Ergo, therefore I try

Son, Sam, has been erging for a while now. He used to sit in the kitchen in Islip sharing his latest PB, daring to trust me with possible targets he had in mind; afraid to mention the number for fear of jinxing his arrival at that platform.

On moving to Singapore in May last year, and finding my new active Virgin life, I gave it a go. The first 2k at lunch was horrible; I felt sick afterwards due to poor cardio fitness and no lunch. But I persevered and soon made it to a PB of 8:35. And there it has stayed for months, and rarely visited.

After meeting Kiwi coach Ivan, I left the ergo for a while and gave the Smith machine a go instead.

Then a month ago, Niumai posted her 5k ergo time on our family Whatsapp group. Wow! 5 k! That’s a long way. I gave it a go and stopped after 2k. Yuk!

At Christmas, Niumai suggested I try music to keep me going. So, today I tried with the help of these two guys.

It made all the difference! I got to 5k — amazing — in 22:44. But the guys were just a little too fast for my ticker to keep up with. I’m looking for some music no more than 80 beats a minute (20spm).

This evening, I heard the news that Sigrid, a singer from Bergen, has got an award from the BBC for ‘sound’. (Why doesn’t the BBC give it to a bird or a humpback whale?) So, I looked up Sigrid’s music and, guess what, her ‘Don’t kill my vibe’ song goes along at 75bpm.

So, here’s hoping Sigrid, along with some UB40, will help me get to my hushed-undertone-Medium-revealed target of 22:20. Young Sam knocks 5k out in 16:53. Yikes!