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All race reports for Richard Sworder

Event: Novice Fairbairn Cup 2008 - 2nd division
Posted as: Swords
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When I arrived at the boathouse, I have to admit to perhaps more than a touch of trepidation. The wind was quite literally howling, the rain was decidedly horizontal, and the cold was just unreal. However, we had trained hard for this race, so amid many cries of "man up" we got the boat out and got ready. We were to set off behind an Emma 1 crew, however we left a reasonably large gap to prevent any need for tricky overtaking manouveres. Finally, after what seemed an age sat in the freezing cold, we heard the "First and Third, Attention, Go" and we were off. Our pace round the first few hundred metres seemed good, and our boat felt flat and fast. The power stayed on all the way to Chesterton, at which point Tom, our coach, finally caught us up, having had to delay a scant few seconds to pack up our coats to cycle them to the finish. From here on in, with our bank party urging us on, we seemed to only get flatter, more powerful and faster. At about the railway bridge some people in our boat started hearing the Emma bank party up ahead, and as we realised that we could, potentially, catch them we entered into a desperate sprint for the line, all thoughts of tiredness rapidly forgotton. With the Emma boat still a few seats ahead, and only a couple of hundred metres remaining, one of their men crabbed, causing them to veer madly in our direction, and only some sharp bladework by strokeside, and some equally deft coxing averted disaster, and then we were over the line. As we finished everybody took stock, and realised how much we had put into the race. Many people cramped up as soon as the adrenaline subsided, and Gunnar had successfully managed to start, grow, and burst a blister, without even realising. All in all it was an extremely enjoyable row, in challenging conditions, and we feel that we have achieved a result to be proud of.

Event: Robinson Head 2009 - 1st division
Posted as: Swords
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A solid row, however there are huge improvements which can be made. The power was largely good, but inconsistant, and the quality of rowing was quite variable. However we held off Magdalene M2, and when we were sat properly we were pulling away from them. Plenty of training over the next two weeks, then watch this space for bumps :)

Event: Lent Bumps 2009 - Tuesday
Posted as: Swords
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Start was okay, some minor spacking, however from where I was sat it felt more due to the wash than us. We were holding Magdalene II at about a length, having lost half a length of the start, and had lost perhaps a few feet on Clare II ahead of us. About a minute odd in, Clare II hit Fitz II, and then proceeded to demonstrate incompetence on an immense scale, ending up diagonally across the river, leaving a very dubious gap for us to attempt to steer through. Hans elected to hold it up for safety reasons, and we were hit by Magdalene II. The umpires thought there was enough gap for us to go through, so we weren't awarded a technical row-over. The crew is pretty angry at Clare II for getting in the way, but hopefully we'll be able to recover our position over the next few days.

Event: Lent Bumps 2009 - Friday
Posted as: Swords
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I once heard that a draw was a dull result. A row over being the bumps equivalent, I think we can safely say that it is perfectly possible to have interesting draws... We went off hard, in the vague hope of hitting Peterhouse II before Fitz II crashed into them from the front, however that was a little optimistic, as a result of our fast start Cauis II started to gain on us. By grassy I'm pretty sure they were on three whistles, and going for a bumps push, however a massive push from us held them off, just. We were under pressure down plough reach, and they started another bumps push... We were slower to respond this time, and they gained an overlap, and steered for the bump. A last ditch push, some nifty coxing, and no small amount of luck in the timing of our drive led to them missing our stern by what seemed a ridiculously minimal margin just around Ditton, and they ended up overlapped on the outside of us. At this point they paid for their two bumps pushes, and a minor crab by their stroke left them briefly in sixes and completely out of phase. Seeing that we had the temporary advantage, we decided to put some clear water in, and went for some hefty strokes down the top of the reach, and produced some of our best rowing, considering how tired we were. We pulled away a reasonable distance, and then it was simply a sprint to the line. We held them off all the way, despite them gaining on us all the way. Crossing the line ended what was certainly the most satisfying piece of rowing I've been in, with a sense of elation to be off the down escalator. Massive credit to the crew for producing such a committed row despite being down two, and huge thanks to Hans for successfully keeping us in it with some pinpoint coxing, and thanks to our bank party for support despite all seeming lost at more than one occasion... Keen for tomorrow, very keen indeed... :)

Event: Lent Bumps 2009 - Saturday
Posted as: Swords
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Well, it's 01:16, and my gardies was good... Anyways, I seem to have developed a tendency for verbose race reports, so I'd hate to disappoint. We were pretty quick off the start, but nothing special, however we got our first whistle after Motorway bridge. It then seemed an age until we got the second, and I must admit, I have no idea when that happened, however the third seemed pretty quick after that. Then, I was personally boosted by cries of "4 feet... 2 feet... 1 foot" from the bank, and after a look, I realised that the stern of Fitz II was within an easy arms length of my spot in the bows. At the next finish, I lent out, trying to catch their bows, bows, however half way through this movement, I felt an almighty shudder, as we crashed into their 7 man's rigger, due to some more nifty coxing from Hans. Mass celebration ensued, as we finally got the bump we felt we deserved. We had initially hoped to mount a positive bumps campaign, however I'd like to reference the report from jij 2 days ago, in that I have certainly left this particular week a better rower, and I can be pretty sure that the same is true for the rest of our boat. Massive thanks to all who coached us and let us have a respectable go at the Lents 2009, it was quite a giggle.

Event: Cambridge Head-2-Head 2009 - Lower VIIIs
Posted as: Swords
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Encouragingly, we were comfortably faster than the boat chasing us in bumps. Less usefully, the boat ahead of us was faster than us, but hopefully we'll be able to change that. We had several factors which made this race quite challenging for us. Firstly, we weren't in our actual boat, as Richard Church was being repaired at the time, and secondly we had only had 3 outings as a crew before the race. As for the race itself, we set off, and wound to a rate which felt comfortable-ish, however at this point the cox box ratemeter broke. We settled, and then proceeded to row relatively mediocrely to the lock. Then proceeded perhaps the most entertaining bit of the race, as we almost succeeded in sending a Girton crew over the weir, but tragically they avoided this fate. The row back was similar, with a particularly bad bit into the headwind down the reach, however we then heard a crew ahead of us, picked up a bit, and over took them under the railway bridge. Pity it was a veteran mixed crew, but hey. All in all, not terribly fast, but probably hugely useful for our bumps campaign.

Event: Champion of the Thames Eights Head 2009 - Men's 4th div. Mays
Posted as: Swords
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Firstly, I've had a complaint about lack of paragraph use in my race reports, I'll endeavour to improve.
Anyway, on to the race. As a precursor we recently had an outing in which we were described as rowing very prettily, but with little power, so our focus was to really gun it safe in the knowledge that the course was only about 1.3km long. Our practice start and the paddling up seemed encouragingly powerful and fast, so at spinning we were confident of a solid result...
The race started with a pretty smooth effective start, followed by a wind to what I believe was about 39, but I may be wrong here, however it didn't feel too rushed, and we thought we had set off well. The situation changed rapidly around Ditton corner, as we turned into what amounted to an utterly epic headwind, and rapidly lost boatspeed. The loss of boatspeed led to a more unsettled section of rowing, with people (notably myself) struggling for length as our slide was resisted by the wind. This culminated about halfway down with a minor crab as the wind caught my blade in the middle of attempted feathering, leading to a mistimed catch and crab. I also learnt after the race that at one point the wind moved Aaron's blade so much he lost hold of it with his outside hand.
Anyway, we continued down the the railway bridge, and got back into the wind shadow. Having got out of the conditions, the rowing rapidly picked up, and we appeared to pick boatspeed up quickly, and finish reasonably strongly.
To conclude, it was a disappointing result, as we were beaten by the boat chasing us in bumps, however the weather reports indicate we rowed in about 50% greater windspeed, so not altogether calamitous. The technical ability seemed to be largely there, need to work on the guns though...

Event: Cambridge 99's Regatta 2009 - 4th and lower division
Posted as: Swords
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Racing against queens' M3 was always going to be tough, however we were significantly boosted by a change in the draw which meant we were allowed to use a shell rather than Richard Church. We set off and were about a seat down after about 30 seconds, and on our line. At this point Queens' veered into us, and there was a blade clash, in our water. This resulted in a loss of power on bowside, as we couldn't get our catches in as their blades were in the way, and Tom had to go for left rudder to keep us straight, further slowing us. We then disengaged, and rowed on, however this had largely wrecked our already pretty poor rhythm, so our pushes were a bit ineffective, and we crossed the line about a length and a half down. However we soon learnt that Queens' were disqualified, so were back up again in the final. A bit disappointing to have won in contentious circumstances, but not a bad effort seeing as we had done 1 start in a shell, and only one burst at greater than 28 before the race started.

Event: Cambridge 99's Regatta 2009 - 4th and lower division
Posted as: Swords
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This race started far more effectively than the last, perhaps unsurprisingly as we had now rowed at least a kilometre at rate. We went a seat up pretty quickly, and then gradually took about half a length out of them. We sat at about that until near the railway bridge where they pushed, and gained on us, however we still had a counter push left in us, and emptied the tanks to hold them behind us up to the line to record a victory. The race was still a bit scrappy, however the power and commitment is very much there, particularly when this was the crew we will be chasing in bumps. On that front it was disappointing not to beat them by more, giving us confidence for bumps, but hopefully with more training we can do something about that.

Event: May Bumps 2009 - Wednesday
Posted as: Swords
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All the talk before the race was about overbumping a truly awful Jesus IV crew 3 stations up on us. However, we were foiled by the extent of their awfulness, they got bumped somewhere on First Post reach, near the Motorway bridge if I remember correctly. This left us chasing Clare Hall M1.

Anyway, to start from the beginning, our start was okay, not as good as we can do, however we were still up to one whistle after about 20 or so strokes. At this point TJ's seat blew up at seven, so he spent about 5 strokes fixing that, then rejoined us. This unfortunately killed any momentum we had out of the start, and pretty soon they were back out to station.

We continued on, pretty much just sitting on station on them, however were rowing really pretty badly by our standards, until we had completed the corners. When we arrived at the reach Tom called a push, and as a boat we seemed to find some form, and actually start rowing properly, and pulled them back to around 3/4 of a length at one point, however it was all too late and we crossed the line about a length behind them.

All in all a pretty disappointing row, however there was one massive bonus. We had the amusing sight of watching Maggie 4 coming round grassy when we were somewhere near the Plough. By the end we had about 6-7 lengths on them...

Event: May Bumps 2009 - Thursday
Posted as: Swords
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Well, this was fun. On the way to marshalling I spotted a friend of mine in the Corpus II stroke seat, so I told him we were going to overbump him. I imagine he thought I was joking...

Anyway, the race progressed as planned, with Clare Hall hitting Jesus very early. After some minor issues with clearing easily navigated by Tom we settled into the task of catching Corpus II. The rowing was pretty good at the start, however drinking too much water before the race started to tell it's toll on me, as I was retching pretty hard. Jij also took an interesting take on cornering by airstroking merrily round First Post. However down Plough reach our rowing, although not pretty, was just more powerful than Corpus, and 4 lengths became 3, then a slightly wide line from Corpus added to an up 2 call from Tom took that to 2 lengths. At this point they fell apart completely, and when we got a whistle it was a done deal.

The next few whistles came mercifully quickly, and we hit them somewhere before the railway bridge.

All in all, not our usual exhibition pretty rowing, however it seemed to work. Tomorrow we'll have to row well to stay away from Clare Hall until we either row over or hit something ahead of us. All that remains to be said, is yeah buddy :)

Event: May Bumps 2009 - Friday
Posted as: Swords
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Well, this was hardly ideal. 2 pretty average practice starts, and a complete absence of the usual M4 pretty paddling didn't exactly bode well for today's race, and it seemed that most people's heads were in the Clare Hall boat rather than our own.

We were pretty slow off the start, and Clare Hall rapidly gained the first whistle on us. We failed to make any serious impression on the Pembroke III crew ahead of us, and they bumped Trinity Hall III at some point near first post if I remember correctly. We continued on with us periodically pulling away from Clare Hall when we decided to row, and them gaining on us when we spacked about. At some points they got to about half a length off, but we held them off reasonably until the reach. Here we actually rowed alright-ish, however unfortunately, so did they, and push and counter push lead to them being a canvas off. We then held them there for pretty much the entirety of the reach before a massive push on their part led to us going down just before the railway bridge.

When we finished it transpired that we were two lengths off a double overbump, so it is ultimately frustrating that on the one day when we had a real chance to do some serious damage we elected to produce some of our most awful rowing. A failure to concentrate on our rowing really cost us today, hopefully it won't happen to anybody in this crew again.

Event: May Bumps 2009 - Saturday
Posted as: Swords
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This row was symptomatic of our crew, and the bumps we have had. We set of at a relatively calm 42 odd, settled to a chunky 38, and then everybody else in front of us bumped out. We were left chasing a triple overbump, and despite the fact that we had planned to chase it, a triple overbump was possibly a touch optimistic. We still took about 10-11 lengths off it, which over 2.5K is reasonably massive.

It is a great pity that we didn't produce today's row yesterday and escape from Clare Hall, and probably double overbumpe St Catz III, but these things happen. In all, our bumps was pretty quick, however a combination of unfortunate starting position, and never finishing a race before the kink in the reach led to what many will agree was a disappointing final result. This years plan is therefore to get massive, and then come back and destroy everybody. Yeah Buddy

Event: University IVs 2009 - 1st division
Posted as: Swords
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Firstly, I felt the need to add the "easily" to the end of the report, because it amused me. Anyways, as for the race, we were dropped a touch of the start, Aaron reckons about a seat, but a solid settle to about 34 led to us creeping back to about level by the kink, maybe a touch up. At this point I called our first push (I think, to be honest I can't really remember), and they dropped away rapidly. By the railway bridge we had clear water, which enabled me to cut shamelessly across their line and head straight for home. They kept on dropping back, and sat at about 3-4 lengths back up until the line. The really noticeable thing about this race was the effectiveness of our rowing, there were only a few strokes that I pinged as being a bit crap, and they happened when we were well up, when I can forgive the girls for not really pushing :). I was also enormously impressed by the commitment through the first two thirds, which enabled us to ensure that the race was as good as won by just beyond the railway bridge. All in all, a pretty good row, maybe a touch more speed and togetherness off the start needed, but other than that, an excellent result :)

Event: University IVs 2009 - 1st division
Posted as: Swords
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To be honest, they were quicker than us, much as it pains me to admit it :-) They had taken about a length out in the start, not helped by a minor voyage to the meadow side on my part, pushed out to about 2 lengths by the railway bridge, at which point a last ditch push held them until about the P&E when we kind of died. Oh well. Their second IV was medium to very spactastic so had we chosen to race in the second division we'd have done better, but there'd have been less point in that. I certainly gained some much needed race practice and we probably learnt a lot from racing the best women's IV on the river. Still, as an eight we're looking fast for Fairbairn's. Turbokeen.

Event: Cambridge Winter Head 2009 - Student Senior VIIIs
Posted as: Swords
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Well, we lost out on winning by 2 seconds. Damn. However there are a lot of positives to be brought from this. Firstly, there were probably that many seconds to be had simply by me taking a decent line occasionally. Apparently you don't just aim for the kink off Ditton, and First Post corner was a minor voyage of discovery.
However the other eight people in the boat seemed to be really fairly effective. We did pretty well despite our stated aim being to row it mostly like the first half of a Fairbairn's race, and I certainly felt that we could have carried on for a fair while longer. It may take a while to convince the girls of that however :). The rowing felt sustainable, and the technical improvements we've been making recently seemed to largely stick. Judging by the split at 1000m we seemed to go off faster than most other people, and then it would appear that Christ's were a lot faster than us over the last 1000 odd metres, however I don't feel that we "blew up" at all. Maybe we should have gone for it a bit harder in the 3rd quarter. Anyway, we've got some 5K pieces over the lock tomorrow, so it'll be good to see what happens when we try the Liz Hill, "Let's do Fairbairn's at 40" plan. It think it'd be fun, but then I would wouldn't I...

Event: Clare Novice Regatta 2009 - 3rd Mens Novice VIII
Posted as: Swords
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A major lesson in never giving up. Christ's were about 1/2 a length up under the railway bridge, then a boat stopping crab drew us level, and a minor crab left us able to squeak ahead a make it to the line. By God it was close though.

Epic race boys.

Event: Clare Novice Regatta 2009 - Cup
Posted as: Swords
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A good race from NM2. We were beaten by a bunch of rate-hounds, who took a large amount out of us at the start, then blew up, but we didn't have the pace to catch them. Take the start out of the equation, and increase the distance (i.e Fairbairn's) and we'll destroy them.

A good days racing, hope the boys (+ Katie!) had fun.

Event: Clare Novice Regatta 2009 - 1st division
Posted as: Swords
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You can row like dickheads and win Clare novices. You can't row like dickheads and win Fairbairn's.

It's 2:39, and that is about as deep as my analysis goes. I look forwards to seeing your result in Fairbairn's. Good luck :)

Event: Novice Fairbairn Cup 2009 - 1st division
Posted as: Swords
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First section was good, the plan was to really start moving from the combined boathouses, and back the stream to ensure that we didn't blow up. Boat speed was good, rhythm was well maintained, and it looked committed until the P&E. There my perhaps over optimistic plan came unstuck, and we caught some crabs, and boat speed took until the railway bridge to really recover. However, the last section of the race felt fast and powerful, so all in all a good row. The guys can be proud of a high performance as a second VII, particularly considering how unfortunate we've been with getting outings out/yellow flags etc.

Event: Fairbairn Cup 2009 - Senior VIIIs
Posted as: Swords
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What's the point in merely winning when you can win by around 25s and let everybody know that if they want to get anywhere near FaT, they have one hell of a job?

In all seriousness, this term started pretty badly for me from a rowing perspective. An intention to trial was destroyed by a shoulder injury, and as a result I decided to cox because the women had nobody, and I wanted something to do. Well, what a crew I was allowed to cox. Yesterday's race was just incredible. The technical focus was excellent, but what really stands out in my opinion was the drive an desire. Down first post each the pain levels were incredible, I could see it on people's faces, but every up 2 call was committed and strong, and the girls had the guts to go over the line at about 36, having then done most of first post at 34. Yesterday the girls put themselves through hell to win, and they have come out the other side with a massive result they fully deserve. There's not that much to say really, when you've won by 25s.

Actually that's a lie. We would have won by 30 seconds, had I realised that you have to use your rudder at some point round Chesterton. My line was appalling, so much so, that my admission of guilt needs preserving for posterity. It was turbogash, I nearly crashed. Everything else though, awesome :)

Event: Fairbairn Cup - IVs 2009 - College IVs
Posted as: Swords
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Well, this was a scratch crew, who had done no training in a IV since Uni IVs. I went down the course largely thinking "somebody else will have trained for this, and they'll beat us", and as such I was perhaps less aggressive with rate demands as I could have been, and hence we slightly underrated the course. But we still won, so that was okay in my opinion :). As has been said, this is not as massive a result as the VIII, however the fact that FaT can rock up and win the IVs, and the 2nd IVs, by accident says a lot for the strength of this squad. Very much looking forward to next term :)

Coincidentally, CUW. Lol.

Event: Fairbairn Cup - IVs 2009 - College IVs
Posted as: Swords
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^^^ and they still won. Blazed!!!

Event: Cambridge Head-2-Head 2010 - 1st division
Posted as: Swords
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There was no competition in our category, which was a bit of a pity, however we still set off intending to do ourselves proud with a good row, and bearing in mind that this was a scratch IV, I think we achieved that. It was scrappy at times, but good at others, and when the power and technique were there it felt fast. All in all I'm pretty pleased with that, nearly overtook a men's IV which started 2 places in front of us, which was slightly amusing, but other than that we were too far away from any serious opposition to tell how fast we actually were. Oh well.

Event: Robinson Head 2010 - 2nd division
Posted as: Swords
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We set out in the race with the stated aim of learning to push exceptionally hard. As such we rowed pretty badly, however we pushed quite hard and won. This heartens me greatly, as we've been in this crew for three outings now, so hopefully technical changes will come thick and fast, and adding a bit more finesse to our new commitment to pushing very hard all the time will move some boat pretty quickly. With three odd weeks to go until bumps I believe that the changes we make allied with a greater commitment to really making every stroke count will make us a force to be reckoned with come day 1.

Event: Pembroke Regatta 2010 - 2nd division
Posted as: Swords
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Reasonable start, reasonable rhythm, reasonable pressure. If we actually row, and make sure we put our blades in at the catch we will go a lot faster.

Event: Pembroke Regatta 2010 - 2nd division
Posted as: Swords
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A panicked row left us about a length down by the railway bridge. Then Emmanuel caught a boat stopping crab and we rowed through them.

Event: Pembroke Regatta 2010 - 2nd division
Posted as: Swords
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Our best row of the day. A reasonable start saw us up, and we produced some of our more relaxed rowing, and as such moved up confidently. I don't know what the margin was, but I'm pretty sure it was clear water, and the crew can be happy with this row. Still more to be done to ensure that the blade goes in at frontstops, not half slide.

Event: Pembroke Regatta 2010 - 2nd division
Posted as: Swords
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A less good row. A loss of strokeside connection on the start saw two blades pop out, and we veered massively. After we were straight and racing again we were perhaps 3/4 of a length down, and we then produced a period of really quite panicked rowing. However when we were rowing better we were gaining, but soon slipped back into short panicked stuff. A lot more calm and a few fewer pips may well have seen us win this race.

Event: Lent Bumps 2010 - Tuesday
Posted as: Swords
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A first bumps race for most of the crew, and a first for me as a cox, and it wasn't exactly ideal from a weather perspective. Snow and a large stream led to some "issues" at the start. We got pushed off, and due to an excess of hats, I was struggling to hear the countdown and to keep us straight. As a result I forgot to tell people to square up and the gun went off with us pointing quite left, and not everybody square. Anyway, we set off, had a bit of a voyage to strokeside, picked it up well and rebuilt from there. I extended the wind to recover speed, and when we lengthened it was looking pretty good. The surge felt powerful and we were set up for a really nice race. Then we hit Darwin. Not much to say really about a race which finishes before the motorway bridge. All I can say is bring on Lucy Cavendish on Thursday :)

Event: Lent Bumps 2010 - Wednesday
Posted as: Swords
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Trivial. And you lost me a pint :(. Oh well, well done :).

Event: Lent Bumps 2010 - Wednesday
Posted as: Swords
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Saw you from Ditton, looked strong, good to see you finished so clear!

Event: Lent Bumps 2010 - Thursday
Posted as: Swords
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We knew Lucy Cavendish were going to be pretty quick, the question was whether we were faster. The answer was no. Oh well. Clare II bumped Darwin pretty easily behind us, then we were probably only just outside station (hard to see from the coxes seat) on Ditton, then they rowed away from us. They'll hit Caius II tomorrow easily, so we'll be rowing away from Clare II.

Event: Lent Bumps 2010 - Friday
Posted as: Swords
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This was quite a race. We knew that Lucy Cavendish were quick, and would hit Caius quickly. We also knew that Clare II had a fast start and were likely to fade.

Anyway, we set off, straight-ish, and settled a bit high, so we re-surged to a better rate. Predictably Caius got hit near the Motorway bridge, however they then cleared in front of me, leading to a massive swerve across the river, possibly costing us a bit of speed and rhythm. Clare II were getting whistles behind us, however I was unconcerned, as we reckoned they were going for a sprint plan. Coming int first post the Whistles started to get more insistent, however I stil thought they were about to die. Then we hit a bit of wind onto Plough Reach, leading to a massive voyage of discovery, and I look out to my left in order to get a better view of my new line, only to see the Clare II bow girl. Oops.

Anyway, at this point I heard Iain shout "May be a good time to call a push", and I can't say that I disagreed, so I did. Much quoting of 300 ensued (Give them nothing... Go), and we pushed out to a bit of clear water. They then returned to overlap, with their bowball possibly within touching distance for me, and we did the same again. A wide line (deliberate this time) put me in the middle of the reach, giving us a bit of lateral space, to buy some time. Another massive lift pushed them back a touch, and a combination of the headwind and us moving away a bit seemed to finish them off. That was extraordinarily close.

Event: Lent Bumps 2010 - Saturday
Posted as: Swords
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A brief row to the motorway bridge resulting in a quick bump. Up 2 for the week is a touch disappointing, however a failure to blade has far more to do with the way results fell in front of us in my opinion. Oh well, that's just the way with bumps.

However despite performing a bit worse than we had hoped, I feel that the experience gained this week will be hugely useful later on. In years to come, some of these girls are going to be rowing in 1st crews, and may well have to defend our shiny new headship from those nasty people at Downing, or whoever ends up chasing them. The row over in front of Clare II will hopefully have given the girls some belief that they can really push through the pain barrier, and that it's not over until contact is made.

Event: Women's Head of the River Race 2010 - Novice VIIIs
Posted as: Swords
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Hmm... I think it would be fair to say we were somewhat overawed by tideway, but then that's why we did it. Hopefully next time we go, we won't. I for one spent most of my time thinking "there are a lot of crews here" rather than coxing properly, and as such while my lines may have been okay (I think), my coxing was gash. I get the impression that a lot of people in the crew thought something along the lines of "this is a twenty + minute race, I'm going to save something for the end", and as such the commitment to moving fast before Hammersmith wasn't there. Again, probably my fault for a failure to insist upon proper pressure up to that point.

Having said that, I think that this week we have produced some very good pieces in training, and although we didn't produce on the day, we can take that experience forwards to next year. There are 6? people in this crew around next year, and that is valuable for next year. And even though I believe we could have been faster, we still went up 20 odd from our start position.

Finally, this was our final race as W2, and as a note to the girls, you have been awesome to cox. The progress you've made has been epic, and the commitment to training has been really great. So perhaps bumps didn't go our way, and we didn't really train for WeHorr, but there has been a lot positive from this term, and I hope to see you all again in a boat next term/year :).

edit: Times at Barnes and Hammersmith indicate we were 265th then 260th then finished 258th. The fact that we were faster over later sections indicates to me that we set off too gently. Or that may be due to other crews blowing up. Oh well.

Event: Champion of the Thames Eights Head 2010 - Men's 5th Div Mays
Posted as: Swords
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With Ironman at two we were always going to struggle, as his suit design is optimized for combat rather than rowing. Were he to deploy the fullest extent of his mechanically assisted turboguns we would have skewed of the start until his rigger detached company with the boat. As such he was forced to row light pressure for the length of the course, perhaps explaining our slow time. However all was not bad, we beat quite a few women, which as a men's 5th crew has to be our primary aim.

In all seriousness, a bit more rhythm, and more pressure through the early stages of the race would have seen us hold the crews around us far more effectively. I'm confident the crew can get the job done come bumps.

Event: Champion of the Thames Eights Head 2010 - Women's 1st Div. Mays
Posted as: Swords
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Unfortunately none of the interesting crews were near us during marshalling, or they may have been more distracted by the lengthy discussions relating to the similarities between myself and a spaniel. They will have no such defence in bumps, and we all know they cannot resist the immensity of my turbochat.

Anyway, as for the race. We've spent a long time working on rhythm, and as such that was much improved, which was good. I did however feel that the commitment to simply hammering the boat forwards during the drive was less there, perhaps due to people being more focussed on the approach to the catch.

We have 15 seconds until we are the fastest. We also have the girls in the crew to do that, and we have the time in which to get that speed. I have 100% belief that this crew will get it done.