Ellie Reynolds - Advice from a British Record Holding Ocean Rower

Expedition Foods caught up with ocean rower Ellie Reynolds from four-woman team There She Rows. Ellie and her crew completed a 3,000-mile unassisted row across the Atlantic Ocean from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean as part of the World's Toughest Row.

There She Rows crossed the finish line after 39 days, 12 hours and 25 minutes on 21 January 2024, and became the fastest British women to row across the Atlantic Ocean, bringing the record below 40 days! The previous record was held by a four-woman team called The Mothership, who completed their Atlantic row in 40 days, 11 hours and 25 minutes, in 2021.

We asked Ellie to share some feedback and tips about nutrition during an ocean row:

Breakfast

I had Expedition Foods Granola with Raspberries every day! I mixed [a wheat bran cereal] in with my Expedition Foods breakfast. I enjoyed this combination and it helped keep my digestive system in good order while out on the ocean. 

Main meals

To keep things simple, we never used the jet boil, just had our meals cold. We usually left them for 2 to 3 hours to rehydrate and found this really convenient. 

The Expedition Foods meals were great! I do wish I had included a bigger variety. I took:

• Spaghetti Bolognese
• Spaghetti Carbonara
• Beef Cottage Pie
• Chicken Korma with Rice

In future I would take a wider range of meals so that I had more varied options day to day.

Snacks

My snack packs consisted of potato crisps, salt and vinegar chickpeas (they are dried out and toasted), flapjacks, chocolate bars, a couple of biscuit bars, a few sweets.

Unfortunately, we had a big issue with some of our snacks - we took some of the chocolates out of a big bag and put them into plastic bags. When we came to eat them, they tasted terrible! Like epoxy/carbon fibre. After 3 or 4 months in our brand new boat, the packs had absorbed the smell/taste from the boat. Luckily this didn't happen with our meals, everything in a foil wrapper was fine. 

Advice from Ellie for future ocean rowers

1. Number one piece of advice, take a variety of Expedition Foods meals.
2. Eat meals cold for ease.
3. Take varied snack packs and be very careful how you pack them!

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