Q - Power
100km World Record (2)
On 17 May 2014 Q-Power's Paul Buchanan successfully improved enough upon his own 100km world record (M30-39) to row the fastest 100km ever recorded. His previous record of 6:22:40.6 (1:54.8) was rowed in August 2013, but 9 months on he has taken a substantial step forward recording a time of 6:12:39.2 (1:51.8), an improvement of some 10 minutes 1.4 seconds.
Paul writes:
"Well - err - where did it start? I suppose when I heard that the French rowers where launching a mass attack on 100km WR's the seed was sown - then with Anita Pearce and Lucy O'Brien also entering the frey along with Anne Bourloux in Canada doing a tandem it seemed everyone was doing them - so I thought I'd set aside the date (17th May 2014) and have a go. Now as mentioned in my blogs recently my knee isn't in the best state, but with babysitting arranged and the Mrs organised, I said I would have a crack at it anyway. Training wise - well just confidence in my training with Q and the recent full marathon PB helped. The only people to know I was going ahead beforehand was the Mrs, close family and Q. I kept it quiet as I was not sure how the knee would hold out...
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...So after spending part of last night and this morning setting up, I set off at about 11:20am. I had targeted the overall world record set by Jesper Jensen, Lemvig, Denmark on 29 December 2011 which was 6:13:49.3 (an average of 1:51.9) - but as I set off I found it comfortable at sub 1:50.9 pace and as I was seeing sub 6h10m on the predicted finish, I ran with it. All went quite well - the knee held up - the big "pain" I had was the rubbing on the skin from the onesey - forgot the vaseline - so I was pootling along all fine and dandy then bang - hit the "wave" (what runners call the "wall" lol) so luckily because I had such a lead on the overall record I was able to drop off the pace and somehow I managed to get home and still knock a minute off the overall world record - and 10 minutes off my own M30-39 world record. The knee is sore now but I might let it have a rest tomorrow! A lot of blisters on my butt and hands as well. Overall I am happy, but I know there is still a lot more there with some better preparatory work.
The monitor crashed after I stopped, but luckily Rowpro survived. I also managed to get a screen shot from the video the Mrs took.
Big thanks to the Mrs for looking after me, to Mrs Mum for looking after the little one, and also to Q as ever for investing so much of his time in me."
