How I did it: Short story:
- my supervisor said that a "young fit girl" should be able to EASILY pull a sub 8 minute 2k
- I set the erg up to be in units of calories instead of splits

Long story:
My last entry was 3 years ago. 3 years ago, I seriously believed that I was going to achieve this within a year or even a few months. I thought life was going pretty okay. Then all sorts of things happened, and my grades got bad, I lost confidence, while I kept rowing for another year, I don't believe that I am fit enough or good enough to do it any more.

I took a year out after my degree, partly to get a bit more time to think about my next step, partly to just get a hold on my life again.

I came back to do postgrad, and I rowed again. First I thought that I wasn't fit any more, and I definitely don't feel as bulked up as 3 years ago. But my fitness came back really quite quickly, and my erg times were pretty steady.

There's also a change in my ability to persist with an erg. 2 years ago, there were ergs where I gave up. Even last year, there were ergs where I just stopped and gave up. But this year I feel that I can just keep going. I don't think this is a change in fitness, but more a change in mentality. While I still get annoyed when I lose concentration and the split goes up, I don't have the same crushing sense of defeat as before. I guess I have became more realistic--- instead of asking myself to do a split that takes real effort to hold and feeling guilty and upset when I lose hold, I accept that sometimes, it hurts and I am tired, but I can push through it, there is still point in persisting through.

In fact, I have became so good at managing my mental state that I think I have became a little too cautious on what split I think I can achieve. Which is why I put the erg onto calories, which I can't translate in my head into final time the same way I do with splits. Armed with this lack of knowledge, and spurned on by my supervisor's offhand comment that it should be *easily* doable, I just got on the erg, and did it.

Now I know I can push below 8min, and I think there is more, and I am going to keep pushing for it.

Resources: a person whose opinion I care about -- in this case my supervisor at work

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Feb 11, 2011, 10:59AM PST | 0 comments | 3 cheers