Fact sheet

Date:                Saturday 6^th October for the rowathon.  All crew must arrive on Friday the 5^th October in Mildura

Distance:          Approx 90kms in one day over 3 legs.  Event starts at Wentworth Rowing Club.

Cost:                $80 per person.  This covers:

• Entry fee
• A t-shirt
• Breakfast, morning/afternoon tea and lunch and dinner on the Saturday night.
• All proceeds go towards the Royal Flying Doctor Service, specifically to raise funds for Mental Health programs in remote communities

Accommodation:          This needs to be booked and is a separate cost for participants.  Crews can choose to either do their own thing and book their own accommodation or for those who wish to, we could look at staying somewhere as a group (caravan park or similar. 

Accommodation probably needs to be booked sooner rather than later so that people get what they want rather than what’s left!

The Event

• The Rowathon starts at 6.25am on Saturday the 6^th for a briefing.  Crews need to be at Wentworth RC at 6am to rig the boat and hear the briefing.  Breakfast is available at the Club.
• First leg crews will start at Wentworth, the rest of the crew will be taken by bus to the next stage.
• All crews must start between 7.30am and 8am.  This is not a race but there are time requirements and crews need to ensure they’re on time for each leg.

Stages

• Stage 1:            Rowing down-stream from Wentworth to Lock 11
• Stage 2:            Rowing from Lock 11 to Coomealla Golf Club (25kms)
• Stage 3:            Rowing from Coomealla to the junction of the Darling and Murray Rivers then up to the WDRC to the finish line

Important notes:

Great news! We currently have 15 people who have expressed interest for the event.  We need to run a crew for a quad for each leg plus a cox for coxed quads.

• A few people have indicated they’d like to do the full 90kms in a coxless quad.
• For everyone else, you should be prepared to be in the cox seat and coxes should be prepared to potentially have to swap in to row if one of the crew is struggling.
• We need to understand whether members are keen to do 1 leg (30km), 2 legs (60km) or the full 90km (all 3 legs) to help determine crews and changeovers for the event.

Advice we’ve been provided:

• • Do not underestimate the distance - it’s going to be very hard on your hands and bum.  But the views and the scones at morning tea are amazing!
  • There has some discussion on whether gloves will help protect hands from blisters. Those who’ve done it before have said it doesn’t matter whether you wear them or not, your hands will be blistered and sore (apparently gloves create friction in other areas).  Basically, you will get blisters regardless so it’s up to the individual if you wear gloves or not.
    • Oar handle hygiene will be critical if people have open blisters (soap and water, sanitiser applied to handles and Betadine or similar applied to open wounds.)
    • Advice is to keep your hands soft leading into the event – blisters will form under existing callouses so keeping hands soft leading into the event can apparently prevent this from happening
    • To protect your bum, you can get padded seat covers or wear extra padding in your zoot suit.
• Training
  • We’ll need to build up stamina to be able to at least row 30kms minimum (depending how far you want to row). This will help condition our butts and hands.
  • A row to the Tea Gardens and back is just under 20kms.  
    • We could potentially break it up by rowing on the Yarra as well (different view!)
  • It’s advised that crew row long distance km’s at least once a week.  Sundays seem the best option to get our crews together, swap around and get some training in.
  • Ergo kilometres are recommended – particularly if the weather is poor, to ensure we continue conditioning.

Lastly, you can find out more information about the event on the website http://www.murrayrowathon.com/home/the-rowathon-day