November 10, 2007
Transatlantic World Record Rowing Race
I received an email yesterday from my old friend Rob Loder-Symonds, with whom I once shared a flat in Paris.
We've stayed in touch since then and around seven years ago, while I was studying for my MBA, Rob called me up and asked him to meet him by Putney Bridge at 6.30am one Sunday morning. It turned out that over the next few weeks, we were to try our hand at rowing. While it was great fun - there's little to rival going out onto the river on a crisp winter's morning - I didn't have any great talent and, besides, I was too short and too fat to make a crew member.
Rob, on the other hand, is tall, athletic and it turns out, something of a natural rower. He stuck it out even after I was told not to come back until I'd lost a couple of stone (yeah, yeah). He carried on rowing when he moved up to Edinburgh a couple of years later.
Like me, his fitness went up and down sometimes, but a couple of years ago he started to knock himself into shape properly, hill-running and weight training, intermingled with occasional mountain climbing. Then last year the opportunity popped up for him to try out for a place in the crew of a boat that is set to attempt the fastest Atlantic Ocean crossing in a rowboat in December 2007 (not sure how these things arise). Here's a picture of the boat, the ‘Ocean Row Events Challenger’ taken from the official website.
He's been in serious training since.
I spoke to him several times over the past year and his dedication has been remarkable, despite not knowing whether he'd make the crew until very recently. He broke the news to me with his email. I've just got off the phone with him and his morale is extremely high, although he has a month to try and find £15,000 sponsorship to pay his entry fee and cover his costs - if either of my avid readers can think of someone who might be interested in sponsoring Rob, please let me know.
Anyway, I'm feeling inspired now. I'm going to attach some lights to my push bike.
Posted by dompannell at November 10, 2007 12:55 PM