It’s 2017.
One 59 year-old, high-risk class III (morbidly) obese, man with a bad back and a dodgy knee.
Three years.
1096 days
9.6 million+ metres (that’s 9,614,721)!
Average of 8773 metres per day – EVERY DAY!*
One rowing machine.
One Journey – from Woolton Hill in Hampshire, UK to the Olympic Stadium, Tokyo, Japan.
That’s Obese Man Rowing’s TOKYROW 2020
Well it was.
Until 2020, a few months to go and then came Covid-19
and the Olympics were postponed for a year.
SO what to do?
Carry on as normal and finish on July 24th 2020? This does not have the “in time for the Olympics” element. Also the last few months before Tokyo were supposed to be spent raising money and the profiles for the four charities at events. Lockdown ended that.
Just go with the new date? Possible but makes the challenge so much easier. Does mean that the charities can get the profile in the months leading up to it.
Quit; the dream is over? – Never going to happen. I may fail but I’m never going to quit.
And then… An idea.
It was supposed to be over three years. Now it is four. Why not simply increase the distance by a third and carry on? Tokyrow becomes “Tokyo and and a bit” but the charities will still get the profile, it is still challenging AND it finishes at the same time as the Olympic Games start.
So 9,614,721 metres becomes 12,807,931.
1096 days becomes 1460.
24th July 2020 becomes 23rd July 2021
Numbers that have become etched in my mind over the past three years have to change but hey, I’m just a fat man covering the distance. Top athletes have had to change plans for their whole sporting career, Some will even have their dreams shattered completely. Even more seriously however is that a lot of people are going to die of a horrible virus. A few more blisters and sore backsides is a small price to pay for an aging man who has “let himself go”.
Then I discovered a lovely city in Galicia, Spain called “A Coruña”
and if I change my “virtual” route to take a slight detour it works out at almost exactly the right distance! It has the element of the usual British irreverence and it’s also nice that Spain being one of the hardest hit countries in the world with Coronavirus can feature as part of this.
Sorted. So that’s it. TokyRow continues.
