[11 minute read]
Sometimes you wake up at 4am with intense feelings of frustration. Something fundamental is missing. Fired up, mind racing, with no way to release the tension, and no way of getting back to sleep. Sometimes the 4am wake up is determined and full of purpose.
The former had became a common occurence for me these last 20 years in my various beds throughout the world. In Iraq I addressed the disheartenment through blog writing. In Scotland, Brunei, and Russia these times were managed by drafting numerous diary entries. All in an attempt to keep my thoughts flying in formation.
Here in Perth, its the later, and is the driver that gets me onto the water for those 5am rowing sessions.
After almost 20 years away from the sport that I loved as a child and young adult, I found myself isolated in Aberdeen (Scotland) during the UK Covid lockdowns of September 2020.
Up to this point, life had been a magical adventure of travelling the world, experiencing a diversity of cultures and people, and playing a bit too hard in random nightclubs. There was so much going on in life that the need for a rowing club between 2005 and 2020 was not a driver.
Although I had often found myself dreaming of the water whilst playing in the sands of the Arabian desert or the snow of the Sakhalin mountains, my thirst for competition had been satiated by a marathon each year in some nearby country. The need for community connection was satisfied by the great people who surrounded me.
But when the music of my grand expatariate life in the oil industry stopped in the enforced 2020 Covid lock, I found myself alone in an Aberdeen apartment. Having the ability to freely interact with people taken away, the need for connection and purpose became even greater. All the diary and blog writing could not fill the gap left by the disconnection with my community resulting from the lockdowns. Physical activity, through running, became my key outlet. Something was still missing.
Drawing on the thoughts of esteemed colleagues in the wildlife conservation game, I reflected on my most happiest times, looked for the common denominator, and drew a corrolation. The link between my personal happiness and warm climate, connections to community, and being an active rower and coach were significant.
Being a goal orientated person, I enjoy framing the problem, devising a solution, and then working the plan. Defining the problem was easy, I was lonely and frustrated. The soloution was becoming clearer, to create a lifestyle aligned with my happiness values.
Granted much wine was consumed during the framing. Even a highly functional machine needs lubrication to smooth the rough parts, and protect the sensitive areas. Building and executing the plan would have several rough patches…
I’m a long-term single man who depends on micro-connections with community to remain motivated. The freedom to go to a restaurant, library, and other social places were taken away during the Covid lock-down. This is a cruel concept to inflict on people who’d set their life up as I had.
Opportunities for interesting and random chat were curtailed, and this drove me to whittle away my late afternoons in my Aberdeen flat, talking to a bottle of South Australian shiraz. By early evening I’d put through my Deliveroo order for a bottle of Yellowtail Malbec from the supermarket 2 kilometers away. After a few months of this, it was pretty clear something needed to change. Yes, I may survive Covid, but I may not survive the isolation we were being conditioned to accept.
Feeling cold and disconnected from my community clearly annoyed me one night alone on the wines. To overcome the intense isolation, I dived into the archives and dusted off my WhatsApp groups. (Parktown) Rowing Old Boys and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk became the key ones, as did Cold&Wet. With a remote connection estabilished with special people of the past, and cousins living south, what followed was a special outpouring of memories from happy times.
The Parktown group included rowers from the 1980’s, chirping in with stories and memories alongside those boys just recently graduated. Thankfully the 1997 era (my squad) piped up and the discussions that followed made the isolation bearable. The Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk group covered topics from rugby, through nightclub exploits to winter camping. Cold&Wet was a cousin connection which became very important as Scotland started to close its borders to England.
Evenings of exploration through WhatsApp re-connected me with old friends, and thus gave access to a treasure trove of shared memories. My values appeared to be clustering around three common themes; being part of a rowing team, being warm, and being a contributing part of a community.
During the conversations with my schoolboy rowing network, Jaco finally connected the dots that 2023 was the 100 year anniversary of Parktown Boys’ High School and the first World Masters Rowing event in Africa. The event would take place on South Africa’s Roodeplaat Dam in September 2023, our schoolboy rowing course. How about we all meet there? Yip, I’m keen. Now I needed to get fit and get back into a single scull.
To reach that goal several fundamental changes were needed. Achievement of that goal would be an indicator that my lifestyle was finally aligned with my values.
I had reconnected with my friend Jim at Aberdeen Rowing Club a few weeks before and he was helping me get my skills back in the single scull. Jim, the kindest person on earth, was a motivation to return to the water during those cold mid-summer days.
As much as I love (and hate) Aberdeen, the river Dee just did not have consistant water to train on. Call me soft, but when you have to pull wellington boots on to get your boat in the water, remaining motivated to train is really difficult. Other people have achieved great things in the sport on that stretch of water, but it wouldn’t work for me long-term.
By late September 2020 it was clear that UK restrictions would become even more authoritarian. This was not a safe place for me. I’d survive Covid, but the loneliness of extended lock-down isolation would likely claim me. Thanks cousins Dave and Mike for enabling me to run away to Milton Keynes and stay with your family.
We addressed the loneliness issue together, but didn’t quite address the wine consumption levels. At least we set the foundation of a good fitness regime, shifting me from a traditional evening exerciser, to one that enjoyed morning exercise. Not quite 5am exercise, but getting earlier.
Running every morning around Shenley Wood was a good way to start the campaign to Worlds. I just needed to get back into a boat.
Milton Keynes did not have a rowing club, and the work opportunities in Aberdeen were looking dull. A redundancy payment was on the table, which opened up the opportunity to start a whole new life in a place better aligned with my happiness parameters.
I had applied for a job in London, providing renewable energy to Ethiopian refugee camps. I opened the curtains one morning and was greeted to a miserable and cold grey day. I withdrew my application that morning.
The journey to somewhere warm, which had a reliable river able to support consistent training, and would allow me to set down roots in a community, had started.
Reflecting on those happiness parameters (rowing, warmth, community), I remembered my one year lived in Perth, Australia (2016). The beautiful Swan River, peppered with rowing clubs, a bearable winter, and a good community. It was a place that friends Dima, Dean and Shaye were calling home, so it was worth considering.
What followed was a whirlwind adventure to get back to Perth, change my career, join a rowing club and set down roots in a community. Somewhere warm.
Touching down in Perth, Australia in February 2021 was a huge relief. I was now a mature age student, taking the challenge of retraining in a Masters of Environmental Science course at UWA.
It made sense to row for the Unvirsity of Western Australia. But the mens masters program wasn’t at the intensity or commitment levels I was looking for. Westies was an option, but again, challenging from a Masters perspective, and probably too intense in the training. I wanted a lifestyle without a car. The stress of buying and selling cars during my turmoultous time on the global expatriate circuit had left me jaded on car ownership. So the rowing clubs on the Canning River were not an option.
Time was slipping by and I still had not been in a boat by June 2021. September 2023 was approaching too quickly.
A chance meeting with Ian, at Tom’s barbeque (Tom and I had been neighbours in Brunei and found ourselves here in Perth), led to an invitation for a row at ANA. The beauty of community and friendship, and the connections it supports, was operating well now.
I met Ian at the Bayswater shed one morning in June 2021 and he put me into Laurie’s experienced hands. What a fun character, this is the club for me. It took a few months to fully commit, but after several enjoyable breakfasts with special people like Phil, Claire, Hugh, Garth, and Cass, it was an easy decision to stay.
What followed has been a wild ride of coaching and rowing. Somehow it was now easy to wake up at 4am and bounce straight on to the water. A sunrise row is the best therapy.
This love of rowing and early mornings was tested however. In WA the Masters season is in winter. Perth winters are cold and wet, but thankfully only for 3 months. Having managed Russian white winters and Scottish grey bone-infusing cold, and sort of enjoying it, I was willing to let the warmth happiness parameter go for a few months.
From my time with the club we have built on their inspiring strategic plan to bring more people into the sport of rowing. Giving more people a window into the high personel value of physical activity, teamwork and community. To act, belong and commit.
ANA’s Learn to Row and Development programs, with an excellent coaching structure for masters rowers has been a great inspiration. It has allowed me to prepare myself in the best way possible for my single scull race at the 2023 World Masters Regatta in South Africa. The early morning wake up is now welcome. The early to bed maybe not so.
The intense training has built structural change in my muscles and body, got me off the unhealthy use of wine, and improved my mental state greatly. For this I will be forever thankful to the sport of rowing, my ANA family, and all those involved in the journey.
I’m tantalisingly close to my dream of sitting on the startline at a race on my schoolboy rowing course. It is rather exciting, having done the work.
I’ll be thinking of you all whilst powering down the Roodeplaat course on the 22nd September 2023, as prepared as I’ll ever be.
Special thanks to Jim Steel, Jaco Labuschagne, Mark Madeley, Parktown Boys’ Rowing Club, Unley High Rowing Club, Aberdeen Rowing Club, and ANA Rowing Clubs. (Melbourne Rowing Club and Loretto Mandeville Hall Rowing Club, I do remember you fondly too).
Mark Easterbrook is an Environmental Advisor and retired global nomad. He presently rows for ANA and manages captain duties in parallel. He enjoys rowing coaching, running and being around people, however has an introverted side too. He is an aspiring author and hopes to be in a national team coach role someday. He dreams of working a 3 day working week in a well paid profession whilst building the passive income to allow him to pursue rowing coaching and running an environmental volunteer program co-ordination business by age 45 (2026). And, if you hadn’t already picked it, he is slightly obsessed with rowing.
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