The record attempt was the second 24hour ergo that the team had done. In November 2010 as a fund raiser the team did 372,000 metres but on two separate machines as the school would not let us do the whole 24hours in the main school for security reasons!

So the overnight section was done in the sports hall and then continued on a separate machine in the main school during the day. Unsurprisingly having done so well they decided that they would like to go for an 'official' record and noticing that Westerville College in Ohio USA had set a record of 375,000 in December 2010 really spurred them on.

So on Saturday 26th March at 09:00 the team of ten began the effort to beat the Americans distance. The team had set up a spreadsheet on the laptop and projected this onto the whiteboard in the room which showed the distance each leg, the splits required to break the record, and the expected distance for 24 hours.

Despite receiving advice from the coaching team the boys decided everything themselves regarding time on the machine, rest periods and when to eat and drink, Indeed the only real input the coach had was to remind them to keep fully hydrated and to freshly prepare food on an individual basis!!!!!!!! Which is how it should be, as they know their own energy levels better than the coach.

With the team receiving plenty of support from parents, staff and fellow members of the boat club, who were also doing a 12 hour sponsored ergo in the same room, the real crunch time came during the night between 01:00 and 05:00 when the team changed the time spent on the machine and introduced a rota for a longer rest period. It was this period that impressed the most as the team stepped up the levels of encouragement for each other spurring each other on in order to keep the split times down.

The last four hours from 05:00 until 09:00 were all about beating the record by as much as possible as the spreadsheet on the wall showed that they would be on target to get the new world record with over an hour to spare. At 09:00 the captain of boats had the honour of pulling the last strokes and the new record was set - 394,283m!