22 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY june 6-12, 2024 www.montereycountynow.com 82 people on 33 teams all hoping to complete the row from Monterey to Hawaii, the time at sea is solitary. Pfender will be the skipper as the team rows two hours on, two hours off. They’ll be rowing 24 hours a day, with just short two-hour breaks for rest in between—so part of their training has emphasized how to row through exhaustion. In their alternating off hours, two rowers will retreat to small cabins to rest or sleep for brief stretches, although the cabins are loud—the sound of the water comes through. This will all repeat for the roughly 35 days the row should take, and the team hopes to best the other female teams in the World’s Toughest Row, establishing a world record. “We’re hoping for a world record,” Myers says, “but it’s all about the experience. It’s all about us coming closer as a team and being able to say that we did this crazy thing when we were young and tell my future kids, ‘Yeah, your mom was a badass.’ “I kind of just want to have this personal and team achievement under the belt. I think it would be really, really cool just to say you did it.” The Hericanes join 33 other teams in the World’s Toughest Row starting on Saturday, June 8. You can watch them shove off from the Monterey Harbor Monterey at 10:30am (subject to change depending on weather). Follow the progress of the race online at worldstoughestrow.com. Above: The team shares a happy moment as they rename the boat on March 9. Below: The Hericanes hope to set a world record for becoming the first (and fastest) four-woman team to row from Monterey to Hawaii when they participate in the World’s Toughest Row, starting on June 8.
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