On September 16th 2012, one day after his 66th birthday, Chris George, an ex-lightweight and heavyweight international rower, competed in Iron Man Wales, one of the hardest IM triathlons around. His chosen charity was a Registered Charitable Trust in aid of a fellow TCD oarsman Mark Pollock. Mark, who has undertaken some spectacular challenges despite suddenly losing his sight at 21, suffered a further blow at Henley 2010, when he fell out of a second floor window and suffered a spinal injury. Yet despite this he is determined to return to leading an independent life.
Chris is using the Iron Man challenge to get his contacts each to make a modest donation based on his performance in the challenge. He’s asking each of them to pay the price of a pint and, crucially, to find two others to do the same until this process is repeated five times, with the determination to raise 300,000,000 pennies. Not only did he make it to the end (14.47), he also won the right for the Kona (Hawaii W Championships) spot for his age group (65-69) and came in the top 1000 of the 1500 competitors.
Rowperfect has made a donation – we now need YOU to be our 2 friends. Comment below if you will donate too please.
Read more about Mark, make a donation and read Chris’ blog at Pollock’s Pennies.
Rowperfect for novices
In addition to this, Chris is going to be coordinating the coaching of the huge (200 applicants) novice group for Thames Rowing Club. What makes this more interesting is that he will be using Rowperfects from the beginning of their introduction to the sport.
They have 8 Rowperfects, optionally linked and setup side by side, for this novice crew to train on. The idea will be to get them training on these right from the start supplemented with tank work and outings using good oarsmen at stroke and 7 to set the rhythm. There will be no gender separation until about next February and novices will train as much as possible with the rest of the club as their abilities and progress allows.
This is a great idea and we will be interested in seeing how these crews progress during the course of the season and we’ll be keeping you updated as well.
