24 Hour Row for Devon Air Ambulance Charity

This weekend just gone, I organised an indoor rowing competition - the Devon Open Championships. It was to help raise funds for the Devon Air Ambulance and to give the sporting community an opportunity to get together and row a marathon at Paignton Health and Leisure Club based at Devon Hills Holiday Park.

I will write up the Championship highlights in another blog, this one is to cover a 24 Hour Endurance event we did throughout the weekend:

"Well, I feel like I'm about back in the land of the living now, just! A bit sore and tired but not such a zombie.

Really enjoyed the weekend, and was pleased to see so many people joining us to compete and spectate/support.

24 Hour

Warren Matthews and Chris Gregory were attempting the 40-49 Hwt Tandem World Record and raising funds for the Devon Air Ambulance in the process.

There was heck of a lot of preparation from the guys in terms of nutrition, creams, clothing, equipment, and of course a heck of a lot of training! From our end, it was about making sure there was a suitable area to row in, provide TV and seating, signage to let people know what it was all about, and fan/ioniser to help with breeze effect.

(Chris on the left, Warren on the right)



As it panned out, the plan was 15 min on/off. The pace they guys set off at was 1:58 or thereabouts, which seemed very ambitious but for a long way it looked like they were building up a very nice cushion on the target pace. After 7 hours, Chris suffered badly with the lungs not being able to provide/convert enough oxygen and the best decision was taken - to get the paramedic out and then for him to stop rowing. As Chris's wife had said to him before he set off to get here, please don't die. Life is much more important than records when all's said and done! He managed to go 7 hours, a huge achievement and great performance in itself!

Andy Osborn jumped in to substitute for Chris whilst Warren continued. I said to Warren - take your time to decide what you want to do, whether it's stop and recover and join the marathon, or even look to do a 100k individual the next day, etc. He chose to do the honourable thing and finish the challenge off, partly due to the mass of kind donations people had pledged and partly because he had trained for this and wanted to see it through.

As Andy hadn't trained for such a feat of endurance, I offered to help them get through it (depite my currently horrid form in endurance). The best strategy seemed to be for me to get a couple of hours kip and then come back in the early hours and do some of Andy's reps to enable him to recover and keep going. I managed to grab 2 hours sleep, after having had about 5 pints of lager shandy due to Katherine Endacott's fella insisting on buying me one after the other - possibly not the best prep!

I arrived back at the Leisure Club at 1:30am to find Andy looking very tired but very determined and Warren looked good although aching a bit here and there. My first shift was a 30 minute piece to give them both a break. I asked Warren about pace, he just said whatever is comfortable, no record to shoot for just finish the job. I did 7333m in that stint which felt ok, although my hams were stiff from the racing in the afternoon. We then did 20 mins in the pattern Warren, Andy, Warren, Graham, Warren, Andy, Warren, etc... this gave Andy and I an hour between reps which sounds easy doesn't it?! Warren continued to bang out the reps like a metronome.

Each 20 minute piece felt the same - ok for the first 10 minutes. Sweat starting to pour out at 11 mins in. 12-15 mins in, looking over shoulder to make sure next man on is not sleeping and getting ready to take over, last 5 mins starting to ache and pushing through to the end. I finished most reps off by doing low rate higher power strokes in the last minute and then a 1:45 or so last stroke so that the changeover could take place without too much panic and the next stroke being around on pace.

As the moon started to go low in the sky, around 4am, we started to think about it getting light again, then the sun rising, then the leisure team re-appearing at 7am, and suddenly things started to feel like the end was within reach.

(you don't know how good it felt to see that sunrise!)

I took the opportunity to have a lay down just after 6am - on the floor. I didn't sleep but was in that semi-consicous state where you could still hear the therapeutic whir of the flywheel every 2 to 3 seconds or so. I became aware of another voice in the room, which was comforting, it turned out to be Jonathan Turns. he'd come along to lend support which was greatly appreciated! When I got up, I was stiff all over and my muscles were going into cramp spasms. A quick walkabout and some limbering up and it passed, thankfully.

At some point in the early hours I'd said "Hey, we can get 350km" and we were all, "Um, yes we could, if we work hard...." we didn't really discuss times or targets much after that but we all picked up the pace a bit to put in as strong an effort as our bodies could manage.

The sun came up and the leisure team arrived and we were heading into the last rep. Knowing that there just two more to go was a great feeling! Warren had worked out his total time rowed and average pace and worked out the pattern required for us to row so that he did his 12 hours on the button. After Oz's last rep (which he was understandably relieved to have finished, and managed to knock in a sub 2:00 piece!), I had a 15 min and then a 10 min piece to do, with Warren doing a 15 and then the final 10mins. the feeling of knowing you've just a few minutes left to do was great, we both pushed hard and we saw the total average pace come back down to 2:02.5 and then even again to 2:02.4 as Warren did an astonishing 2700m+ last 10 mins to take us over the 353km mark!!!

(Warren's last stroke was a 1:34, and the total result - 353,045m)




No records set, but a very satisfying achievement to have gone quite a bit over 350km for 353,045m. I said to Kev (leisure team chap who's leaving for a David Lloyd's gym in Exeter) - "There's the target for your new gym - get 4 guys and beat that if you can!

Warren looked as good at the end as he did at the start, just amazing how well he coped and pushed the pace so hard for so long. Sub 2:02 pace for him over 12 hours out of the 24.

(Warren rowing the last stretch, Andy Osborn in Black T Shirt looking well considering the effort he put in)

I hope the people who donated will understand that the effort that went in by all of the guys involved to see it through and work extremely hard to get there deserves the kind donations given. Thank you all for that.

We've almost raised £1,000 from the event and the justgiving donations which is fantastic, thank you all!

If anyone reading would like to donate, please visit the Just Giving page here: 

One thing I never really appreciated until the row - a 2:02 paced stroke doesn't pull itself..."