25 Signs of a True Rowing Obsessive

Rowing takes up many hours and days of our lives as well as considerable thinking space. It is easy to find yourself having rowing take over your life and begin to skew your thinking. Here are25 25 common warning signs (some more serious than others)

1. You become inconsolable when pulling a 6.40.1 (or the like)
2. You now consider it normal to throw up after exercise
3. You are put into a state of great shock when you feel someone else’s hands and they are smooth
4. If someone blithely mentions that ‘rowing only uses your arms’ you have a strong desire to strangle them
5. When meeting someone else who mentions that they row, your first question is ‘what’s your 2K?’ and if its better than yours, you mumble something about erg-monkeys
6. The sight of shorts over leggings gives you a strong desire to vomit
7. You talk very slowly and carefully when explaining the difference between sweeping and sculling (how hard is it?)
8. You rate holiday destinations based on training availability and effectiveness above anything else
9. After unacceptable amounts of wash you consider a petition to ban all non rowing craft from the river
10. You consider it normal to consume in the region of 6000 calories a day
11. Hearing a rower confuse a four and a quad makes you contemplate the validity of their existence
12. You find nothing amusing about the word coxswain; cox, swain, nope nothing
13. You watch rowing outside of the Olympics
14. After wearing an all-in-one once you consider it the normal garment of choice for a hot day
15. As your rowing career progresses you find your co-ordination eroding
16. No legging pattern is considered too ridiculous to wear (I mean what it wrong with pink checkers on a yellow background)
17. You wear your club blazer to non rowing formal occasions as you consider it the height of fashion
18. When watching the boat race you analyse each rower’s technique in unwanted detail to your non-rowing viewing partners
19. Discussing rowing forms 90% of your conversation
20. University choices are mainly dictated by their rowing ability, except possibly Brookes
21. Your pots and medals have their own special zone in your house
22. Having to explain Henley categories to people more than once makes you consider whether you should waste your time talking to them
23. The words ‘red box’ mean something to you
24. Upon seeing any body of water your first reaction is to consider how it would be to row on it
25. You finished this article

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