Congratulations to Jo and Steve and their new world record, Jo has sent us the following report on the tandem row.

Well it's 2 days now since our world record row and I'm still flying high as a kite!

Steve and I kicked off at 10am on Sunday morning on our attempt to set a new world record for a 100k tandem row. Our target was to beat 7 hours.

The first 25k or so went relatively smoothly, all to plan and the world was a good place to be. When we went through 40k, it certainly hit me, that this was not going to be easy in any way, shape or form. I was tired. I don't mean tired where you want to sit down for a minute, no, I mean tired where you want to go to sleep for 3 days (it probably didn't help that I had raced the day before...)
However, we had both agreed beforehand that failure was not an option, so it was time to think positive and only focus on the next 5 minutes.

We rowed 5 minutes on/5 minutes off for the whole row which I think was just about right. The rows felt slightly too long and the rests felt slightly too short ... we managed to get the changeovers working very well too, even getting to the point where we didn't have to count down the strokes to the changeover - we both just knew at which stroke it was time. 'This one' we said in stereo several times. It did get to the point where any unnecessary talking was a waste of energy.

We got a huge boost when we hit the half way mark and another one when we got to 'only' one marathon to go (42k). For some reason, at the 20k to go point, we both got a surge of energy and really upped the pace. It was looking like not only were we going to break 7 hours, but we might actually get near to 6hrs45mins. Into the last 10k and we were going mental - I had to keep telling myself that there was still a way to go, but once we'd started speeding up, there was no going back.

Our final time was 6 hours, 40 minutes and 26.8 seconds.

Apart from feeling whole-body-fatigued, my only complaint is one blister on one finger. I think I got away lightly!

It was really, really hard, but so worth it. We have so far raised over £1200 for Cancer Research. Thank you SO much if you have already sponsored us. If you haven't, then any amount to help us get nearer to our target of £1500 will be very gratefully received. You can donate at http://www.justgiving.com/row100k

Thank you x
Right, I'm off to sit down. Rest. Rest. Rest.
Jo and Steve
(world record holders ;-) )