One Million Metre Rowing Challenge - Will We Survive?
We approach March with mixed emotions as we have both suffered set backs this week, in our attempt to reach our goal and complete our self imposed challenge. At the end of February, to be on target we should be on or around the 666,666 metres rowed. Sadly, Nick has suffered from a recurrence of the discomfort that is sciatica, this has stopped him for rowing for 9 consecutive days and he is still hovering around 512,000 metres.
I have had a slightly better fate and only missed 2 days rowing. Last weekend i was unable to fulfil my usual place in goal for Abingdon men's hockey 2's at Milton Keynes (due to a family commitment) and played 15 minutes out on pitch for the 3's and the final 10 minutes in goal.
The 3's have a new goalie and he was playing his 1st game for the club but the kit he was wearing was required in the 2nd team game so, he had to come off early, so he could remove the kit before they left for their game. It was great to get a run around as i hadn't played out on pitch for 5 seasons, not since receiving a smack in the mouth from an attackers stick, accidental but painful.
Sunday morning was a different story though as my body revealed it wasn't as fit as i had thought and managing the stairs was as much as i could do for the rest of the day. Pain in my shins, tight calf's, quad's and hamstrings all for 15 minutes of play, i won't be doing that again in a hurry. This mean't i had missed Saturday (planned) and now Sunday, where i normally looked to build up some metres, to give me a potential day off during the week if required.
Over 2 weeks i have pushed my work rate up some what and now look to row at least 14,000m in an hour, per night. This had given me a boost which was fortunate so the days enforced rest, was covered by the extra metres i had built up over the previous 11 days. As of today, i now have 355,111 to row @ 10444 per day if no days rest are taken. I had already said i have planned in one day's rest per week plus this weekend as i am at Wembley for the Carling Cup Final with Mitre. This leaves me an average 11837 so if i continue at 14,000 per row i may well finish a day or two earlier than expected.
Our challenge is nothing compared to the
where you are expected to row around 3000 miles in swells of up to 50ft and suffer chronic bouts of seasick. Having sent off for the entrants information pack we are now wondering if we could do this for 2018. In the meantime, there are just 4 boats left at sea, as The Yorkshire Rowers completed yesterday and so smashing a record for the oldest all female crew to complete any ocean crossing. Our friend Steve Murphy in his boat, Atlantic Endurance, still plugs on and has less than 442 nm to go. He is expected to finish in around 9 days, given favourable seas conditions.
