The Last Training Session!

With any luck we had our last group training session today.  We’re due to cross the Channel next weekend if the weather is kind to us.

All crew mates, with the exception of a poorly Dennis, met at Milton Country Park this morning for what we hope will be our last group kettlebell training session.  Gary and Richard also ran the 5k Parkrun.  I was there as a volunteer as I’m still recovering from last weekends 92 mile run along the Thames from Oxford to Walton on Thames, but that’s a different blog.  The seven of us swung our kettlebells, and some people stopped to wish us luck and a few people even chucked some money into our collection bucket.  We’ve currently raised about £1500 on Jason and Gary’s justgiving page and a further £1800 on the group page.  We might yet reach our £5000 target.

We had our final sea row training session on Wednesday 19 September.  The trip was memorable for a few details.  First of all Dennis proved to have a stronger stomach for rowing in choppy seas than he does for being a passenger in the back of a car.  The safety boat that Mike, our rowing instructor, was to use was not working so he had to hire a boat from the other side of Hayling Island.  This meant we had to depart from the harbour without supervision and meet Mike an hour later.  We made a bit of a mess of getting out of the harbour, mainly because Mike was shouting at us from the harbour and we couldn’t really hear him over the drone of a nearby generator.  We avoided hitting anything, but our attempt at getting away from our birth was not pretty and Mike was at risk of a seizure.  He was probably regretting letting us out in the boat on our own and without any supervision for the first part of the journey.



Getting Deborah into the water.

 However, we made it out of the estuary without incident and met up with Mike in his hired rib just before we hit the open sea.  Once out in the big blue of the Solent we had to deal with a side wind that was gusting between gale force 4 and 5.  This made rowing challenging and we frequently found ourselves rowing out of time.  Richard found himself being pulled apart by Mike for rowing too short, something we all need to pay attention to and correct on the day if we need to.  It was also made clear to us that once we’re in the sea we can’t carry on as if it's going to be a leisurely row.  To make good progress and to allow the cox to steer everyone needs to maintain firm pressure on their blades for each and every stroke.  It certainly isn’t going to be a jolly day out.



Looking a bit out of time.

 Crew positions for the row have now been fixed.  The bow team consists of Steve (who is frequently referred to as Grandpa as he’s the oldest crew member), Jason, Gary and Dennis.  We tell these guys that they are the powerhouse of the row, just so they feel better about their positions.  In reality all they have to do is shut up, not think and row.

In the stern we have Jonathan, Richard, Andy and I.  Each of us has to take a turn being the stroke and cox.  The stroke is the one person who everyone else in the boat should be following.  The stroke aims to set a consistent stroke rate of about 24 strokes per minute and to not vary this if at all possible.  This is easier said than done in a rolling sea.  The cox is responsible for steering the boat, keeping everyone in time if needs be by shouting commands in time with the strokes rowing, shouting motivational comments and making sure we don’t hit anything big.  It would be embarrassing if our row was brought to an end by us hitting a blooming big tanker. 

Looking much better.  From front to back (stern to bow) Andy (stroke), Jonathan, Alan, Grandpa Steve, Dennis, Gary (bow) & Jason in the bow passenger seat.  Richard took the picture whilst in the cox seat.

Whilst Jonathan is the shortest person in the crew he seems to relish being in the cox seat so that he can shout at everyone.  He definitely seems to have the biggest voice.  Somehow I feel he takes particular delight in correcting any of my mistakes.  I believe he’s getting me back for all the times I’ve pushed him hard in a personal training session.  I find Richard’s coxing strangely reassuring.  It must be something to do with his West Country twang adding to the experience of being in a Cornish gig.

We all started having doubts about Andy’s coxing abilities, but it’s too late to make any changes now.  On our return to harbour, and whilst rowing without supervision again, Andy steered us up the wrong channel and we found ourselves outside the wrong harbour.  We only confirmed that we weren't where we were suppose to be by using the GPS tracker on Richard's mobile.  What would we do without mondern technology?  To get us back on track Andy decided to ignore the channel marker posts and to take a short cut to the main estuary.  What he didn’t realise was that we were going over sandbanks on a falling tide.  The alarm was raised when Jonathan hit solid ground with his oar and we looked over the sides of the boat to sea ground just below the water’s surface.  Seconds letter blades of grass were poking up from under the ripples of water.  I had visions of us having to jump out of the boat to push it back to deeper water.  Fortunately we got back to the main channel and back to the right harbour without further incident and having agreed not to tell Mike about getting lost.  However, he was curious as to why we were half an hour late so in the end we had to confess.

We then had our last debriefing and motivational chat from Mike Gilbert.  He told us that we were good enough to make a crossing of the Channel in conditions up to gale force 5, the strongest winds that they will contemplate taking a rowing boat to France.  He also told us that we should be capable of making the crossing in about 5.5 hours, much faster than we had anticipated, but this is largely dependent on very good conditions.

It’s amazing to think that all our training is now behind us.  The experience so far has been amazing.  As the person who brought all these guys together for the challenge I can say that I am incredibly proud of all of them.  I think we’ve made very good progress with the training.  Early on Richard referred to us all as a bunch of misfits, which is a fair description of us.  For a start there is over 30 years separating the oldest and youngest crew member.  Our fitness levels coming into this challenge also varied considerably.  Richard was used to doing half marathon and marathon rowing events on a rowing machine, but no one else, other than me, were used to doing long endurance events.  To row for over 5 hours across busiest shipping lane in the world is going to be an incredible experience.  Mike put it into perspective as he said goodbye to us, informing us that more people have climbed Everest than have rowed the Channel.  I think it’s great that we’ll be part of such a small group of people.