I love rowing. And I always say that people who stick with rowing, have to REALLY love it. They are rowing extremists, if you will. Because if they aren't, the amount of work and pain involved would cause them to quit. I know that rowers have been called crazy for many different reasons: we wake up at ungodly hours of the morning, we sit for hours at a time on ergometers, our "sprint" races are 6-8 minutes long, we spend thousands of dollars on racing shells and regattas...the list goes on.
When I hear people say these things, I can understand why any non-rower would think that rowers are psycho...but I rarely think of myself, or rowing, as insane. To me and the rowing community, it's the norm.
Yeah, yeah, I love rowing...but what's my point? Glad you asked.
Tons of people are extremists. Everyone from fashionistas to crazy cat ladies. It may not make sense to me to spend $500 on a purse or to own 18 cats, just like it doesn't make sense to them to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to go row 10 thousand meters. The point is, is that it is their norm and everyone's norms are different. It may seems outrageous to outsiders, but to you, it is simply apart of your everyday.
