The rowing machine

Back in 2009 I persuaded 5 other mad dads to help me row an Admiralty Sailing Craft (ASC) 22 miles up the Thames in the Great River Race.

If you don't know about the Great River Race, check it out. It's a handicap race. Slowest boats start first and fastest boats start last. ASCs were built to be sailed and to be rowed - kind of a jack of all trades and master of none. So, they weren't any good as sailing boats, and they certainly weren't any good as rowing boats.

Well, guess which boat was first off the line? Our boat.

What's this got to do with swimming the Channel? Well, I have persuaded 5 other mad people to join me in the swim. But that's not what this blog post is all about. To train for the Great River Race, I bought myself a rowing machine. It really helped. After the event though, it was pushed into the darkest recesses of the bedroom cupboard and forgotten about ... until last week.

Now the rowing machine's back, and it's part of my cross-training for the Channel swim. It's yet another way of beefing up my upper body. And, it's in the spare room with the old telly, so I can row whilst watching back-episodes of Doctor Who. Yeah.