Week 12 - Home, Reading!

🌍 This week has seen the final 5 days of our 80 day journey. It’s the final day of the summer term, and officially the final day of some of your University careers. None of us wanted things to finish like this for you, but without a doubt you’ve been a huge part of everyone’s RUBC experience, and we hope RUBC will always be a part of you as you move onto new things. You’re always welcome back, and we hope to be able to give you all a proper send off before the end of the year. 🍻

👋🏼 Big shoutouts to the final year students. When I think back to all the experiences we’ve shared together, and you’ve shared in your training and rowing together, it really brings home the power that sport has to forge friendships, and to teach you lessons that can’t be learnt in the classroom. I can think of great times with each of you, and times that have been hard, too - all of which are really valuable, both to look back on, and to take with you going forwards. I think what you’ve all shown during this time, is that you can deal with anything. I can’t imagine having my final University races taken from me, but you’ve helped to show RUBC is more than just a rowing club. The last 12 weeks have been tough, but there’s good to be found in almost every situation. From me, well done, and thanks for all the great memories! 💜

🚂 Moving onto our journey. We’ve travelled 2118km in this 5 days, more than enough to finish our journey off with some kilometres to spare. We left Banyoles on Monday at 6.30am - the same time we’d have our usual morning row. Since we left on our journey, the morning’s have become much lighter and warmer, the river has dropped and it’s waiting for your return.

Through Monday and into the afternoon we’ve travelled up through France. You’d usually be doing weights at the club, or at Spark, but instead we’ve travelled up through Perpignan, a city in the South of France with a lot of Catalan influences, being so close to the Spanish border.

🏋️‍♂️ Tuesday morning, instead of weights with Roddy Slater, we’ve moved through three French National parks - du Hour Langedoc, des Grands Causses and de l’Aubrac. Instead of a zone 2 ergo in the afternoon, we’re heading directly through central France, through Bourges, Orleans and towards Paris.

📢 Instead of circuits on a Wednesday morning, we’ve travelled through the French capital, Paris - very slowly, as the traffic is always awful - and into Northern France towards the coast. Fortunately enough, you reached the English channel just in time for Wednesday afternoon pieces! You’ve rowed all the way across the channel, and up the East coast of the UK, into the North Sea towards Felixstowe. This seaside town joins us with the penultimate stop on Palin’s own Round the World Journey. The Port of Felixstowe is the largest container port in the UK, so there’s plenty of room for us. We leave Felixstowe and travel inland towards London - Palin’s final stop - but of course we have a little further to go to get back home.

🚗 🚗 Thursday morning you’d be lifting again at Spark, and probably thinking about the afternoon’s max ergo. Instead you’ve travelled through Ipswich, Colchester, Chelmsford and onto the M25, to travel round the North of London.

🇬🇧 Today, we’ve joined the Thames at Dorney, to coincide with Friday’s usual early water session. You’ve rowed past Cliveden House, past Cock Marsh and onto the Longridge Stretch just before Marlow Rowing Club. You’ve rowed past Bisham Abbey Sports Centre, and through Hurley Lock towards Hambledon Marina. This afternoon you joined the Henley Royal Regatta warm up area, and onto the Henley Women’s Course (this would be next week!). Past Shiplake School BC, and through Sonning takes us past Caversham Lake. We join our stretch under Reading Bridge, past Fry’s Island and towards our landing stage. Huge congratulations for all the hours of work you’ve put in - everyone has added to the journey.

🤓 In total you’ve put in over 2798 hours of training, which has helped us cover 42,588km. We’ve gone 106% of the way around the world, following in the footsteps of Michael Palin’s journey from the late 1980s.

Graphics courtesy of Jess Lewis : madebyjess.co.uk

We’re keeping track of every mile and every heartbeat on Strava, and the team participate in frequent group calls to keep communicating and laughing.

Keep up to date with our social media accounts to keep track of our journey.