Thursday marked the end of the 2013 January Virtual Team Challenge; Team CRI finished off with a terrific sprint, posting 3.4 million meters on Thursday and the days that followed. Congratulations to all. We finished with a total of 32,977,766 meters, in second place overall and first among the "on the water" teams for the second year in a row. We broke last year's mark by 3.4 million meters - 10 percent.

Congratulations to Olivier Schueller and Theresa Welsh who both rowed more than 500,000 meters during the month. Kevin Dutt and Monika Sobieszek each  logged more than 400,000 meters. We had 21 team members with more than 300,000 meters and 48 with more than 200,000.  In all 377 of us logged meters for the competition. Good work everyone!  Every meter counts!

We were 8.8 million meters ahead of the virtual club LUNA-TICS posting 2 million meters more than they in the last week. Fourth place overall was the Croatian team, HAVK Mladost, 10 million meters behind us. Riverside had a fine sprint and finished in fifth place, 11.7 million meters behind us.

Our distance, 33 million meters, is 82% of the earth's circumference. And it's a circle around the earth at latitude 34 degrees, 37 minutes. That's the latitude of Kabul, Afghanistan, Osaka, Japan, and Lake Casitas, site of the 1984 Olympic rowing near Santa Barbara California. In the southern hemisphere, it's the latitude of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Adelaide, Australia.

Many thanks to those who helped during the challenge, particularly Sandra Cardillo who organized movie nights and coordinated all the Let's Row Boston meters. And thanks to our coaching staff who encouraged their groups to log meters, and who even rowed meters themselves.

And now with January in the books, we can look forward to CRASH-B's, the February rowing trip to Florida, and to being back on the Charles soon.