“You can’t rewrite your past, but you can grab a clean sheet of paper and write your future.”                                        Max Lucado

 2003 – London, England: Rosalind Savage was recently divorced, depressed, overweight, and out of shape. She had spent more than a decade working in a cubicle for a London computer company, and she hated her job and her miserable life.

One day at work, she wrote two obituaries: The first one about the conventional, ordinary life that she was living and the second about a life of adventure that she would like to live. That simple exercise would be a turning point in her life. At age 36, Savage became a most unlikely adventurer.

 Savage was born in Leeds, England, the daughter of two Methodist ministers. Her parents frequently moved between churches, and Savage lived a life typical of a minister’s daughter. She was often the last one chosen on neighborhood sports teams and loved books and eating more than sports. By her teens, her big appetite and aversion to exercise had resulted in plenty of unwanted pounds on her 5’4” frame.

After high school, Savage attended Cambridge University in Cambridge, England. When a crew team member mentioned that rowing workouts burned 5,000 calories a day, she was intrigued. Loving the idea of eating all she wanted without gaining weight, Savage tried out for the team. To her surprise, she was chosen for the No. 2 position on the women’s team and rowed for three years while at Cambridge. After graduation, she continued competitive rowing on the Thames for five years before workouts got lost in the busyness of 12-14 hour days in the corporate world.

After the obituary exercise, Savage quit her job. She sold everything she owned and then used the money from her savings and divorce settlement to buy a 24-foot ocean rowboat. Her idea for a must-be-more-to-life adventure was way off the absurd chart. Savage planned to enter the 2005 Atlantic Rowing race, a rowing race across the Atlantic Ocean. The annual event, which had begun in 1997, was billed as the “world’s toughest rowing race,” without any hint of exaggeration.

Savage only had 14 months to prepare for the race, which began in the Canary Islands off the west coast of Africa and ended in Antigua, in the Caribbean Sea, 3,000 miles to the west. Only about 300 boats had successfully rowed across the Atlantic; most of those were two, three or four-person crews. Savage would be the first solo woman to compete in the 26-boat race. She prepared by rowing up to 12 hours a day on the Thames River, but rowing on the river to prepare for the Atlantic was like climbing stairs to scale Mt. Everest.

The race began on November 30, 2005. On day one, Savage’s water-maker, her most important piece of equipment, failed. Embarrassed, she had to radio for instructions on how to repair the equipment. Day two found her seasick and throwing up over the boat railing. During the first month, Savage developed saltwater boils on her posterior and tendonitis in her shoulders. At one point, all four oars broke, requiring splinting and her stove failed. She discovered that getting out of your comfort zone was extremely uncomfortable.

During the race, Savage thought about giving up numerous times. The physical challenges were unimaginable, but the psychological ones were worse. She frequently threw her oars down in disgust, screamed and cried, but she realized that she alone had volunteered for this race, and the only way out was to row. So, she picked up her oars and returned to rowing.

On good days, she rowed for 12 hours and covered 30 miles. On bad days, the wind blew her back 5-7 miles in the wrong direction. She finished dead last, a full two months behind the winner and 103 days after she began, but on March 12, Savage rowed into Antigua.

Today, Roz Savage is the author of three books and numerous magazine articles. She is a sought-after motivational speaker on courage, resilience, and change. She holds four Guinness World Records for ocean rowing, including being the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.

“The Atlantic Ocean taught me that no matter how huge and seemingly impossible the task, anybody can achieve extraordinary things by simply taking it one stroke at a time,” says Savage of her ocean exploits. “No matter how hard it got, I always believed that the only thing worse than carrying on would be to quit.”