“i rowed 3000 miles across the ocean”

Leanne Maiden (42), who is from South Africa but lives in Bearsden, near Glasgow, is the mother of two young sons, as well as being a practising osteopath.

So to describe her life as busy is something of an understatement.

It’s not uncommon for women’s own interests to get lost in the mix when they’re caught up caring for their families, and keeping track of a busy career.

Three cheers, then, for like this happen?

“It started during lockdown, when I went a bit mad,” Leanne admits.

“I think everyone did. I was suffering from anxiety, couldn’t sleep, felt trapped in the house.

“One night, I was wide awake in the early hours and was just scrolling through my phone.

“I saw a post by an old friend who announced she was entering the World’s Toughest Row, a race across the Atlantic, and was looking back, he was fully supportive and said it would be good for me.”

The team Leanne signed up for to cross the Atlantic was initially made up of four people.

Two of them dropped out early on, but Leanne and her friend, a Pilates teacher, decided to go ahead as a pair.

They trained intensively together, but in late 2023, just three weeks before their boat was being shipped out to the starting line of the race in La Gomera, Leanne’s partner Leanne, who had the courage to go on a big adventure of her own.

We’re not talking about having a weekend away, or running a marathon – this brave woman chose to row across the Atlantic Ocean. On her own.

So how does something for crew members.

“It took me a nano-second to decide – I wanted to do it. I signed up without a second thought, and without consulting my husband.”

She told her husband, Craig, that she had “signed up for this thing”.

He thought it was going to be a 10K or a gym membership, so was a little taken aback to hear his wife would be leaving the family to cross the Atlantic.

“He told me he needed to go for a run while he processed what I’d said. By the time he came also dropped out.

“It became apparent that our differences were bigger than our similarities,” Leanne says tactfully.

Committed to going ahead with the race on her own, Leanne had to do additional training as a solo rower.

Short of time, she rowed at nights after finishing work,