Setting the 24-hour Indoor Rowing record

The 24 hour Indoor Rowing record for the small team women’s 50+ years old, has been broken by a whopping 27,800 metres by a New Zealand team.

The record is now set at 333,065 metres after the team took up the challenge to celebrate 30 years of women’s rowing at West End Rowing Club, Auckland. The day the record was broken was exactly 30 years on from when women were first invited to become members of the club, after 91 years of male-only membership.

The team averaged a split of 2:09.7, passing the previous record with nearly two hours remaining.

The ten-member team comprised of a range of rowing talents including two-time Olympian Nicky Austin (nee Coles) and former national team member and organiser Carolyn Steele.

Steele (nee Furlong) started rowing as a university student going on to win national titles and New Zealand team selection. After taking three years off competitive rowing to have kids, she came back to the sport, continuing to compete at the national and then masters level.

Steele was one of the first ‘senior’ status women at West End Rowing Club 30 years ago. For this 24-hour record she was inspired to celebrate the 30 year anniversary of women being accepted into the club.

“Back 30 years ago the club had gotten so small they realised they needed to allow women,” says Steele who used the challenge also as a fundraiser.

Steele did the 24 hour erg challenge “years ago” as a solo athlete; “so I had an idea of what it was like.” She gathered people she had rowed with to form the team which included persuading a friend she saw at a 50th birthday party who had not rowed in 22 years. The friend joined the challenge after just three months of training.

Some of the team were regular rowers training by continuing their three to four times a week sessions on the water. “Others”, says Steele, “were not regular rowers and would do 40 minutes on the erg every second day. Two of the team did a practice run for 24 hours.”

For this challenge the flywheel had to keep spinning for the entire 24 hours, but you can change team members as often as you like.

“As we trained we tried to plan the best length of time for each person (during the 24 hour period). We ended up splitting one hour into pairs and then we were flexible within the pair. Ten people, five pairs, four lots of one hour and then 48 minutes at the end.

“Through the night it got harder so we shortened each person’s time. We started out at a 2:09 average and kept it until midnight. We tried to hold it but it slipped to 2:10 through the night and then got better from 4am. Back to 2:09. Within the pairings we averaged 2:09.”

Steele got on at 4am and brought the split back to 2:09. “I had two minutes to go and I had to ask my pair partner, Gigi to get on as I’d pushed too hard.”

The challenge was held at the rowing club with the team bringing mattresses to sleep, although there was little sleeping. Club members came with food and to cheer them on and one member set up a massage table.

“I think the thing that surprised me the most was the camaraderie; we were all on an adrenaline boost. We developed a crew bond and we’ve missed each other since.”

Steele is already talking about doing another challenge but doing something different.

“Perhaps a coastal rowing row to a vineyard.”

Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY9CieKNTyA