Al, I rowed The Boston Marathon on the River Witham (Lincoln-Boston, 31 miles) a number of times, in Fours and Pairs. All good fun until Anton’s Gowt - that two mile, dead-straight, featureless stretch right at the end of the course is a killer, we all hated it!

The biggest hazard, though, was running the gauntlet of fishermen the entire way from Lincoln to Boston. Those ‘gentlemen’ seemed to think that purchasing a licence to fish on the Witham gave them ownership of the river and the right to decide who could use it, so we spent a great deal of the race dodging handfuls of ground-bait, maggots, half-eaten sandwiches, etc. that they threw at us. Not nice.