When I first got the boat, Roger at ViginiaRowing said to make sure the oarlocks are both to the stern. Well, that's so obvious.. Credit me with some brains..? Not this morning..

Trying to relax the hands a bit

Out early in morning I managed to T-bone a 4ft section of piling floating just on the surface. Big bang but no damage.

What happens when you do this in a proper racing shell I wonder? Eeek!

As I write I'm stumbling around the house with fluey-aches all over my body
but mostly my legs.. This following a 6.4 mile (well, it's a lot for me!) row on
Tuesday morning.

I have my "training course" which is 4.3 miles and I've set my little HR
monitor to beep if I exceed the training zone - my rules are I then stop till
it's back under and start up again. Anyway, the times are coming down and the
average HR too so I must be getting a little bit more efficient.

Following the excellent tip about the legs / arm sequence I thought I'd
cracked it then a guy on the RI board chips in that he can see I’m just pushing
my arms out straight and the button is about 4" away from the oarlock. I think I
took your advice too enthusiastically.. Now trying to keep a little thumb
pressure on the recovery and that's giving a better arc. Been rowing easy with 2
fingers a bit and trying to get things more horizontal - still not there but
it's helping.

A major leap forward this week was taking my gloves off for the first time (was
getting blisters) - oh what a difference being able to feel the square on the
oars. Just letting them drop in at the right time - much cleaner. Still got soft
hands so that is a target.

All in all, I'm having great fun. Just waiting to recover from the aches and
I'm off again.

extending gangway (made from a ladder, some plywood and a bit of non-slip)

I was (am still) having trouble getting the right blade depth - Roger from the Edon importers suggested straightening my legs before pulling with my arms. This was a very helpful piece of advice and I'm trying to implement it now. Sometimes I forget.. I've also put a little clip of clambering in and getting away from the dock as there were some questions about how to do this on one of the forums. Hope it's helpful. Now had 8hrs and done 23.5 miles - that's an astounding average of 2.9 mph. Hmm - not quite Olympic standard yet.

To enable me to position the dock further out in the canal when the lower winter tides are with us, I haven't driven the two spud poles (3.25" heavy galvanised pipe) into the canal bottom; they just rest there, steadied by some stays made from more light-duty galvanised pipe. So far, it's working quite well. Next is to cobble-up some sort of gangplank.