Taking Up a Hobby in Your Forties

Interviews one Olympic rower, takes to the water

In my defence, I had been thinking of taking up rowing long before I interviewed several Olympic medal winning rowers for Life magazine.

In the run up to the 2024 Paris Olympics, I went to Cork to speak to Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy, then after the games interviewed Philip Doyle by Zoom.

I’m just relieved, for the sake of my own dignity, that at no point during these conversations did I mention my plans to try rowing. Nothing is more post-interaction- cringe-inducing than telling a highly skilled, award-winning professional, that you too thought you might give it a go.

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Especially since working with Paralympic gold medal winning swimmer Ellen Keane on her book, Perfectly Imperfect, I love interviewing professional sports people.

High performance athletes have to sort of consider and parse every aspect of themselves in a way that is the opposite of the kind of Instagram narcissism the rest of us are at, instead it’s a detailed but practical self-focus aimed at figuring out how they can improve their performance. I find it happens to often make them very thoughtful, reflective interviewees.

I also find their ability to show high levels of dedication to their sport from such a young age (Ellen was about seven when she started swimming and was soon putting in the time needed to eventually win a gold medal, in the pool before and after school) fascinating.

It often means missing out on a lot of the freedoms, and fun, you start to get access to as you become a teenager, because you have to be rigorously dedicated, putting in the hours, getting early nights, without any certainty that you will actually reach the heights you’re aiming for.

I always ask high performance athletes where they think that ability, at such a young age, comes from. Often they will mention competitiveness, but with themselves as much as with others. They know they had been given a beyond-ordinary ability, and they want to see how far they can push themselves, how much they can achieve.

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I am in no way competitive. The last time I was even competitive-adjacent was back in the early nineties in secondary school when I played hockey for a few years before realising I kind of hate group sport. Now, I’m too tired to be competitive, would be unable to muster it up even if I wanted to.

But I do know how much movement, and being outdoors, helps me. The thing that in the past few years has done most for my mental wellbeing is committing to a twice weekly weightlifting class with a group of friends.

I like what movement does for my head.

I’ve also come to realise that I am too tired to motivate myself. The motivation has to come from having committed to others, whether that be paying in advance for a class, or being on a boat that can’t go without a four-person crew.

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I’ve long wanted to give rowing a go. We live very near Dublin Bay. I’ve sailed a bit over the years, but that feels like a sport where you’re either the expert (not me), or the person being shouted at to grab the rope, no not THAT rope (me), and doing little else, bar moving from side to side as a human ballast. What appealed about rowing was that you might be rubbish (me), but at least you were getting stuck in to some extent straight away. The being rubbish wasn’t holding you back.

The last time I took up a hobby was in the aftermath of my marriage ending. In fact I tried three.

Most bizarre, hip hop dancing, which we can put down to crazy things divorce makes you do. I cannot explain the urge that overcame me to give this a go, only that in the aftermath of the end of a relationship you thought would last a lifetime, part of the process of remaking yourself is staking a claim in this new life, trying things in order to prove, if only to yourself, that you’re able to do this, that there’s life, if an entirely different kind of life, after the one you thought you would have has ended. That you might embrace the unexpected. Master hip hop.

I consider it one of the greatest acts of solidarity I’ve ever experienced that a male friend came with me to this class, despite his obvious misgivings (barely concealed horror). He told me later he was there because he hoped we might be shown how to robot and breakdance. What we got was sort of backing dancer with moves.

To everyone’s relief, one hip hop class was enough to get it out of my system.

I also did a sailing course, urged on my by mother, who announced with a pointed look that the course had been the source of many a marriage, and said that she would provide the necessary babysitting, in tones that brooked no arguments.

In the early days of becoming a single parent, I found anyway, that it hits you every so often how trapped you are at home, what a production it now is for you to go out for an evening (I now think this is also related to if your child is very young, the older they get the more that changes, they are different kind of company. Not (ever) to be people-think-we’re-sisters about it, but a toddler is a different matter to a tween, with whom you can hang out, watch movies, socialise).

So this hobby helped in that doing that one-week course in the summer made me feel, ok I can still have a bit of a social life, when I was panicking slightly.

Lastly, I tried horse riding lessons, because I am slightly afraid of horses (that backward kick, the ability to hurl you off them), and am very much not a hardy, outdoorsy type, and I wanted to do something that I could afterwards feel slight pride in myself for having achieved, entirely on my own (trotting tamely around a paddock on an extremely docile horse, admittedly).

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Now, what I want out of a hobby is different. Life is full. Parenting, working, house working. Perimenopausal tiredness and anxiety, to be frank. I want something that will draw me completely into the moment for the guts of an hour, something outside in the fresh air, lots of movement. An hour of switching off.

I find a rowing club nearish to my house, a ten-minute cycle away. They do beginner rows twice a week, one at the weekend, a generous system whereby existing, experienced members take newbies out

Every Sunday without fail I regret the decision to get up on early on the one morning I could have a lie-in, but I can’t cancel. Within minutes I’m happy to be out. I started during the sunny spell in May, I love the cycle through the quiet residential streets then out onto the riverside. There are people walking their dogs, carrying coffees and pastries, it feels nice to be amongst them. I’ve lived here almost all my life and never once been trapped by the toll bridge when I’m in a hurry, now it is my weekly nemesis, I invariably fail to beat the Garrihy’s Dublin Bay Cruises to it.

I wait at the front of the line of traffic, watch the bridge lift into the air, burst off afterwards amongst the group of cyclists, pushing our way across traffic then to get off the main road to my favourite bit of the cycle, past a row of tiny cottages that face the opening of the river Liffey into the bay. The contrast of small redbrick homes, the narrow patch of grass opposite which some of them have gardened, seagulls circling, all against a backdrop of the docklands and the cranes.

Rowing itself is taxing but not in the way I had expected. Physically I find it manageable although it’s quite possible this is because I am not yet putting in the proper effort; my oar remains shallow enough because I’m terrified of catching a crab.

Catching a crab, I find out three times on my first row, is when you lose control of the oar because it is at the wrong angle as you lift it out of the water. The only way to describe it is that it feels as if the oar has been caught by a current, the bit in the water flies forwards, the end you’re holding flies back into your chest or stomach.

At worst, people can be knocked out of the boat by their oar, or flat on their back in the boat. A mild version of it happened to me three times on my first outing, once on my second, although I remained seated, just struggling to keep a hold of the oar.

A horror of this happening means I am entirely focused on getting my oar in and out of the water throughout the row. That and I’m watching the person two seats ahead of me, to ensure I am matching their pace. There’s chat, but I tend to mostly listen, I need to concentrate on the oar, and on my arms.

It’s choreographically demanding. I don’t look up until we get to the spot where we’re going to turn back, and there’s a brief moment of respite.

Getting out on the water clears the head. For almost an hour, I can think of nothing else but oar, arms, am I moving my upper body in the same direction as the person sitting directly in front of me.

This morning on the way back, a huge container ship, so large the trucks visible up on deck looked tiny, loomed up near us, and waited patiently while we made our way across the bay opening.

One weekend a seal followed us. Tourists in boats wave, my friend’s little boy is heading out sailing at the same time some weeks, we have a brief chat, he high fives me. I see the place I have lived in all my life from a different angle, I am taken entirely out of my own context.

Afterwards, I cycle home, past redbrick terraced, glass finance buildings, under squawking seagulls. Each week

I have the most refreshing drink I can think of; sparkling water with orange Miwadi, as much ice as possible in the glass as possible. After the break, feel a bit ready to get back into it.