Rowing Vacations – where to go
Rowing is fun, so is a rowing vacation even more fun? There are amazing places in the world where water is near tourist landmarks. Rowing past the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or through Venice or Saint Petersburg are all possible. We talk with an expert rowing tour guide.
Timestamps
00:52 Ruth Marr of Rowing the World joins the show and tells us the story of how she started Rowing the World, her combined passion for rowing with her combined passion for travel. This year marks the 10th anniversary of Rowing the World
05:13 Ruth tells about her first tour experience with the FISA World Tour in 2012 in Sudbury Ontario.
07:32 Ruth spent 6 months in Switzerland and Northern Italy researching clubs to see if she could organize groups. Then did her first tour in that area.
10:03 The second trip was in 2013 on the Shannon River in Ireland, after the FISA World Rowing Tour on coxed quads. Tells about the events of that infamous FISA tour that made news and then her tour which had some adventurous moments too, i.e. boats in the cow field.
19:15 Ruth tells us about a typical day on a rowing tour. What happens from the time you get up in the morning until dinner in the evening. Every trip is tailored to the location and the focus is rowing; scenery, enjoying each other, and an enjoyable row. Ruth tells about visiting other boathouses, equipment, schedule, changing seats in the boat, coaxing, low rate steady rowing mostly in touring quads. Each day depends on the distance to be covered, where we need to land, the weather, can be point to point or central base trip out of one place like the Croatia tour or BC.
33:30 Description of the BC wilderness tour and base camp on the west coast of Vancouver Island and this year’s wellness tours in Italy are center based.
34:55 Another style of trip is a point to point trip is the Thames Oxford to Weybridge, around Lago Maggiore (Italy), or Turkey which is combined Bodrum point to point then to Istanbul to the Golden Horn. Coming up will be a Sweden tour point to point.
37:39 The physical preparation for a tour from the training point of view. Rowers need to have two years experience sculling. They need fitness but also to have good technique especially for some of the coastal trip. Need to be able to row for an extended period but also to do it several days in a row. Long steady workouts at low rates.
42:30 Marlene talks about preparation. A tour can fit into your racing schedule for base training. For the tour prepare the durability to go from day to day. Prepare tendons and muscles for durability and to develop your recovery ability. Cross training can help preparation too.
46:15 Ruth describes about rowing on different types of water river, open water, or lakes that may be different than from the water a sculler rows on at home.
48:38 Go to the page Rowing-the-World there is information about Ruth’s tours and there is a preparation program for touring. 50:00 Ruth summarizes the variety of the people and places where Rowing the World tours visit.
