Did you get fit in the first week at sea or did you live on an Ergo during the build up? We're looking for Fitness tips and effective training regimes for ocean rowers in this section from those who have done it.
Andrew Giles - By profession I am a mechanical engineer. I had some prior experience of endurance events such as 1000 mile push bike races, various marathon distance running races etc, but had zero rowing experience before embarking on the challenge. All that changed quite rapidly once we were committed to the 2003 Woodvale race! I completed that race with Faye Langham in 56 days and 4 minutes.
Andrew Wrote:
We started training in earnest about 1 year before the event. The first
job was to learn to row which wasn't too hard to get to an acceptable
level - you don't need to be technically great to row an Atlantic boat.
We were out on the water 2 to 3 times a week in a 2 man scull, with the
Saturday trip being a long trip (20 miles or so) and the others being
interval based. In the gym we rowed on the Ergosat resistance 10 for 30
minutes during lunchtimes 3 days a week. Once a week we had a long non
stop Ergo session (started at 15 km, resistance 8 on week one, then each
week added 1 km until we reached 42 km and then held it at that), and
then twice a week in the evenings we had a 30 minute ergo session
followed by an hour of weights. In addition to all of that we were
pedalling and running whenever time allowed. Cross training is very
important because the way the boat moves about in the water and the
effort you need to put in is totally unlike rowing on flat water or on a
rowing machine.
Once we had bought our boat and got it seaworthy (about 5 months before
the event) we tried to get out in it at least once a week, but we only
managed to get out onto rivers and lakes. Our biggest failing was that
we never had time to take it to sea which would have saved us learning
several uncomfortable lessons during the race itself......
