A Marathon Row...

Hi all,

I did my first longer row yesterday, so I thought I'd update you on how it went.

I did 40km, which was a pretty good distance. I was intending to do 50, but my desire to watch England vs Australia in the rugby league outweighed the lessons I thought I'd learn from another 10k (turned out to probably be the wrong choice - England were very, very frustrating).

Haile and I both covered roughly the same distance

So I rowed basically the distance of a marathon and it went pretty well. I purposefully kept myself rowing pretty slowly, but still averaged about 2:35/500m over the row which was faster than expected. I forced myself to take reasonable breaks (a couple of minutes) between 10km sessions, so ended up taking about 3 hours 45 minutes.

I didn't actually feel too bad at any point during the row, though there were up and down periods. My main problem was my bum (as expected). I mixed up just using the seat and using an erg cushion to try to reduce this problem and it did make a bit of a difference. When I row the full distance I think I'll mix in a normal cushion as well. I really wasn't too knackered - physically - by the row, which is a major positive (even though it was expected). I've also not got any muscular or joint problems today (the day after the row), which is great.

So overall I was very happy with it and it made me see that this is definitely achievable - even though it will be right at the end of my physical limit.

I'm taking a fair few of these bad boys

One other thing I thought that might be of interest is my diet at the moment. I'll just give you the weekday run-down, as weekends are a bit less predicable (e.g. my row yesterday used up 2,200 kcals for starters). At breakfast I'm going for a large bowl of cereal (skimmed milk) with a smoothie, lunch tends to be a couple of rolls with a few slices of something with lots of protein and salad, and dinner is a large pasta-based meal (remember I'm rowing in the mornings). So almost all my complex carbs are coming from my evening meal - it's not ideal, but work really restricts who my meals are laid out. If I feel the need for a snack I'm going for dried fruit of some sort (generally cranberries, raisins and sultanas for me). Supplement-wise I'm taking a multivitamin tablet, glucosamine sulphate and fish oil tablets (for my joints - I'm hypermobile, so have joint stability issues), and methylsulphonylmethane (again for joints, but for cartilage). I'm not necessarily convinced by them, but it seems better to cover every base at the moment.

Anyway, thanks again for reading. If you'd like to donate please do so at http://www.justgiving.com/100km-row. And it is much appreciated if you've already done so. If you'd like to see why I'm doing this please read my first post.

Hope you're doing well and thanks for reading,
James