The life and less ordinary times of LDC

Following an amazing 27 days at sea the courageous efforts of the Atlantic Odyssey crew came to grief 520 miles from St Charles in Barbados.

On the 30th January at 11.00am the Sara G capsized.

Its crew included Captain Matt Craughwell, Ian Rowe, Aodhan Kelly, Simon Brown, Yaacov Mutnikas and Mark Beaumont – all six members safely exited the overturned boat.

Sara G was hit by a large wave 1.5 minutes before the rowers completed their shift change which was performed on a two hours on – two hours off basis. The wave rotated the vessel 180 degrees causing it to immediately take on water causing it to capsize within ten seconds.

In the next fifteen minutes the crew secured the life raft and attached it to the boat. They set-off their alerting alarms which initiated a response from Falmouth Coast Guard.

The crew did try to recover the vessel but due to the speed of the water retention, this proved unsuccessful.

The crew spent approximately three hours recovering on the raft before Matthew Craughwell and Mark Beaumont returned to the vessel to recover equipment to aid the rescue attempt.

At 1.10am on the 31st, the crew were rescued by the Nord Taipei, a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship and proceeded to Gibraltar where they arrived safely on February 9. 

The crew were magnificent throughout their record attempt and in the professional way they handled an extremely stressful and life threatening situation. The Atlantic Row is one of the world’s greatest physical challenges and ultimately they were at the mercy of the unpredictable nature of the sea which unfortunately resulted in the vessel capsizing.

Everyone at LDC sends the team their best wishes, our admiration for your efforts and professionalism remains undiminished.

LDC is excited to start what will be a phenomenal sporting year supporting 5 athletes from the UK’s premier athletic club – Birchfield Harriers.  LDC has committed to sponsor Birchfield Harrier’s ‘Junior Development’ programme in order to provide much needed funding to support the athletes from across the Midlands region, all of whom are considered to be rising stars in UK track and field events.

Birchfield Harriers, based in Birchfield is the UK’s premier athletics club and has been represented at every summer Olympics bar one since 1908. Based at the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham they have access to a High Performance Centre, an indoor facility which provides indoor training for a range of events including long jump, triple jump, high jump, shot putt, and pole vault. Their aim is to get 12 of their athletes into the 2012 Olympics. 

LDC is supporting Jade Perry (Hepathlon),  Katie Stainton (300m hurdles), Melisa Hanson (100m and 200m), Jake Porter (110m Hurdles) and Rowan May (Pole Vault). See the below profiles to find out more:-

		Jake Porter 110m Hurdles Jake is an U20 athlete and has won national titles and English titles in the sprint hurdles. His major goal for 2012 it selection for the World Junior Championships.
		Melisa Hanson – 100m and 200m The highlight of Melisa’s 2011 season was winning the English Schools Championships. She suffered a hamstring injury the end of the season but is now back in full training and hopes to lower her current personal best of 11.83 seconds.
		Rowan May – Pole Vault Rowan is a highly tamented pole vaulter who in his first season as an U17 won both the U17 and U20 outdoor championships and the U17 indoor championships where he set an age group record of 4.91cm. he was selected for the World Youth Games in 2011 and is looking to break the 5m mark this season.
		Katie Stainton – 400m Hurdles Katie moves into the U20 age group in 2012 where she will move to the 400m Hurdles from the the 300m hurdles. She has won a number of titles at this event and was the bronze medallist at the English Schools Championship.
		Jade Perry – Heptathlon Jade is following in the footsteps of many successful Birchfield Harriers heptathletes including denise Lewis, Kelly Sotherton and Louise Hazel. She is looking forward to a successful season as she continues her improvement in the U20 age group.

By Mark Beaumont and Rob Pendleton

Week one of the record attempt has not been without some success…rowing 701 miles and staying ahead of World Record time being top of this list…but sea sickness, fatigue, bruising and blisters…and a distinct lack of trade wind support has put the crew of Sara G under extreme pressure.

Starting their row from Tarfaya at 1pm on the 2nd January despite a last minute customs hitch the crew were out of the traps pretty quick completing over 100 miles in their first day. Thereafter progress was hindered by difficult seas and a lack of wind support.

A number of the team suffered from sea sickness which hampered their ability to eat and sleep (and row effectively). Each team member will use up to 12,000 calories every 24 hours but with the crew unable to eat more than 2,000 calories a day during the first few days this placed a strain on the team’s strength. Whilst the ‘getting your sea legs’ aspect was expected the severity of the first few days was not!

The team have now settled into their 2 hours on 2 hours off routine with the sessions during the night proving to be the most difficult psychologically. Rowing in the dark with your back to the direction of the boat and not being able to fully see the direction of the waves has been pretty disconcerting for the crew.

Simon, Aodhan and Matt

The Atlantic Odyssey challenge has already attracted the attention of a large following not least of which because they have been able to send back regular voice blogs (courtesy of iPadio), and take part in a number of phone-ins (particularly with Heart FM Breakfast show – as they are undertaking the row in support of Heart’s Childline appeal), and Mark continues to blog for the The Independent Online.

The description of the first few days was summed up by crew member Ian Rowe who described tjhe journey thus far: “Think of a washing machine, place a boat in it and turn it on, then bash your legs and knees with a baseball bat…now you have some idea of what it has been like!”

The journey is compelling and can be followed at www.atlantic-odyssey.comand via their http://twitter.com/AtlanticOdyssey. Please send messages of support to them via their Get In touch section and any donations to Childline would be most welcome.

By Mark Beaumont and Rob Pendleton

L-R: Matt, Aodhan, Simon, Yaacov, Ian, Mark

At 1pm on the 2nd January the Atlantic Odyssey crew set off on their East – West Atlantic row record attempt from Tarfaya in Morocco to Barbados.

They are attempting to row across the 3,000 miles of ocean in less than 30 days!

The team of Matt Craughwell (skipper), Mark Beaumont, Ian Rowe, Simon Brown, Yaacov Mutnikas and Aodhan Kelly play to row 100 nautical miles a day, via a strict regime of 2 hours on and 2 hours off the oars. Clearly this is not for the faint hearted and one that will test the mental and physical reserves of all those involved.

To put this all in perspective, the first ocean row was undertaken by two Norwegians, Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo, who rowed an open wooden boat from New York to France in 1896, but it would be another seventy years before the next ocean row in 1966, when John Ridgeway and Sir Chay Blythe succeeded in rowing from Newfoundland to Ireland.

And amazingly up until 1988, only 19 people had ever rowed an ocean.  Now, there have been over 500 but strangely 321 of these have been Britons – so it seems that the adage ‘mad dogs and Englishmen’ applies to the whole of our island!  For 500 people to have rowed an ocean sounds quite a lot, until you consider that over 3000 people have stood on the top of Mount Everest!

Sara G in Agadir

The first ocean rows were undertaken without any modern technologies and communications.  They had to carry all the water they needed for their entire journeys and were truly tenacious and pioneering voyages.  Gerard d’Aboville (1896-1982), who rowed the Atlantic, once said about these early crossings, ‘We were like test pilots, but without a parachute.’

The crew on this record attempt will be rowing in ‘Sara G’ an 11 metre boat, and the vessel in which the current world record was set.

The crew for his present challenge were selected from nine rounds of sea trials that began in April 2011. Their attempt will be fuelled by each crew member consuming between 5000 and 6000 calories every day, while expending somewhere close to 12,000 calories a day.

The team’s website said of the challenge: “Of the countless teams that have taken to the Atlantic trying to set the fastest time ever, the sub-30 day barrier has so far remained elusive. The first team to break this barrier will achieve, what has seemed for many involved, the unassailable mark in the sport’s history. We have a huge range of experience in the boat and come from many different backgrounds, but the stand-out fact for each member is their rowing history.”

Over the course of the journey the crew will be sending back regular blogs and pictures, and Mark will be writing exclusively for The Independent.  In addition the crew will be able to send back brief voice messages through iPadio. To hear Matt’s departure messages click here:

Atlantic Odyssey Channel – 5th phonecast http://ipad.io/niV

Full details about the attempt can be tracked via www.Atlantic-odyssey.com and their dedicated twitter feed http://twitter.com/AtlanticOdyssey

By Meghan Beesley, UK athlete and 2012 Olympics hopeful, supported by LDC.

Winter training is going really well for me this year! It’s the first time I have not been held back by any injuries or rehab so I am feeling fitter than ever. 

In September we all have a nice break from training. This is the time of the year where I can do as please and eat what I want without feeling guilty! This year I went to Rhodes with my friend Abi! We met some good friends there who were nice, and I came back with a great tan. 

Then it is back into hard training which is always a shock. During October and the start of November I did mostly general fitness which included longer runs (such as 30 minutes), circuits, grass running (which is interval training of between 1 and 3 minutes) and Fartlek (running on a muddy field for about 90 minutes doing different speeds). This is the first year in a while I have been able to complete all these training sessions so actually enjoyed it for the first time ever.

Over the past 6 weeks we have started doing some Hurdles technical work (which always breaks up training as this is fun) and our lactic tolerance sessions which is very important for 400m running. These lactic sessions are usually between 200m and 400m, and an example of this would be 2 sets of 3x300m. This is the big sessions we do in the week and everyone gets very nervous for this as we have target times given to us by Coach Dakin.

This time last year we were really struggling with the weather and the track had been iced over for weeks but so far the weather has been kind to us. So hopefully January will be as nice as this year I am not going warm weather training. 

I am looking forward to Christmas as we do have slightly easier sessions for the week between Christmas and New Year although we don’t have an actual break. This year as Christmas Day off as it’s a Sunday, but our group always have a Sunday off every week. Not sure what happens next year as its Tuesday. 

Only another month and the indoor season will have started which I am really looking forward to as I had to miss it last year. I will be sharpening up my hurdling and concentrating on sprint hurdles. My first race will be at Loughborough, it is always nice to compete on my home track. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Editors Note: Supported by LDC Meghan Beesley is a promising 400m hurdles and 4 x 400m relay runner. She has represented England, most recently at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi where with the relay team she earned a silver medal, and with training is aiming to be part of the Great Britain team at the London 2012 Olympics.