Finding his element
He had rowed thousands of miles but had never been in a boat. Would he take to the water or go merrily, merrily back to the gym?
By JOHN BARRY, Deputy Floridian Editor
Published May 23, 2005
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[Times photo: Lara Cerri]
Rowing class instructor Ryzinski, standing, who teaches at the City Gym in St. Petersburg, gives some pointers to student Jim Milne, reflected in the mirror.
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[Times photo: Keri Wiginton]
Gary Baines, 69, left, an instructor and member of the Tampa Bay Rowing Club, gives Ryzinski a few pointers on rowing in water before he actually tries it.
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[Times photo: Keri Wiginton]
Jim Ryzinski, 43, front, who teaches an indoor rowing course, rows for the first time in an actual boat, on the actual Hillsborough River, aided and abetted by John Barry, seated behind, a St. Petersburg Times editor and a student in Ryzinski's class.
Times Staff Writer
TAMPA - Jim Ryzinski is a fish who disdains water. He's passionate about rowing, but has never bent his back to an actual oar in an actual boat surrounded by actual water, shore breeze in his hair, salt spray in his face, sun on his neck.
He has rowed 4.5-million meters and will log another half-million by year's end. That's 3,106 miles, which will almost get you from New York to London.
But he has rowed absolutely nowhere. He has rowed only in rooms, facing walls.
Until now.
* * *
I met Jim Ryzinski at City Gym in downtown St. Petersburg. He showed up in January with seven new Concept2 indoor rowing machines and a strange story.
He was starting classes. But he wasn't really teaching rowing, per se. He was teaching fitness through rowing. He had no affiliation to a crew team or a rowing club. He had nothing against boats, but to him a scull is the same as a skiff.
Jim's a 43-year-old former BMW salesman who has the requisite sunny charisma, plus a dose of infectious, likable zeal. Pretty soon, he had about 35 of us in his classes. At every class he'd ask us, "What's your plan? What kind of row are you going to do today?"
I never knew how to answer that. One row seemed pretty much like another. "I'll just have an any-old row," I'd tell him. "I'll just row like hell."
I might as well have stabbed him with an oar.
* * *
Jim started rowing indoors in 1996, after he hurt his feet training for a marathon. He quickly realized that he didn't miss the sun or wind or even human competition. Getting from point A to point B meant nothing to him. What meant everything were the spinning numbers on the monitors on his machines. They were taking him where he really wanted to go: to a more efficient workout, to numbers that stood as proof that he was fit and getting fitter.
He obsessed over rowing goals.
"My first goal was to row a half-million meters in one year," he said. "The next year my goal was a million meters. My goal for my 41st birthday was to row a marathon - 42,195 meters, the equivalent of 26.2 miles."
The marathon took three hours and four minutes.
* * *
Most of us get through a long, tedious task by thinking about something else. In Jim's class on a Sunday, I tend to think about the pancakes I'm going to get afterward. It's the only way I can stand the monotony.
Jim tries to banish the pancakes. Focus on that monitor, he says, on meters rowed. Focus on time, strokes per minute. Focus on the splits, the minutes and seconds per 500 meters.
I focus. The monitor drearily spins. Zzzz. Meters. Zzzz. Pancakes. Splits. Pancakes.
Soon I begin to focus on something tantalizingly evil:
Could I corrupt Jim?
What if I led this fish to water?
* * *
Jim and I are on a dock at Tampa's Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park. The Stewards Foundation, which supports all forms of water sports in Tampa, has a boathouse there on the Hillsborough River. Inside are a pair of rusty, neglected Concept2 rowing machines. Jim looks them over sadly.
Next to the dock, though, is a racing scull for two that is sleek and elegant and obviously beloved. It was used in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, says its proud owner, Gary Baines, a pediatric dentist in Tampa.
It's waiting for us.
Jim explains to Baines his indoor rowing regimen. Baines looks blank.
I ask him if he likes indoor rowing machines.
"I don't think anyone does," he says.
Baines gives us a few basic instructions.
Flip the oar blades between each stroke, he tells us. Keep your thumbs over the ends of the oar handles. Keep your knees apart when you bend them.
The gist of it is that we'll be riding a toothpick while looking the wrong way.
It's one of those perfect days in May. There's a cool, cloudless breeze, and a mother dolphin and her little one are jumping just yards away.
For a few minutes, Jim and I look like we're sword fighting with our long oars. He lifts his and the boat tilts wildly one way; I lift mine and it teeters the other way. I've rowed before, but it has been a while. I'm wondering if anyone ever goes under in the Hillsborough and lives to tell about it.
Baines yells for us to lay our oars flat on the water. The boat rights itself. Gingerly, we flip the blades over and slowly pull, and we move. We are rowing, after a fashion.
Jim is yelling, "Whoa, this is GREAT!"
We sword fight some more. Jim's oars are getting caught in his loose T-shirt. We stop. Row. Sword fight. Stop. Row. We fall into actual strokes.
I think we're getting the hang of it. (Baines later describes it as a "a brief shining," implying all else was darkness.)
Meanwhile, Denny Antram, the foundation's vice president, is trailing us in a johnboat. We flash big grins. Antrum is yelling something. Is it congratulations? Then I hear him cry out, "You're going to ram the sea wall!"
* * *
When it's over, Jim is buoyant, thanking Baines. I wonder whether I've turned him, whether indoor rowing might now pale in contrast to this glorious natural experience.
I ask him what was the best part.
The best part, he says, was that there was no worst part. "I thought for sure we were going over. So I'm surprised we did as well as we did."
That wasn't the answer I was looking for. I wanted Jim to say he'd seen the light, literally, that he'd seen sunlight, sea air, a mother dolphin and her baby.
But all he would, or could, give me was this: He'd recommend that everyone in his class try it.
"But for overall general fitness, you get a better workout indoors. The indoor rower is just more time efficient. Let's say you have 45 minutes to give yourself. You have to pull your boat out and get set up. How much of a row could you get in 45 minutes?"
Jim's focused on efficiency. How many calories he can detonate in an hour.
I'm blathering about beauty and nature and the vagaries of time and space.
Stumbling around carrying a skinny boat isn't getting it done for him.
You have to admire the way he has solved this problem in his life - ultimate efficiency. The pleasure for some is the wind and the water. For him the pleasure is all . . . inside.
- John Barry can be reached at 727 892-2258 or jbarry@sptimes.com
Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.
