The Hogie Foolish Concept

As our donations to the Samaritans continue and we try to reach our target, I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Friday. And a special Happy Birthday to someone very dearly missed.

It would have been Karen's birthday today. She'd have been 55.

Stay in touch. Keep talking. Keep listening. Keep active.

💜🐦🦅🦇

We did it! 3000 miles on a rowing machine rowing daily for 12 months around work and life!

Finished on Saturday ahead of the Talisker Atlantic crossing as we’d hoped. Full post update is on my personal page.

So no more boring pics of Concept2 performance monitor screens! Thank god I can hear you say!

At least until we decide what we’re doing next 😂

If you’ve been following this page, then a massive Thankyou and apologies as I think I set it up wrong so couldn’t see comments easily! 🤦🏻‍♀️

It’s now time to give the callouses a little time to heal. A day or two should do it 😜

Our donations to the Samaritans will continue but it’s bye for now ❤️

December 1st 2021 - Here we go! 139K / 86 miles To Go!

We started on December 12th 2020 and have clocked up 4,675K / 2,904 miles between us so far 🙂

My hands are looking forward to a bit of a break! Much like Tony’s whole body!

On target to complete as planned on December 12th, but could possibly get there just ahead of that 🙂

Yep, we’re still at it!

And going strong. Rowing everyday certainly keeps you out of mischief. Well, to be fair, it keeps you out of mostly everything apart from work and rowing 😂.

So I’ll sum up September and October. We rowed! Riveting stuff, I know!

In September our monthly target was 390K and we smashed it (😜) with 398K. In October our target was 403K (extra day), and we managed 321K! Massive fail 😞. Our worst since we began last December. Tough month. Onwards!

We currently stand at 4,450K of our 4,815K target. Which means we ‘only’ have 365K to go. In old money? 226 miles.

“There’s a light……. Over at Frankenstein’s place”…

August has been our biggest month to date, with 434,000 metres rowed! That’s 2.5 days up on the month, which I have a feeling will be stolen by September!

Just 791 miles to go!

Well it's official. I'm better at rowing than I am at updating facebook!!

Me and Tone are still rowing every day, with the very odd exception!

My last update marked our half way point on June 9th, and we are now 3,298K into our 4,815K target. That's 2,050 of 3000 miles in proper money.

I don't seem to get much time or opportunity to get wet at the moment but I'm still hugely grateful to be sharing this adventure, and my life in general, with the most wonderful man on the planet. (and he did say we could row to Australia once we've completed this leg of our journey - he did!)

WE’RE HALF WAY!

Today we reached 1,500 miles into our challenge!

Still going strong! Still the best team on the planet ❤️

Now for the next 1,500 miles!

The weeks and the miles are wizzing along. We are now up to the beginning of week 22, and still rowing pretty much every day!

We did ourselves proud in April with a total distance rowed of 417,097metres / 259 miles. Our target was 390,000. So that put a few miles in the bank, which is nice!

There’s been some lovely wobbly stuff to be had too. And the very odd occasion to have to do some sea litter picking. Glad to say it’s not a regular occurrence!

Oh, and just so’s I don’t forget, Tony did actually suggest that once we’ve completed our 3000 miles, we should continue, and row to Australia 🇦🇺 . Yep! You heard it here first 😜. It’s only a mere 15,424K / 9500 miles to Magnetic Island, where our Mike and Saki are this weekend ❤️.

Id also like to say a huge Thankyou to our fabulous friend Denise Hunter who donated 20 miles from her sea kayaking adventure in Anglesea. Thankyou Denise, I hope we get to paddle together soon 💕

Weeks 16 and 17 (and for the purpose of the update, a bit of week 18):

Today we have reached 1000 miles 🙂 🎉 💪

So we’re a third of the way there 😁 woohoo!

Some days have been tougher than others and it’s not always been plain sailing! If it was we’d be at the finish by now, and not just because we’d have had sails! 😳

I ‘think’ we are both still loving it!

I know we are both fitter and stronger and mentally tougher than when we started!

I can confirm what I’ve known for 30 odd years: we are a brilliant team 💕

No evidence pics, I’ll do them later, or whenever! Just some wobbly pics from the last couple of weeks.

Onwards!

Weeks 14 and 15 - I think! Where is the time going?!

Combined distance over these last two weeks has been 177K (and 97 metres, don't forget them!).

Total so far = 1,374K / 854 miles - creeping ever closer to a landmark target of 1000 miles!

It might look a bit weird having the odd metres logged ie 97! But this is down to the occasional Half Marathon I'm able to fit in which is 21097 metres. Just incase anyone is reading this and is remotely bothered!

The last few weeks have seen me say goodbye to the University of Sheffield where I've been contracted for 18 months and a sad goodbye to some very special friends without which I wouldn't haven't remained there beyond the first few months. They were there for me during the toughest time of my life last September and I will never forget them and will always be forever grateful of their friendship. They know who they are # # #

So there's been some turbulence lately, but me and Tone pull together as always and keep the metres creeping upwards.

We also appear to have had a rather large grey squirrel visit us aswell!! ;-)

Oh, and I finally managed to get my 10K under 50 minutes this week! I have the blisters to remind me!

What day is it? Where am I?

Oh yeah, Weeks 12 and 13!

We rowed loads! We rested a bit. We had wet wobbly stuff, except it wasn’t at all wobbly! We had half marathons, birthdays and hedgehog pie!

And we’ve knocked 1,197,194 metres (744 miles) off our 4,815,000 metre (3000 miles) target!

Onwards!

Week 11.

Karen would have celebrated her birthday yesterday so it was weird that we reached a milestone of 1000K this week.

I also believe that had she been with us she would have joined us out on the water, helping us clock up some miles finally on the wet stuff!!

She was definitely with us in spirit. As she always will be 💕