Row AWAY

The thing about rowing is that you can't back out of an outing without a very good reason.

It's not like running where you can just not go if you don't feel like it; even training for a team sport, you feel like you SHOULD go but there's no need apart from your own desire for improvement, and not annoying your teammates.

Rowing though...rowing, they need you to move the boat. At Cambridge, CUCBC (the dedicated bods in charge of college rowing) have made it actually a finable offense for a crew to be incomplete. So there has to be eight rowers, and this weekend I just have not felt like being one of them.

Don't get me wrong; I stick at this (fairly stupid? discuss) sport because I love it, but when you're down in the dumps and want to crawl under a duvet and watch Friends, being MADE to go DO EXERCISE in a BOAT when it's RAINING (sorry I think my capslock finger is acting without my knowledge) is not what you want.

Take it from me, it's not.

Staring out from this weekend into the first week of my Loch Ness marathon training, in a pretty barren PhD-ideas/work place anyway, watching my parents drive back to Manchester, I really was not keen on getting in the boat. But I did - because my captain would have killed me if I didn't, and because I would have hated myself for finding a sub.

I'll be glad in 3 weeks time during Bumps, but for now, I still hate rowing and I am bitterly resentful that it took time away from my very important 90s TV watching. Stupid team sports. Even the endorphins barely made a dent to help; but at least I got out of my room, otherwise the girl living next door to me would have complained again about hearing 'I'll Be There For You'.

Row away, rowing. Row away.