Home  Fundraising The Boston Rowing Marathon
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The Boston Rowing Marathon |
Abingdon Rowing Club entered two crews into the Boston Rowing Marathon, held on Sunday 21st September - a 31 mile race between Lincoln and Boston, unique on the British rowing calendar - to raise money for DSO.
| Sarah Marshall, Alison Brighton, Richard Maynard and Matt Robinson made up one boat, with Samantha Cheater, Amy Jackson, Dominic Cheater and James Price in the second. Despite having trained the last few weekends on high flood water, and in driving rain and head winds, we had perfect conditions on the day, if not too hot. We had to make sure that we took on liquids and food at regular intervals through out the race. Much of the river course is very straight, and with high banks on either side this means that there is no scenery for reference; mentally your progress slows and the final stages of the race seemed to take a lifetime. I also started to suffer from ham-string cramps, which the bananas and lucozade were no-longer keeping at bay. As we finally crossed the finish line after 4 hours 15 mins with painful legs, hands and back-sides, there were exhausted mutterings of "brilliant, fantastic", "thank God that's over", "never again" and "I really don't feel very well". |
Our clubmates in the other boat had started a full 50 mins behind us, and although they didn't catch-us they had clearly finished in a far quicker time. The looks on their faces as we helped them out of their boat said it all - their time of 3 hour 49 mins was 15th overall and brought a win for Abingdon with a new course record for their category. A massive effort and fantastic achievement for both crews.
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My own motivation for completing the Boston Marathon comes from comparing this small effort to the many challenges that my daughter Lucy is likely to face in her life. The money that we have raised through this - currently estimated to be around £4000 - will directly contribute towards making life better for her and all the children and young adults with Down's Syndrome in Oxfordshire. I would like to express a huge thank you to the members of both crews for their Herculean effort both in the race and through out the months of training and fundraising in preparation, to Andy Bryson for stepping in during training, to our support team of Andy Green, Jon Rooney and Kathrin Weisspfennig, to St Edward's School for the loan of their fantastic boat the 'Paul Burrough', and most importantly to RM and everyone who has sponsored us so generously.
You can still sponsor us on smartgive (www.smartgive.com/funds/dsobostonrow2008).
Press releases:
www.rm.com
| Many thanks to RM for their support for DSO
in the 2008 Boston Marathon. |
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