HIOWAA Fund Raising event

We at AFSCrossFit love pitching in to support a good cause. We have supported the Katie Piper Foundation, Help For Heroes, and the Amazing Alice charity in days gone by. This year in conjunction with ADDVenture Leisure we set out to raise money for the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Air Ambulance service.

ADDVenture have worked closely with the HIOWAA team and have built them the vehicle used today for the Helicopter Flight Simulator. This was a huge hit today with everybody and my son Theo got right into character 🤣. The HIOW Air Ambulance is a charity entirely self funded. I wasn’t aware that the NHS doesn’t provide any funding for such a valuable service. They actually charge them to provide doctors which I was hugely surprised by. As well as running some events in the gym we are also going to start saving our cans. The HIOWAA raised £18000 last year recycling cans and have bins dedicated to this around Hampshire. It costs £10million pounds a year to run the service so every little helps.

The aim of the day was to row the perimeter of Hampshire and IOW. This may come as a surprise but there is actually no stats on this so with a bit of research and some excellent mastery of google earth we estimated this distance to be 315km. We set ourselves the target of 6 hours to achieve the distance and set about our task at 9am Saturday 13th July.

In a previous attempt to row from Lands End to John O Groats we set our sights on completing it in 12hours. we managed 740kms which put us somewhere near manchester. A massive misjudgement even with the rowers going like the clappers for the whole time. We were keen not to repeat that mistake.

Bruce starting his Marathon Row 🚣

Throughout the 6 hours we had 40 participants step up and row. With the incentive of Coffee and Cake for anyone that rows 2000m every participant easily surpassed that mark. With eight rowers primed and ready to accept the 6 hour pounding we set off. On previous rowing events we have had some questionable life choices happen and this event was no different. Ross and Bruce both decided they would row a marathon distance. That’s 42195m for anyone not in the know. It’s also about 4 hours of rowing which is a real test of fitness but also pain threshold. Specifically Butt Numbness. Both completed this epic feet in just over 3 hours, both may need some ice and some sudacream in the morning as well 👊 Great Job Fellas 👊

With 80000m in the bag it was down to the rest of us to step up. We kept a running total throughout the challenge. We hit 100,000in just under 90minutes. We hit 200,000 in about 3 hours and actually reached our target with time to spare.

The day was a huge success and as always we finished things off with a BBQ. Community is at the heart of AFSCrossFit. A group of people prepared to work hard for themselves and for others. We will be stepping up to raise money for the HIOW Air Ambulance again very soon. If you would like to get involved follow our instagram channel here>>>>

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