Hello and welcome to our blog. Thank you to the ladies at Sportsister for so kindly sharing our journey with you all 
We are looking forward to keeping you all up-to-date with our preparation and journey across the world’s largest ocean over the next year.
The first question that pretty much everyone asks us when they hear about what we are doing is, of course, “why?” Simple answer. “Why not?” We have just returned from a rather hazy ten days at The London Tullett Prebon Boatshow. We were fortunate enough to bag a stand at the show which enabled us to showcase our ocean rowing boat to the world. Fascinated, intrigued and some genuinely bemused by our endeavour, visitors/exhibitors/press officers/journalists and so on, kept on coming back to the seemingly million dollar question, “why?”
For us, rowing 8,000 miles across an ocean is a no- brainer: why wouldn’t we want to embark upon an adventure of a liftetime? Yet exactly why we want to row The Pacific, is clearly more than “why not?” Laura and I (co-founders of the team) both firmly believe that anything is possible as long as you set your mind to it. Laura is a muscoloskeletal physiotherapist and works with athletes and the Paralympic GB team. I am a Speech Therapist with a lust for adventure. We are both suckers for a good quote and we like this one a lot: “Limits exist only in your mind”. I am a 5’2” blonde with an un-healthy obsession for peanut butter. Not your average rower. Then again, I am not your average paddle boarder, yet last year I managed to paddle 1,000 miles along a river following only 3 hours worth of training. I am not wishing to brag, well perhaps a little bit (tee hee), but the point is, we should never be left with “what if” (our favourite Chrissy Wellington quote) purely based upon what we believe or may not believe is possible. Laura works with the Paralympic GB team and is surrounded by paralympians defying convention and sometimes, science. Oscar Pistrorius is a case and point.
We are also both passionate about women in sport. Laura has competed in numerous triathlons and with a background in elite sport has used her skills to prepare us physically for the task ahead. Laura has also been working with Alex Wolf, the lead strength and conditioning coach for GB rowing. Alex is leading our training programme. Together they have put together an incredible programme for us. We are exceptionally fortunate to have such an incredible support team and I am loving every second of training. Yet, when I train at home in Bristol, I am still the only female in the free weights section of my local gym. The olympics has gone a very long way in promoting women in sport but we definitely have some way to go. Out of nearly 600 ocean rowers only 77 of these were women. The WSFF recently revealed that women’s sport only receives 0.5% of commercial investment. We are not by any means, going to change this with our ocean row but one of the fundamental reasons why we are doing this is to inspire women out there to get involved and have a go. Do not let your mind limit you girls. We are capable of anything and probably far more than you would imagine. After all, we only get one chance at life so why not at least “try to do something remarkable” (another favourite quote). We are rowing for Breast Cancer Care because some women do not have that choice. We would love you to follow our journey on our website http://www.coxlessrowers.com/ and our blog http://coxlessrowers.wordpress.com/. We are also on Facebook and Twitter under Coxless Rowers.
Come back next time to hear all about our training programme and our ocean rowing boat!
