Half Row Ho Ho – completed

To inspire me to get back onto the Indoor rower I needed a goal, something to train for, because as much as I enjoy exercise (most of the time), having a personal challenge motivates me to get out the door and get moving. My second motivation came from raising funds for The Salvation Army Australia for their Christmas Appeal, donate here but don’t delay my appeal page finishes on 17 Jan 2015.

My personal goal to complete attempt a Half Marathon happened on Saturday 20 December 2014. I was pleased to have 3 great people alongside me with my long time rowing Coach Ian Gibson of Pioneer Fitness, Kathy who I met a few years ago through Ian and Kim a long-time friend who nagged me to join HER gym EnVie a few years ago, something I have never regretted.

OUR awesome gym EnVie at Woonona was the host for the event, even allowing a MALE into their all-female environment (Ian tells me he even put the seat down).

 

All happy rowers before and in the very early stages of the Half Row Ho Ho

All happy rowers before and in the very early stages of the Half Row Ho Ho

WARNING – this next part will contain numbers and figures which may only be understood by fellow Indoor Rowers or Concept 2 users.

We kicked off almost at the stroke of 7am (get it stroke, rowing/clock, double meaning and all that).

Ok time to get serious, my goal was to finish in 1 hour 45 minutes which would have been an average pace of 2:29.3 per 500m and strokes per minute around 20-21.

The nervous excitement and adrenalin of the challenge saw me start too hard and I had to talk myself back to a more maintainable pace and slow my stroke pace down, eventually settling at about 2:26 I felt comfortable but was afraid that I was going too hard.

Once I got through the first third of the row I picked up the pace and was maintaining about a 2:24 pace. All was going well until about the 17000m mark and with 4k to go my arms turned to heavy logs and I feared they wouldn’t get me home. By this stage of the event we had a small cheer squad of Gym trainers and fellow rowers who offered some much needed advice, some of which was “use more legs” so focusing back on my technique and getting the very tired legs to do more of the work, I struggled through the next 3k.

With 1000m to go the adrenalin kicked in and excitement that I was soon to get off the damn rower, so I picked up the pace and averaged a 2:19 pace, even pulling under 2:00 for a strong finish.

Here are my splits for all you Rowers out there.

Here are my splits for all you Rowers out there.

End of uber technical details, resume normal programming.

My stats for half marathon on the rower, which for those who don’t know the distance is 21097m, time was 1:41:46.4 with an average pace of 2:24.7 per 500m average stroke rate was 21 spm.

The home stretch during the last 1000m when the going got tough but the adrenaline kept me going.

The home stretch during the last 1000m when the going got tough but the adrenaline kept me going.

It felt mighty good to finish and this could be the post row adrenalin talking but I committed to have a crack at a full MARATHON on the rower 42k at 42 years old. Watch this space, coming to you from a gym sometime in April 2015.

Ahhh pure relief, I finished the event and still have my Santa Hat on a very happy Half Row Ho Ho.

Ahhh pure relief, I finished the event and still have my Santa Hat on a very happy Half Row Ho Ho.

MY – Half Row Ho Ho

Some of my readers will know I have been a fan of the Indoor Rower for the past 7 years.

I recently set myself a personal goal to complete a Half Marathon on the Concept 2 Rower.

I recruited 1 friend just by mentioning it and a few others along the way including my coach Ian Gibson from Pioneer Fitness who is an approved Indoor Rowing Instructor. My goal was to complete it before the new year but I amended that to now be before Christmas (I didn’t want Christmas food belly).

So the dates are set my friend Lisa is completing her HM this Saturday 13 December and I will be completing mine on Saturday 20th December along with my 3 other buddies. The events will be held at my awesome gym EnVie Woonona starting around 7am on each of the days.

Inspired by Australian comedian Hamish Blake’s goal of completing a Marathon on the Rower and raising funds for The Salvation Army, I wanted to make my metres count so I have started a fundraising page on Shout for Good. FYI Hamish completed his Marathon last Sunday 7th December at a cracking pace and for those who know their Rowing numbers it was 42,195m in 2 hours 58 min 26.1 seconds a cracking average pace of 2.06.8 per 500m and an average strokes per minute of 27.

My training over the last few months has been wide and varied including a few distances I have never tackled before a 12k and a 15k straight row and surprisingly did a better average pace on the longer distance. Leave a comment if you want to hear more about my training rows I’m happy to share.

So support me in making Christmas a little brighter for those less fortunate and donate here to support the Salvos and the wonderful work they do. Every little bit counts and adds up, so don’t think you can’t make a difference.

Follow along on Facebook and Instagram with our hashtag #halfrowhoho

rower

The pain starts here.