DEVON INDOOR ROWING CHAMPIONSHIPS 2015
DEVON INDOOR ROWING CHAMPIONSHIPS 2015
Back in April of this year I had the initial idea to host some sort of indoor rowing event and I wanted to offer the community an alternative to the common place distance of 2000m. I didn’t have a grand plan at the start, but I imagined I could get 20 or so people together for a race and I had enough machines and a venue so the idea excited me! I threw the question out there to social media asking for thoughts on possible distance etc and the feedback was great and the idea seemed very popular. 5000m and 500m it was and the DIRC was born.
Yesterday the months of planning came to its conclusion and I was hopeful of a good day. Leaving the venue late Saturday night having set up most of that day I felt I had done all I could to ensure race day went smoothly. I tried to research and seek advice from those who had run events before, but on your first attempt many things come down to trial and error.
Well the day could not have gone a lot better. No technichal issues – other than a slight wobble before my race, typical ! We had over 100 entries to race and saw participants aged between 6 and 84 prepared to take themselves well out of their comfort zones and battle their way through the prolonged pain of a 5km race. Not may sports can boast that age range at events and is one of the things that makes indoor rowing unique and why it is a great community. The feel at the school was great – competitive, but friendly and race conditions were spot on. We also stumbled across a great pairing on the microphones in Jon and Ollie. Familiar faces to many and have a definite chemistry…
We had entries from as far away as France and many people travelled several hours to get to race, and ultimately without that commitment then there is no event. It is hard to pick out performances as times are all relative and it is effort levels that need to be applauded. Thanks to all who made the effort to prepare themselves for the day and give us all some thrilling races. We were however privileged to see 2 British record broken yesterday. Clare Busst lowering the women 30-39 lightweight 5000m record to 18m.44.4s and Collin Leiba powering his way to 1m 18.9s to break the men’s heavyweight 500m record. The world record is in sight for Collin.
Seeing Charles Morley competing at the age of 84 is nothing short of inspirational and leaves the rest of us with no excuses! On a personal note I found it pretty moving to see 2 of my children, Tom (6) and Megan (11), completely empty their tanks in the kids 500m race. Kids know no limits and we can learn a lot from them.
It is hard to know where to start to say thank you! You realise how much help you receive as the arranging, set up and finally the day goes on. I was frequently asking myself how I would have managed without this or that being done for me. There were some hugely generous people involved who were so unselfish with their time and all added to the success of the day. The bad news for them is they did such a great job I am already planning the next Devon based race in the near future!!!
Thanks to all who supported in some way and to all racers on the day, I really hope to see you at our next event.
Sam