People get involved with all sorts of sports at the weekends. Nothing new, but rowing for nearly eight hours on a Concept2 Model D Indoor Rower and raising money for Charity is a unique way to spend a Saturday.

So there are no surprises that Anna Bailey was involved with this long distance row. She already holds world bests for 500m, 1,000m, mile (1,609m), 2,000m (in two different age groups), 2,500m, 5,000m, 6,000m, 10,000m, half-marathon, marathon, 30-minute and 60-minute rows. She has not tried 100,000 metres before so this challenge needed some preparation.

The ARCOS Charity

ARCOS is a national Charity headquartered in Malvern, Worcestershire. It works with all age groups who have communication and swallowing difficulties and supports their families, carers and others. ARCOS provides information, advice, practical help, therapy, training and other services not readily available elsewhere. Their slogan is 'Never say Never' which reflects the work they do. The Founding Director is Kay Coombes, who is a specialist speech and language therapist.

Like any Charity, funding is essential for continuing a service for their clients from initial assessment, treatment and ongoing support. There is no other programme available, so the improvements and changes made by Kay and her team are setting new standards and giving lasting results. With communication central to a patients' wellbeing their work is important and necessary.

Kay said: "All of the team from ARCOS were very impressed with Anna's endurance and tenacity throughout this long distance row. As a result of seeing Anna rowing, two of our staff have joined Attiva and we're grateful to sponsors who have donated money."

Planning the Row and Rowing the Plan

This is where Anna's coach, Eddie Fletcher - the other half of the successful team comes in. With a comprehensive training schedule Anna only had nine weeks of planning and preparation. He has worked with Anna for over five years and knows what she can achieve so the schedule he devised reflected her natural ability for rowing long distances.

The 100k distance is usually completed by teams, rather than individuals, so much so that there is only a single British women's record rather than the usual age-group ones. The current record stood at seven hours 55 minutes 59 seconds and she wanted to finish inside 7 hours 45 minutes (target was 7 hours 44 minutes 20 seconds). At World level there are age group records but no women in her 50's had attempted the distance. This row of Anna's therefore established a World record time for the 50-59 age group category and a British 100k record.

During the row Eddie monitored her progress and checked that she was following a steady 18 strokes per minute with 2:19.3 / 500 metre splits. All her rowing was around 2:13 to allow for the slip back to 2:20 at the end of each break and she finished at an average split of 2:19.2.

Anna had a second Indoor Rower along side and during the day several people came in and rowed keeping her company. First in was GB cross country mountain bike champion, Liam Killeen (5th at the Athens Olympics and Gold at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games earlier this year) and indoor rowers Nick Gittings, Janet Parker and Alex Brown are members of the Old Wrecks IRC that Eddie and Anna formed in 2001.

Anna's row included breaks to stretch, flex joints, change clothes and for the floor based Camelbak to be refilled. The tube was pinned to her shirt so she could drink on the go. In total she drank over 5 litres of SIS glucose/electrolyte solution and according to the Suunto monitor used up nearly 5,000 calories. Her weight before and after showed a drop of 1.5 kilos. Then, with a few hard sprint strokes at the end pulling 1:35, she came in on time as planned, finishing in: 7:43:58.9

Eddie said: "This was a most impressive row, a real feat of endurance. Anna is a very special athlete with great mental toughness which saw her through the arduous training and the event itself - I think this record will stand for a long time"

The Attiva Fitness Group

The Sponsored Fundraising Event took place at the Attiva gym in Malvern which is owned by Richard Noble. Richard is growing the Attiva brand through franchising his successful business format abroad and in the UK.

This is Anna's fourteenth World record since she started rowing just six years ago. Inspirational and a motivation for us all; we are very lucky to have her in the Rowing community. Her thoughts a few days after the row:

"This was a job waiting to be done, and we would have got it out of the way in the spring had it not been for the fall and wrist break at the BIRC last year. The support during the row was great, and I really appreciated so many people keeping the long vigil. Ed and I came up with the idea simultaneously after Evesham, and I was quickly into training. Right up until a week before the row, I was not 100% sure that my injuries would hold out. However, everything went exactly to plan, though I knew I would feel very tired in the latter stages. For the last third of the row I was tempted to get off, lie down and go to sleep! Ed has been a tower of strength throughout the training and the row, and I can't thank him enough. I'm now just very relieved that it is finished, and I don't think I'll be repeating the process in any hurry!"

www.arcos.org.uk
www.fletchersportscience.co.uk
www.attivauk.com