What do you do in lock down? 8 members of the Nottingham Club Masters squad decided to join Tony Lorrimer on Sunday 19th April to do a half marathon.
Tony is on a quest to complete 1 million metres on his rowing machine by the end of the indoor season which finishes on 30th April. He realised that with the lock down he could achieve this target if he could do over 10,000 per day until the end of the month.
After giving himself this goal, he then decided to raise money for the NHS as an added incentive to reach his target, he chose the Nottingham University Hospitals Charity as several club members work at the Queens Medical Centre.
Finally, he floated the idea of a half marathon on the club’s What’s App group and was surprised at the response. It is of course limited to members with rowing machines in their garages. A quick learning lesson on video conferencing over the internet with Zoom and there was a virtual race in place. The start time was 11am but this was fairly flexible to fit in with people’s busy life styles. Matt Grocock from Nottingham and Union rowing Club also joined in the fun.
First home was Andy Brown, being the youngest and biggest, in a time of 1 hour 24 minutes 23 seconds. He reckons he lost 2 kilos doing it. He was closely followed by Mike Walker (1hr 26min 12secs), Matt Grocock (1hr 29min 43 secs), Andy Townsend (1hr 29 min 47 secs), Tony Lorrimer (1hr 31 min 31 secs), Shane McSweeney (1hr 31 min 51 seconds) and Graham Daw (1hr 34 min 54 secs). Graham had done a half marathon earlier in the week to make sure he could do it! Tony managed to catch a “crab” he took his right hand off the handle to wipe the sweat off his brow and the handle slipped out of his left hand and flew into the machine. Luckily Liz was there to rescue the handle and give it back to him.
The women were led home by Clare Gibson in 1hr 42 min 20 secs beating Sarah Royles (1hr 45 minc 5 secs) and Perse Wynn (2hr 7mon 40sec). These are all impressive times for their first ever half marathons. As Sarah said, “I never thought I would be so pleased to see only 8000 metres to go”. Coach Helen Bloor was very impressed with her squad leading the way
The money collected for the Nottingham Hospitals currently totals £3000. If you would like to support the rowing mission, please visit the just giving page at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/TonyLorrimer . The page is open until the end of the month.
