The Club's Results

Including only Cambridge College eights, we came seventh (eighth including Peterhouse who had entered IM3). Some have claimed that poor weather conditions in our division (rain, wind) could have adversely affected out results.

Overall the race felt pretty solid and provided a platform to improve upon for Fairbairns. (Tim)

A solid performance with a particularly gutsy 1st minute, and stoic push after push up the reach into the head wind. Even with potentially adverse weather conditions, the dominant inter-division variation was one of stream. An upstream lock was open for some divisions, then closed for the rest. All we care about from the results is that, in our division, we were 6 seconds off Downing. That's 6 seconds we certainly intend to take back by Fairbiarn's. If we can paddle away from them, we can certainly race right through them. (Thornton)

M1's first race of term after changing crew order on Thursday promised to be interesting, in particular after deciding to start off between Tit Hall and Maggie.

After some impressive roll-ups and some nice basking in the sunshine in the queue to marshalling, we set off down First Post Reach at a nice, loose rhythm, steadily gaining on Tit Hall ahead of us. Staying sharp round the corners we pushed out of them nicely, gaining boat speed down the Gut and Plough Reach.

And then we heard Maggie behind us as we came onto the Reach. Individual decisions were made to take one for the team and push individually. A concerted move coming past the Kink pushed them away, but they were quick to respond. Off the Railway Bridge we managed to regain some rhythm and hold them off, but it was evident that we had lost the focus on rowing neatly and together and were just desperately trying to get rid of them. This unfortunately culminated in an exciting side-by-side race to the finish line.

A good race experience, we walk away from it knowing that we must be and stay more impassive and composed, that it's about us, not them. (Penelope)

We won?!?! (Thomas)

3 seconds... (M-C. Chung)

Training plan called for technical pairs work. (Dan)

Marcus Aurelius raced the Winter Head. This was not it.

Putting in-jokes to one side for the moment, this was ok but nothing to write home about. We need to do some work at high rates. (BJ)

Result shows we might not be so far off the pace as we'd perhaps feared, which gives us a good base to work on between now and Fairbairns. We (and Mr Darley on the bank) felt the rating off the start was a tad comfortable, though as it turns out we made it to the first timing point fastest bar one crew. Being slightly less refined in the windy conditions on the reach meant we gave most of this advantage back. (Andy)

A slightly disappointing row, lacking the aggression of last year, although the slow time is due partly to a nasty head wind in the second half. I'd like to think that the 1k times are more representative when comparing crews in different divisions, apparently it was calmer in the morning.

It's encouraging that we weren't soundly beaten, as in the autumn head, and this must be our smallest margin of defeat in this race for a number of years. But the likes of Jesus will be a lot better than the opposition here, so the foot won't be coming off the gas in the next couple of weeks, not even slightly. (Tom C)

Forget 2nd on the day of 130-some-odd VIII's -- we were 2nd of 2 in the race that mattered, and so have our work cut out for us over the next couple weeks. (James)

We rowed very hard, and earned our victory over the sporting colleges. Caius however have done 10 times as many outings as anyone else, and so are going to look very silly when they don't win Fairbairns. (Tom C)

At first we were told 'things are running a little late'. Well surprise, sur-bloody-prise. So we sat just by the barges before Chesterton and waited...and waited...and waited...and, you've guessed it, we waited. In fact we waited so long that we all grew very old and sported comic waist length grey beards and excessive wrinkles (apart from the ever-youthful Dan Jane). Even Honey was sporting some facial hair if you looked close enough.

As a scratch crew, any expectations seemed either low or miss-placed. We rowed down like legends though, having to easy hundreds of times because we were just too fast for the other crews rowing down. They were all 10 year old school boys in old wooden boats but who's counting?

During marshalling we waited some more whilst Honey checked out the plethora of toddlers in the schoolboy boats; spotting who would be 'fit' upon coming of age. Some people call this paedophilia.

The race went well. At a relaxed 30 we strode the course magnificently and alighted at the boat house having done a good job.

Report submitted by Dan 'rhythm of a black man' Newton. Apologies for any smelling mistakes. (Dan Newton)

Felt quite good from in the boat, considering we had 2 subs. Rating somewhere around 35 off the start and dropping down to around 33 we had a nice row albeit with slightly dodgy finishes.
And we beat Maggie. With Macons. Unfortunately, we let Caius , Emma and Churchill beat us. (Matt)

The 1st VIII were pleased with their committed, strong row, despite the few outings so far and me having to sub for Hugh. For a crew who have their sights firmly set on winning the Fairbairns cup the result is slightly disappointing, but it will strengthen their resolve to work hard to close the gap on Caius for 3 weeks time. (Martin)

The 1st men's selection squad raced in an eight, twice. The first race was considerably faster than the second. They were the 4th fastest college crew, with most of the major players for Fairbairns competing. With Maris back in, and a settled crew, they should be in a position to challenge Emmanuel for the top spot in Fairbairns. (Dubya)

slower by 8s than the first row 

It's always the Captain who catches the crabs and this, our first race in the VIII of the year, produced the first crab of my rowing career! Well, two in fact - overhead monsters 2 or 3 strokes beyond the start line. How embarrassing. The race itself was pretty sweet. We sat at 34 solidly - moving well and raising it well for the end, utterly storming past the P&E. Felt good. (Martin)

The best bit of the day without doubt was bumping into Martin in the cloisters just after he'd got the results, and realising that we'd beaten all the other colleges... a real high.
The race had been solid - well, except for Martin's double crab at the outfall which gave Soph and I the giggles for a couple of seconds. (Simon)

To be honest, we thought we'd win it easily, so I rate capped the race to 32. Basically we didn't go for it and almost lost. (Matt)