All race reports for Sam Lings

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Event: Head of the Nene 2007 - Novice VIIIs
Posted as: S.J. Lings
Event Link

the first k seemed to go pretty quickly, and then we were gaining on Queens. We were beating them by the time we reached the bridge and had some water between us by about 1.5k left, and then at 500m to go, the spectacular 150m to the line push, followed by a lot of wondering how far was actually left and then finally crossing the line.

A really good race for a scratch crew, and being 3 seconds of Peterhouse, who we are chasing in bumps is promising, because we only had 5 of the guys from M2 racing

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Event: Lent Bumps 2007 - Tuesday
Posted as: S.J. Lings
Event Link

a great first race

the start felt a little messy, but we had it back together by the end of the wind, went fairly hard, although peterhouse got their whistle on sidney before we did, when they got their 2 whistles we executed our race plan - emma called an all out push, and we did roughly what we had planned - 30 strokes, 10 into the corner, 10 coming round the corner and then 10 out of the corner.

some slight personal confusion between the calls harden and hold it up meant I took an unneccesary couple of strokes after they conceded, but eventually we all worked that we had bumped and needed to pull in.

First ever bump for 5 people in the crew - great fun!

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Event: Lent Bumps 2007 - Thursday
Posted as: S.J. Lings
Event Link

good start (even though I missed one of the draw strokes) wound it up high

first whistle just after the stride, big push for the second whistle, kept pushing through, BUMP!

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Event: Lent Bumps 2007 - Saturday
Posted as: S.J. Lings
Event Link

3rd bump in a row before 1st post corner,

the only question that remains now is:
do we get Macons or Cleavers?
(obviously we get crew weights in Imperial because it's more old school and classy)

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Event: City Sprints 2007 - CRA Nv 4+
Posted as: S.J. Lings
Event Link

We did a few practise starts after elizabeth way road bridge, and then we marshalled and raced, we rowed alright, so not a bad effort.

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Event: City Sprints 2007 - CRA Nv 4+
Posted as: S.J. Lings
Event Link

We rowed terribly, but somehow managed to beat them

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Event: City Sprints 2007 - CRA Nv 4+
Posted as: S.J. Lings
Event Link

we rowed terribly, there was a swan, we lost.

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Event: Lent Bumps 2008 - Wednesday
Posted as: Sam Lings
Event Link

A lot more chilled out start, as a result of everybody being ready for the gun, and taking draw strokes in the appropriate manner. Perhaps a little too chilled out, as we didn't get the rate particularly high.

We gained fairly quickly on Queens, getting a canvas called before the exit of grassy, but it took us a while to finally get them, they conceded about 20/30 strokes out of Ditton.

good to see that we can actually sustain that level of work for that length of time,

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Event: Lent Bumps 2008 - Friday
Posted as: Sam Lings
Event Link

We Turned up to marshall to discover that the second women's division hadn't rowed down, and that in fact, the third mens division hadn't started

so we pulled over at the P&E and sat inside to stay warm, saw CCAT finish a gutsy row over to stay head of the third division (and to row as sandwich boat)

when they pulled in, we discovered that they are all giants - even the Cox was bigger than anyone in our boat.

We knew that Homerton in front would bump out, that Pembroke 2 in front of them would bump out, and that Downing 2 in front of them were likely to bump out as well, so our race plan was to go for the triple overbump (perhaps a little ambitious - but at least it gave us something to aim at)

The Draw strokes weren't great, but we got it together on the wind and we rowed pretty well to Ditton, pushing out of corners. After Ditton, we knew that all the crews in front of us had bumped out, so we had nothing to aim for. CCAT were ~5 lengths behind, so nothing to worry about, so the reach wasn't as committed as it could have been, but we rowed over quite a few lengths clear.

CCAT for the division overbump on Maggie 2 tomorrow!

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Event: Lent Bumps 2008 - Tuesday
Posted as: Sam Lings
Event Link

having watched this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1eSydrpr4Y
I think selwyn are justified to feel that their lines cost them this race
obviously this only shows one viewpoint of what was happening, so it's hard to tell what the margins were coming around first post.

Clearly our line is awesome though - thanks Magnus