Bringing the activity indoors, ILRC accepted the RCA challenge to Explore the Great Indoors and joined the Epic Canadian Adventure with the goal of collectively rowing around the country. Our 11 rowers pulled a total of 871 119 metres with a shout out to Dave who led the group, rowing over 200 km in the 3 weeks and the 3, first time rowers, including Serena who pulled a whopping 115 863 metres! Three team members also entered the Sprint Series Challenge, again led by Dave who came 8th out of the over 50 participants in the 100m, 500m, and 1000m sprint challenge. J-F and Bill also completed the 3 races with respectable finishes.

As the rowing shells have been racked for the last time, the oars hung and the boathouse doors swung shut, the great void of the offseason begins. As a small club with no heated facilities for winter use, ILRC members might easily slink off and hibernate. As pleasant as that may sound, it is not the reality with this group. The fall saw rowers on the local hiking trails enjoying the colours and an early season snowfall. Sadly, the risk of Omicron cancelled our Holiday Hike but that didn’t stop members donating food that had been collected to the Orangeville Food Bank.

In January, 14 club members committed to Virtual Winter Training. Again, with no indoor space to gather and being geographically widespread, the VWT group agreed to be active on their own in whatever way suited them, with whatever equipment they had. Collectively they have logged over 60 activities from skiing and snowshoeing to core work, snow shovelling and yoga and, yes, even erging. 

Island Lake members plan to stay connected with the upcoming Coast to Coast indoor Rowing Day and by walking in the Coldest Night of the Year fundraiser. While a dedicated training plan is great to get through the off season, our goal was merely to stay active and have fun while doing it which is really the bottom line.