By Dan Courtney, NIFS Correspondent

Harold Beasley has thoughts of reaching 2 million this year. Sure, he’d love to have that in cold, hard cash, but we are talking about 2 million meters here…rowing meters. The 67-year-old is part of the National Institute for Fitness and Sport rowing team. The rowing involves the stationary exercise machines and not the boat variety. Beasley logged in 753,530 meters in five months, so reaching 2 million in 12 months should be very attainable.

“There were three straight days in March when I logged 20,000 meters each day,” said Beasley after dropping his weight from 200 to 179 pounds. “I enjoyed the all-body workout it gave me.”

The local NIFS rowing team competed in the University/Club Team Challenge against more than 1,100 teams nationally. The competition is based on an honor system with each individual per team logging into the computer their meters rowed daily. Participants can log onto the Concept 2 Web site, the event sponsor, and see where they and their team stand throughout the year. The competition runs from May through April.

In their first year of competition, the NIFS contingent of 60 was very impressive. While most of the other 1,170 teams started rowing in April 2004, NIFS jumped into the race around Thanksgiving, ’04. When the final meters were tallied, NIFS had climbed from 1,170 to 39th place and completed 11,532,583 meters.

“It’s all about pride and honor,” said NIFS Health/Fitness Instructor John O’Dea, who rowed 274,564 meters in the last challenge. “There were only a few of us three years ago when we competed in some smaller challenges. It has caught on so much, we had to purchase more rowing machines.”

Michael Conroy was the top NIFS rower last year with an incredible 1,100,000 meters logged. But not too far off his trail was William Olds at 946,188.

“I took a week off and then later on got blisters and had to heal up, otherwise I would have had 1,000,000,” said the 56-year-old Olds. “It’s great for my mental health and a break from work. Last year I lost 10 pounds in a month.”

Olds said he often rows for 1 hour, 20 minutes, with an average of 16,000 meters per day. He said it was fun to train with other team members as they tracked NIFS progress up the team standings chart.

According to O’Dea, the NIFS team age ranges from the 20s to 85-year-old George Rochford. Nationally, there is a 91-year-old lady who rows every day.

“I’m very proud of our team,” said Jerry Taylor, president of NIFS. “I’d encourage others to join since it is a great full-body workout.”

The new season for the University/Club Team Challenge started May 1 and NIFS was currently in 12th place with more than 973,000 meters logged. The Ancient Mariners, who won the competition last year with an amazing 110,089,257 meters, currently leads with 4,756,681.

“Once you start rowing, you see yourself moving up the list,” added Beasley. “It’s pretty motivating in itself.”

To receive more information about the NIFS rowing team, contact NIFS at 274.3432.

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