Got an urge to do some indoor rowing, or watch other rowers giving their all? The Two River Erg Challenge hosted by Navesink Indoor Rowing is expected to pull in nearly 100 competitors from 12 clubs Sunday. The event, held at the Shrewsbury Borough School, runs from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and features races for kids and adults, amateurs and veterans of the sport. (Photos from 2012. Click to enlarge.)
Dozens of indoor rowers turned out at the Shrewsbury Borough School on Sunday for the Two River Erg Challenge organized by John Crilly of Navesink Indoor Rowing.
The event card included races for age groups ranging from eighth graders to masters, and featured an appearance by Craig Slater, a Ranney School senior who is lined up to row (on water) at Harvard beginning in the fall.
Salvador Tecalero, in the foreground, is one of more than 60 members of Navesink Indoor Rowing. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
John Crilly made a bold move four years ago. He had a vision, one that was put into focus by his rowing students at Navesink River Rowing, a goal Crilly felt he needed to realize.
“They came up to me and said, ‘Mr. Crilly, what are we going to do in the wintertime, because we want to be competitive in the spring?'” he said.
That’s where the bold move came in. Crilly owned an ergonomic rowing machine, but having students take turns on it wasn’t going to work.
“I went to my wife and asked her if it’d be OK if we could tap into the home equity to buy five more,” he said.
In the first year of Navesink Indoor Rowing, Crilly worked with a dozen students using the six machines. Today, the club has some two dozen machines utilized by more than 60 members from all over Monmouth and Ocean counties most of them high school kids, but with a strong adult contingent mixed in. Crilly says it’s the only indoor rowing club in the area he’s aware of.
And he’s still got a home.