The amazing relay success - what next?

[Thomas W-P]

I was away from home in the last hours of the relay so may have missed discussion of "what we do next".

I have seen the "Outrageous Idea" thread about the marathons, but that is quite exclusive - not everyone can envisage such feats. My better half expressed her interest in doing a half hour slot in the relay but we didn't get round to organising that with anyone.

So here are some suggestions for other more inclusive events:

1) "How far can the team row in one half hour piece?" On a given day, as many members as possible row for half an hour and we tot up the metres.
2) The global one million in 30 minute slots relay (yes, we could have done that the other day but that never really took off.)
3) 100 club challenge. How many unbroken multiples of 100m can the team row in a month? 100m, 200m, 300m ... 42,100m, 42,200m ... 100,100m, 100,200m etc. Should be something in there for all the family! (I really like this idea - scope for everyone).

Probably loads of others out there.

I think as far as frequency goes one full team challenge a month might be OK - but what do you think?

[Mike Channin]

One thing we discussed recently is the idea of having intra-team squads for internal competitions and challenges and also to promote a closer team spirit. Discussion here: http://www.freespiritsrowing.com/forum/ ... .php?t=406

I've got a poll (well 2 polls) going to see the breakdown of people across the year and it looks pretty even so far.

I like Graham's idea of a cumulative marathon total around marathon week time as it will be good for publicity for the team and put a lot of meters on the board at the end of the season. I agree that it is more for the hardcore rowers though and maybe a bit too exclusive.

I'm not certain I understand your unbroken 100s thing? (I can't see many people rowing 42,100m and then stopping 95m short of the FM!) - I quite liked Simsy's challenge with the 1 to 24 minute intervals - maybe something along those lines.

Another relay looks like a good plan - maybe with shorter slots this time for the half hour max people. We could run it as a squad vs squad thing. Also, it'd be interesting to run a long term continous one and see how far we could keep going - may get some C2 respect for that - don't think there are any team multi-million meter records (yet ) - I wonder how long it would take us to literally row round the world....

I can see some mad Spirits doing individual 100k events for charity etc. (I think Mash has already volunteered himself) and I suppose I should have a crack at this at some point... (oh, and ironar$e mentioned possibly doing a 100 MILE version...)

I think we should have a crack at extreme erging around the city/country/world for video and charity reasons.

Dunno what else. We do seem to have interesting ideas which then peter out and don't go any further sometimes. Maybe we need someone to keep pushing these forwards...

[webberg]

I've thought about a 2k relay.

We get as many people as possible lined up in 10 minute slots to do a 2k each.

If we assume 100 ish participants, max 10 mins per slot = 1,000 mins = 16.7 hours = effectively one day. Start at say noon GMT?

Similarly a 5k relay to 500,000, i.e. 100 x 5k.

Both bits are obviously much less than 60 mins and therefore more inclusive.

I also wonder how high a pyramid we could build. For example rower 1 does 100m, rower two has to do 120 or 150 or so. Needs to be controlled but allows people to pick which tier they can cope with. Priority to the shorter pieces going to the youngsters. This could "top out" with one or two of our metre junkies having a crack at 50k? 2 x FM?

How long can the team row for continuously? This might need a bit of J Lemon magic but presumably can be done.

The 100 x marathon is really to tie in with marathon week and a high profile event to launch the Charity idea.

[Thomas W-P]

The 100m thing - I meant that Mike could set his PM to 42,200m and row it. Then set it to 95m and row that.

Hey presto - a 42,200m row to add to the tally.

Same day, Abigail W-P rows 500m, I row 10,400m etc. How many of the hundreds could we tick off in 30 days.

Anyway, if I need to explain it it is probably a bad idea.

Also, re the intra teams, is this not for ELM related events - the teams will be too small for big relays...