What's most special about this Tel's Tale is that it's not actually written by Tel. Readers of the last newsletter may remember a question from two Durham students training for a 24 hour row (see http://www.therowingcompany.com/v4/tels_tales.htm). In response to that, we got an e-mail from Tim Donovan. As well as being a sessional lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University in Sport and Exercise Sciences and studying for a PhD in rowing physiology, Tim also holds the individual 24 hour world record, set in February of last year, having rowed 302,008 metres in that period. Yup, that's over three hundred thousand metres ON HIS OWN, a useful background in anybody's book:There are a number of things that you have to consider. Terry is correct in his statement that you are at your 'lowest ebb' in the early hours of the morning. The body is trying to switch itself off by lowering your body temperature and reducing the production of hormones (adrenaline and noradrenalin) that keep you alert. In my attempt I decided that I would rather go through this period later on rather than at the start, so I commenced the piece at nine in the morning. Nutrition is very important as you can expect. Fortunately you will get regular breaks which will allow you to eat and drink. During my attempt I had to drink through a long straw connected to a vat of liquid. It is important to have solids as well, as these are very good mentally. The food that I found most palatable was bananas. I went through a very bad patch roughly 18 hours in to the attempt and ate nothing at all. It was only with the help of the support team who insisted that I eat (and drink) that I got back on track, even though I knew it was very important. They started me on very small amounts of banana and gradually I could eat and drink more. Liquid intake is essential and I suggest that you monitor your weight constantly in order to ensure that you do not get dehydrated. The last world record holder lost 10lb. This I suggest was half water and half fat and would have cost him some additional distance. In addition to the water you should have an 8-10% maltodextrin solution. You can get this from any health food shop (PSP 22, or PSP 11). Make sure that it is pure maltodextrin, with nothing else and use your own flavourings. After 12 hours I got bored of the drink and ended up consuming only water. It was again during the bad patch mentioned earlier that the support team made me drink fizzy drinks, high in sugars (Lilt was my favourite and Coke, both watered down to half strength). The main thing are regular drinks whenever you can, even if you do not want to, with some glucose, sugar or carbohydrate. Pacing is another important strategy. I disagree with Terry here. I feel that you should alternate with small bursts each, maybe as little as 3 minutes each. You do, however, need to try this out. I did a 12 hour dummy run to ensure that I was at the right pace. The pace you should go at it is dictated by your physiology, as well as your mental strength. You will probably only be able to go at about 60-65% of your max heart rate for this period of time. My average 500 metre split was 2:24-ish, but I had to have breaks to rest my back and bum every 20-30 mins so had to average about 2:18 for this. A 2:00 split may be a bit ambitious, and again I suggest you do a practice run as a time trial.Training - this is going to be hard. On top of a few years training, I went through a regime of between 3-4 hours a day of very light ergo work splitting 2:05-2:20 alternating 1 hour 2:05, 1 hour 2:10 etc for 3-4 months. You need to develop your endurance capacity. The last thing is make sure that you have lots of different types of seat cover/padding as your arse gets very sore.