Talk to someone in the UK about a famous rowing race on the river Thames over Easter and they're likely to assume you're referring to the Cambridge vs Oxford University boat race. Very few will have heard of the Devizes to Westminster canon marathon, or 'The DW' to those few in the know. While referring to the DW as the Everest of rowing might seem like hyperbolae, people start to understand the magnitude of the undertaking once you explain that it takes most crews 24 hours to complete the race and that to negotiate the locks on the Kennet & Avon Canal and River Thames the crew have to haul themselves and their kayak out of the water on 76 separate occasions. The real realisation of just how much effort is involved in this marathon probably doesn't dawn on you until you realise that the 24 hour canoe marathon requires two separate support crews to support each rowing crew. The two Kayakers, Nick and Rory, spent months training, and even the support crews spent weeks working with the kayak crew understanding and planning what needed to happen before even contemplating attempting the DW.
;)
Devizes, 7am, the support crew pose for a photo - Anna, James, Kat, Missy, Conor and Marina
So at 6:30am on Easter Saturday I found myself arriving in Devizes, Wiltshire with a 6.5 metre two man racing Kayak on the roof of the Land Rover. At 7:45am on Saturday, exactly as planned, Nick & Rory's Kayak crossed the start line. Over the next 24 hours we planned to meet them at 24 meeting places at various locks and portages over the length of the course.
4.5 hours into the race, Nick & Rory negotiate Cobbler's Lock near Hungerford, Berkshire
There is a longer story here that deserves to be told, but having had had just four hours sleep in the last forty, this is not the time to tell it. Suffice to say that due to an injury picked up early on Saturday, Nick and Rory's adventure came to an end 90 miles into the race. Despite arriving at about 3am on Sunday morning at Old Windsor lock with just enough time to make it to the crucial Teddington Lock at high tide, it was clear that injury and exhaustion meant that Kayak number 316 couldn't continue to Westminster.
About half an hour before Nick & Rory were forced to retire, Sir Steve Redgrave retired from the race, also at Old Windsor Lock. Nick & Rory may not have finished, but they had covered the same distance as the five time Olympic gold medal winner.
You only have to look at the number of crew who retire from the race each year to appreciate that the DW really is a marathon. While we were of course disappointed, the sense of disappointment wasn't as great as I had expected. We had supported our crew for 20 hours over 90 miles during day and night, and even as we drove along the river back into London at 4am on Easter Sunday morning with the Kayak on the roof rather than in the Thames, what I was feeling was far from a sense of failure, it was most definitely a sense of achievement.