Indoor rower earns a spot in world contest in Boston

By RICHARD DANIELSON

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 9, 2000

MELBOURNE -- The bar keeps getting higher for St. Petersburg rower John Stenard, and Stenard keeps rising to the challenge.

Stenard, 41, qualified Sunday for a free trip to the world indoor rowing championship in Boston this month by rowing a personal record at the 17th Annual Southern Sprints regional competition at Brevard Community College.

[Times photo: Tony Lopez] John Stenard, 41, has gained prominence in an obscure sport. Though he didn't train as hard this year, he probably trained more efficiently by focusing on technique and flexibility.

For Stenard, who lives in Venetian Isles, it is the second year in a row that he has won a trip to compete with the world's best in the obscure sport of indoor rowing. The sport grew out of the widespread use of the Concept II rowing machine by college and national crew teams, and now is a subculture of its own.

Stenard qualified for the championships last year by rowing 2,000 meters in six minutes, 12.8 seconds. Then, in Boston, he cut four seconds off that time to take third place for heavyweight men ages 40 to 49. The race took so much out of him that he could not walk for 45 minutes afterward.

This year race sponsors decided to make it harder to get that plane ticket. They lowered the qualifying time to six minutes, eight seconds.

"I would be lying to say that I'm not scared about this race on Sunday," Stenard said the week before the Southern Sprints.

Stenard had cut his training sessions from over two hours a day to less than one. He stopped lifting weights. He didn't replace his heart-rate monitor when it broke. And around Christmas, his 2,000-meter times were nearly 40 seconds off his best marks.

On Sunday, however, he far outpaced his next closest challenger, finishing in six minutes, 7.4 seconds. A spectator remarked that he was the only rower in his 10-man heat not grimacing in pain during the race.

Afterward, he took only a minute to catch his breath, and then stood up to accept congratulations. He said he felt dizzy for a while, but went on later that morning to win a second race, a 500-meter dash that emphasizes strength and power. Several hundred rowers from all over Florida competed in the sprints.

Among many rowers, indoor rowing has gained popularity because it precisely measures individual effort in different settings. On the water, so many variables enter into play that race times are -- well, not quite meaningless, but not especially significant. Winds and tides change direction. Water can be choppy or smooth.

On a rowing machine, those variables are eliminated. As a result, thousands of rowers worldwide compare their times, often on the Internet, obsess over them and scrutinize them to the tenth of a second.

Though Stenard didn't train as hard this year, he probably trained more efficiently by focusing on technique and flexibility. Months of longer workouts built his aerobic base. Then he did five weeks of intense interval training to build up his resistance to lactic acid, the byproduct of hard exercise that burns and, ultimately, interferes with muscle contractions.

But why does he continue to do this? Aside from indoor rowing, Stenard has been a collegiate rower and wrestler, and a top competitor at the Scottish Highland Games. A couple of times he has felt close to accomplishing something great. Last year, after placing third in the world, he thought, "Well, I actually did it this time," and a few friends asked whether he would give himself a break.

He considered it but decided it is better when "each of us can look at our abilities and strive to give back." A devout Catholic, Stenard said, "My spirituality seems improved when I'm doing this. I feel better about myself, and the main thing is I feel like like I'm making use of my God-given talents to give praise back to God."

The result, he said, was "the best race I ever rowed."

The next question is whether he can row even faster. Stenard said the winner of the world championships in Boston will probably finish in under six minutes, with the runners-up close behind. He will find out if he is in that group Feb. 20.

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