana.edu.