“What does time feel like?” A simple yet curious question, asked matter-of-factly by a three year-old. It was the same child I had spotted earlier waving his flag with faultless enthusiasm. I have no idea what time feels like, but I wish I did. Having said my farewells to the primary school children, each awarded a souvenir Brazilian Real, I spent the long drive home ruminating on the texture of time. Not the concept or idea of time but instead I tried to grasp a fantasy physicality of time. What if the physical changes that occur over time could be distilled to reveal “Time, The Tangible". If one could imagine a physical tangible ‘time’ - how would that feel to touch, to hold? What would happen if you dropped it? Can you split and reorder it? Two events stuck out that shed light on the unruly nature of time, and the perception of the rate at which time passes; erging at altitude, and the previous Lucerne World Cup.
I have spent countless hours staring at ergo monitors wishing away the minutes. The final metres of a 2km test feel like an eternity. Conversely there are those rare and blissful sessions where the mileage seamlessly slips away. Erging at altitude is surely one of the most time-distorting and sadomasochistic pursuits. Each year, up alpine mountains, our team will fight a losing battle with the ergs. Sweat-slick handles are a struggle to hold whilst salt-sore eyes stare intently at dark grey digits. An unseen and unfathomable system of electronics light up the numbers. They pop up on the monitor without a care for the enormous efforts required for their production. The efforts on the cardiovascular system. The muscular endurance needed. The obligatory jump in heart rate or the additional oxygen requirement in an agonisingly hypoxic environment. They do not care because they are just numbers on a screen. Despite my constant counting down of the minutes, the miles and the days left on camp, I, and my crew, care deeply about the numbers. We feel those numbers. The ergo scores are fundamental to our end-performance. These numbers have been attained over years of training. Of all my training experiences ‘time' is perceived at its slowest whilst training 2000m above sea-level. Despite it being a painfully protracted experience each erg only constitutes one tiny step towards the end-goal.
“I have spent countless hours staring at ergo monitors wishing away the minutes.”