When the 2023 Atlantic and University Rowing Championships took place October 28 and 29th at Lake Banook in Dartmouth, NS, StFX development studies professor Dr. Jonathan Langdon, on the water as a solo exhibition racer, laughs as he later recalls how his wife couldn’t believe all the people cheering him on.
Members of the StFX Rowing team—students with whom he trained all fall—crowded the shore, cheering “Go Jon! Go!”
“I can’t tell you how much I felt embraced by the StFX team,” says Dr. Langdon, a one-time competitive rower whose return to the sport he left 25 years earlier was all precipitated by a health journey.
“I felt very supported and that they appreciated the work I had put in. And I enjoyed watching them race and to see the fruits of their labour,” he says. “It took me back to the days where I used to row crew and you had this feeling that everyone was there for each other.”
TIME TO CHANGE
The journey back to rowing all started in May 2022 when Dr. Langdon had a frank conversation with his doctor about health issues he was facing. Her advice was that he needed to up his physical activity and change his eating habits. If he did that, he might not need medical interventions.
“I’m happy to say I really listened. I started really putting my mind to exercising and changed some of the ways I was eating.”
While he had been exercising previously, he stepped up his efforts to about five times a week, doing a lot of running. The more time he put into it, the more he started to see results.
The lifestyle changes started to shift around some of the health issues, and he found he was enjoying the new regime.
That summer, while visiting his brother’s cottage, which had a rowing shell, he remembers taking the boat out onto the water and really enjoying it. The sport had been hugely important throughout much of his younger life. But since he gave up competitive rowing over two decades ago, Dr. Langdon hadn’t spent much time with it.
Meanwhile, to keep motivated in his exercise routine, he decided to train for the 5K race at the Bluenose Marathon, which he completed in May 2023. Around the same time, he met with his doctor, who had good news. His health issues had gone into remission. She told him to keep up the good work.
“So I thought, yeah, this is going to be my life now.”
PATHWAY BACK IN
As it was at the beginning of rowing season, he decided to mix rowing back into his life to help keep his fitness fresh and rounded. He contacted the Halifax Rowing Club and Dr. Katie Edwards at the Antigonish Rowing Club and he got set up to row a couple of days a week in each place.
“I loved getting back in the water, back in the boat,” he says.
Near the end of summer, Dr. Edwards asked him if he wanted to race.
He wasn’t sure.
In his teens and early twenties, Dr. Langdon was very competitive in rowing, including being on the national team training squad. Over the years, he won many races at the high school, university and club level and he says the sport was a huge part of his life until about age 23, when he left rowing after not enjoying the national team training squad experience. He didn’t return to the water for 25 years.
Now he was back to have fun, to pursue personal accomplishment, and to look after his health.
Throughout the fall, he rowed three days a week with the StFX crew, rowing singly while the team practiced.
“I loved being out on the water.
“I really enjoyed being with them, they are a great group of athletes.”
Every morning he was in Antigonish, he’d get up at 5:30 a.m. and drive out to Lochaber, arriving around the same time as the students as they all put the boats in the water.
“It’s hard to describe,” he says. “It’s a very quiet sport, the oars and boat don’t make a lot of noise. I’ve seen loons, ducks, bald eagles, just a few metres from my boat. It’s beautiful. Out there, you feel connected to the water, the shore, the sunlight coming up, the wind across the water.
“It’s a quiet, rhythmic sport, the single boat accentuates that.”
Again, to keep his motivation up, about a month ago, he decided to race in the Really Chili Regatta on Lake Banook. Then, he decided to row as an exhibition racer at the Atlantic championship. “I had a wonderful race and felt good about it.”
SUCH A GIFT
“Returning to rowing has been such a gift,” he says.
In his journey to get back in shape, he remembers the moment it struck him, “why am I not doing this thing that I loved?”
All the negative experience he had at the national team level disappeared the moment he stepped in the boat and reconnected to what he loved about the sport in the first place. “What I was left with was a deep love for this sport. I felt really lucky to return.
“For a midlife crisis, this a good one to have,” he jokes.
“There’s a real joy in returning to a thing that was once part of your life.”
He hopes his journey may also help inspire others, showing it’s not too late to find your way back to something that was once important to you.
It’s also been a humbling experience, he says.
He’s made newbie mistakes and says where he once was very, very fast, he’s not nearly as fast anymore. “But that’s okay.
“More than anything, it’s so nice to be able to do this thing, and to be losing yourself in the beauty of being out there.”
Being able to show his kids that there’s a whole world of things they can do and there’s no time limit to do it has also been part of the appeal. “I hope they see this as there’s no final chapter in this kind of relationship.”
It’s also a good lesson in realizing no matter where we are in life, there is a way to make changes that can make life better, he says.
Now that rowing season is finished, Dr. Langdon plans to participate in some of the StFX rowing team’s winter training, and to continue his own workouts over the winter. He looks forward to being back on the water again next year.
Dr. Langdon recognized Dr. Edwards and her coaching team for being so open and embracing of his participation, viewing it as a benefit, and of making rowing a sport for everyone. He says he very much appreciates how both the Halifax and Antigonish rowing clubs welcomed him and were happy to have him there and accepted him in whatever way he was engaging with the sport. “Giving me the space to find my own pathway back in was really lovely.”
