Indoor Rowing Legends

Havelock North has 2 new super stars who have quietly gone about their achievements in the last few months.  2009 has been a year of sitting for Doug Abraham and Chris Owen who have parked up in a cold hard plastic seat, held onto a plastic handle and moved that seat backwards and forwards over and over and over again as they prepared for firstly their Marathon Indoor Row (42 km) with Chris Evans and Andrew Lockyer.  That was not enough for these guys as they debriefed their Marathon at the Rose and Shamrock Aftermatch – a few Guiness later and the challenge was set to do a 100km Indoor Row.  (Now is a good time to mention that the Marathon challenge was decided after a quiet wine).

On Sat Sep 19th Doug Abraham and Chris Owen set out on a mammoth voyage, 100km on an indoor rower.  The goal was to finish somewhere around the 7 hour mark.  This is a race that not many are brave enough to attempt; maybe 3 or 4 a year in NZ.  Chris finished in a time of 6hr.59min.33sec. Doug finished in a time of 7hr16min 55sec.  Peak Fitness also had a team of gym members Di Abraham, Suzy Pearse, Matt Drysdale, Andy Groome and Andy Barham who finished in a time of 7hr 18min – all doing 15-20 km each.  (Just cast through in your mind what you did that Saturday from 8.30 am to 3.30pm that day whilst these boys went up and down in one spot!!)

Anyone who has ever had a turn on a Concept 2 Indoor Rower will know how challenging it would be to keep rowing for 7 hours.  These boys left no stone unturned.  Tables were set up with measured out drinks, support crew were on hand to hand feed the barley sugars and hydration drinks – even packets of chips, bottles of coke – what ever it took to get them through.  Start to now imagine how those muscles might feel as they finish the 100km – getting of the rower becomes a new challenge.  It was great to see 2 amazing people tackle the challenge in different ways – Doug smiling, talking away hiding the pain and Chris with his ipod using the music to break through those physical and mental barriers.  (Some of the pictures say it all).

Lucky for these boys the Good Ole Rose and Shamrock made sure another aftermatch happened – many thanks for donating a bar tab for post row refreshments. 

A huge congratulations to Chris and Doug – it shows if you set your goals and put your mind to it you can achieve anything.  An inspiration to us all.  Hmmm what next boys??

Andy and Charissa