She hated sport at school and only took up rowing at university so she could eat more without getting fat. Now Roz Savage, 37, is about to row solo across the Atlantic after resigning from her job in the City.
“I wanted a big challenge and I reckon this is as big as they get,” said the Oxford law graduate. “I have done the married, salaried, mortgage thing and I am moving off in a new direction. I wanted to find out what I am capable of. This is the ultimate test of self-sufficiency.
“Someone told me if you don’t keep expanding your comfort zone it doesn’t stay the same, it shrinks. I now think of it as this big bubble around me and I have to keep running around so it doesn’t shrink-wrap me.”
Roz, who has already run two marathons and joined an archaeology expedition to Peru, is training to compete in the Atlantic Rowing Race and trying to raise �30,000 for the Prince’s Trust.
She will set off from the Canary Islands on 27 November for Antigua in the West Indies, almost 3,000 miles away, rowing up to 16 hours a day.
“Luckily, I’m quite self-reliant and quite happy with my own company,” she said.
“I have 10,000 songs on my iPod that will help lift me when I have tough days but I think there will be a lot of really nice things about being out there – the peace and quiet, serenity and solitude.”
It is a far cry from her career as an international project manager for investment bank UBS.
She said, “When my then husband and I bought a big house in Kew it was meant to be the final piece in the jigsaw puzzle of happiness.
“It looked like everything was happy and secure for the future but at that point I realised I wanted something more out of life.
“I reacted against the whole materialistic culture. Now I don’t even own a suit.”