Felpham man completes ten-million-metre row at 68 years of age

Graham Matthews has completed an incredible 10,000,000-metre journey on a rowing machine without leaving his seat.

It has taken him just under eight-and-a-half years to achieve the feat.

He passed the eight-figure milestone just two days before his 69th birthday.

The 10,000km row he has completed is the equivalent of making 1,749 flights from London to New York or driving from London to Edinburgh 15,243 times.

More locally, it is the equivalent to the distance run by a 1,000 competitors in this year's Bognor Prom 10k road race laid end to end.

But Mr Matthews has clocked up a daily average of about 3.25km surrounded by the comforts of the Arun Leisure Centre.

He said he had been determined to keep going. "Having set myself a target, I was not going to give up," he stated.

It was in June 2000 that Mr Matthews, of Rife Way, took up indoor rowing in the centre's Tone Zone gym.

He intended to complete a million metres in aid of the Poppy Appeal. But the effort gave him merely a taster of life on a rowing machine.

He carried on to reach five million metres and then wanted to double that before he reached the age of 69.

His goal achieved, he added: "I was helped on the way with not only support from the Tone Zone staff but also other members who would sit alongside me and offer encouragement."

But he is still not satisfied even with ten million and he is continuing to row.

He now has only 4,995,000 metres left before he gets to 15 million metres completed.

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