Cross-training: 5000 runners and 1 rower!

[CBDB]

I had a lovely workout experience today!

I recently reached a milestone in my indoor-rowing fitness-journey and rowed 10k in one session, reaching my goal of keeping the 10k under an hour!

So I wanted to row for some weeks free of any training plans, indulging in a 10k consolidation period with bagging a 10k at least once a week.

And additionally, I wanted to explore some new ways of rowing. One thing on my bucket-list was exploring what rowing would be like whilst being connected to other rowers via an audio channel. Tech-wise, this can be supported via Discord.

Now there are not many rowers on Zwift, even fewer who row a runner rather than a cyclist avatar on Zwift, and even less that can/want to use discord!

So over the last few months, I had connected with the treadmill running community. I joined a lovely large group called ZLDR (Zwift Long Distance Runners) with ca 5000 members worldwide, aimed at long-distance or slow running!

5000 runners and 1 rower! Me!

I’m beginning to be known in the group as the avatar runner that rows, not runs the 5ks, the 60min easy runs, the 10ks and the 15ks! I always apologise at the beginning for being silent, as I’m too busy rowing without being able to handle the iPhone and texting messages.

So a discord audio channel, like a Zoom call with or without video, seemed a great idea! And today’s after-work 15k session was going to be it.

I had announced to the ZLDR group and my tiny group of Zwift rowers that I’d be connecting to Discord Audio, and at 5:30 pm, I was ready.

I was already rowing for a bit, accepting that maybe no one would connect to the audio channel, until four other runners joined me. The audio wasn’t very good, but three had their video on. And as the audio was so bad, one of the runners started the playlist bot for a Spotify music playlist, and this was just so great!

Just the visual had a motivating effect: on one screen there were our running avatars in a group running through the digital landscape, and on another screen a zoom-like view of runners on their treadmills, connecting us all whilst running/rowing together to music, sometimes laughing at what was popping up on the chat when other runners were texting on Zwift, it was so simple but so human in our appreciation of doing things together … even when we’re apart!

I rowed my 10k and now know for those long-distance rows, this is an immensely rewarding and connecting way to get those miles done!

Happy Cross-Training, everyone!