Team Anna Victorious
Our ship has come in!
CAM are proud to sponsor Team Anna Victorious, the team aims to raise as much money and awareness as possible for Victoria's Promise so they can continue to support and empower young women, and their families, through cancer and beyond. You can follow their journey here.
Meet Emma!
Possibly the most exciting news since the decision to enter the race is that we have a boat! We spent Saturday clearing out a barn that has been kindly provided by a local family and in early June we made the drive around the M25 to Burnham on Crouch to Rannoch Adventure to collect ‘Emma’. Emma made the crossing last year with a trio of friends in All Oar Noting. She is a Rannoch R45 and only 28ft long and 5.7ft wide. With all the kit and four people, this does leave not a lot of space considering we will be living on her for approximately 40 days next year. We are busy aligning diaries to get her out on the water as soon as possible and of course bearing in mind all the current COVID19 restrictions.
You can watch the video of us collecting Emma on our linkedin page “Team Anna Victorious”.
The whole crew has been training to varying degrees but without a great deal of focus or structure. As we move into June and with 18 months until the start of our race, a new sense of urgency is evident in all of us. Dan Harris from GB Rowing, in conjunction with Phil Harris (no relation) from Harris Body and Mind, have constructed a month by month plan for us all to follow. We will be focusing on technique, building our aerobic and developing strength in movements that reflect ocean rowing in an attempt to prevent injury both leading up to the race and while at sea. We will be training 5 days a week with an additional Anna Victorious WOD on Saturdays. It’s great to have more structure to our training and our competitive nature is apparent in the reporting of our progress in our Whatsapp group. I have personally reflected on some of the psychological aspects of the training and needing to combine our workouts with shift work, the changing demands of being an operational Police Officer, and a dad who is trying and failing to home school two primary aged children. I had been feeling a bit sorry for myself because I was struggling to fit it all in and feeling constantly fatigued. I was skipping training sessions, telling myself that I was too tired to put in a quality session, so what would be the point. However, we had already identified that managing fatigue and sleep deprivation was a critical factor in achieving the 3000-mile crossing and I am now viewing my tiredness as a massive opportunity. How many other rowers in the field will have the chance to train as tired as I can be after a night shift or after getting up early after late shifts to look after the kids? While I will not seek to artificially exhaust myself at this time I will look at every tired training session as a welcome bonus! Of course, our reason for undertaking this challenge is to empower and inspire others to follow their dreams and aspirations. How authentic will I look if I’m too tired to train before we’ve even seen the ocean! Having had a chat with myself, I’m raring to go. I suspect that I might need to re-read this blog a number of times in the next 18 months.
Watch this space. Rob
All pictures credited to Peter Milsom