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All race reports for Tom Lovering

Event: Clare Novice Regatta 2008 - Cup
Posted as: Tom
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A breathtaking effort from our crew.

After a (very unlikely and rare) crab around the second stroke of the start, Selwyn gained a quick length and a half as we struggled to recover the rhythm, and it quickly became apparent we were going to be rowing without two of our strongest members owing to a seat failure.

A lesser crew would have thrown in the towel, but the remaining six had established a good race pace, and after the first push were gaining on a flagging Selwyn crew. The remainder of the race we were steadily shortening the gap, making at least two seats with every push. If the course had been another 200m I seriously think we would have beaten them.

So it's not the result we wanted, and Selwyn's jubilant celebrations at having beaten 3/4 a crew were bordering on offensive, but it was a stunning performance and a race I'll remember for a long time.

Event: Peter Brandt Sculls 2009 - Novice 1x
Posted as: Tom L
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The race got off to a fairly reasonable start. Tracey was always going to cost me about half a length off the start, and for the first quarter or so of the race I managed to not conceed too much more, but eventually my woeful lack of high rate technique started to take its toll, and two failed attempts to drive the rate up culminated in a fairly nasty crab (and narrow avoidance of capsize) about half way down the course. After recovering quickly the rowing went fairly ok, and I managed to avoid doing any disastrous steering, but at this point it was clear the race was well over.

With illness the week before this race leading to my doing almost no sprint training, and my rather comedy use of a tracer shell and macon blades, this wasn't ever going to be easy, and my sup-8-minute coxy physique being drawn against the rather brawnier eventual winner probably didn't help. All in all however, I thought it was a pretty reasonable first spack, and I'm keen to keep training. Cheers to Emma for stepping in to banksteer me for the first half of the course.

Event: Peter Brandt Sculls 2009 - Novice 1x
Posted as: Tom L
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Malek saw my name on the draw, and, trembling with fear, emailed CUCBC to conceed inevitable defeat...

... or he just wanted to focus on Foster-Fairbairns. Either is plausible.

Event: Champion of the Thames Eights Head 2009 - Men's 4th div. Mays
Posted as: Tom L
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A pretty solid and committed row in very unpleasant conditions. Our time wasn't helped by being blown off course on the start, and my pretty poor line round Ditton (turning right in Richard Church is still a subtle art I have yet to master). I thought the rowing was some of the best we have done to date, with a real sense of the boat being lifted and sent, particularly when we got out of the wind and could get to full compression and square up without having to sacrifice one in favour of the other. Perhaps we went off too hard, but this was probably the injection of power we needed to feel.

Regarding the disappointing result, the concensus is that conditions were so vastly different between divisions for the results not to be reliable, so we should not be too discouraged by being beaten by LMBC 4 and other boats we were expecting to outperform. That said, Caius 3 were in the same division, so while there is no need to be depressed about our result, there is no room for complacency either.

Event: Cambridge 99's Regatta 2009 - 4th and lower division
Posted as: Tom L
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The start felt reasonable, perhaps a little rushed, but after the first 25 strokes, albeit with a little encouragement from feeling Queens blades on bowside clashing continuously for about 25 seconds (and some not particularly pleasant but probably necessary evasive action from me), the rowing disintegrated badly. Catches stopped going in, people stopped tapping down, people forgot to square, dragged themselves up the slide, and the rhythm felt dreadful. It's not particularly surprising therefore that we lost (before the disqualification was given) by the margin we did.

If there's one thing that makes our crew fast, it's technique. It has been pointed out to us by almost all our coaches that (especially when we row in RC) our main problem is a lack of raw power. This is a difficult problem to correct quickly. A much easier problem to correct quickly is to make sure that next time we hit rate 36 for a 1k piece we treat it like rate 26 but faster, and we can then really take advantage of the technique we have been complimented on during outings. That said, as our first piece at rate in a racing shell it wasn't as awful as one could make out, and there was still full committment coming from most of the boat.

As regards the result, it could be argued that the blade clash stressed us out and caused the drop in technique. If so, we have a real psychological issue to overcome before bumps, where equally offputting things will probably happen. Unlucky to Queens who rowed an excellent race, and we didn't enjoy winning it by disqualification.

Event: Cambridge 99's Regatta 2009 - 4th and lower division
Posted as: Tom L
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Hell, this was an exciting race. Comparable to the almost incredible final of Pembroke Regatta last Lent term (before some unfortunate steering resulting in LMBC III being disqualified). Knowing these guys would be ahead of us on day 1 of Mays, this would be an important result.

We had a good start, and managed to build the lead to about a seat and a half by the kink, but both crews were looking fairly even, so as it translated into about 3 seats after the kink it could still have gone either way. We then put in an impressive push and built the lead to approaching a length.

However, our rowing was starting to flag noticeably coming under the railway bridge and with the advantage of the inside corner, Clare Hall put in their killer push to draw back to a position of almost level behind (though with the staggered finish it was difficult to judge the actual margin). It came down to the last ten strokes or so, when we managed to pull a little bit more energy out of the bag and grab the win, but heavens it was close.

Congratulations to Clare Hall on an impressive row. We still have a lot of work to do if we are to bump them on day 1.

Thanks to Liz, Anne, Pedro and Laura for their revision procrastination in supporting from the bank at various times, and to Peter Ford for subbing in at bow.

Event: May Bumps 2009 - Wednesday
Posted as: Tom L
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For our first bumps race in the still fairly unfamiliar shell I thought the rowing was brilliant. There are definitely things we can work on, most notably the bladework into and out of corners and keeping together and relaxed during the recovery (especially coming into the catch), but I do think we should be really quite satisfied with how today's rowing went. The whole crew response to the 'up 2' coming up the reach was magnificent, as we seemed to find half a length in amazingly little time. Let's build on it tomorrow.

Event: May Bumps 2009 - Wednesday
Posted as: Tom L
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Brilliant! From what I hear some incredibly skilful steering through carnage combined with a crew that was prepared to row as hard as possible whatever the circumstances, bump ahead or no bump ahead, added up to one incredible race. Well done guys. After the disappointments of the opening days of M4 in Lents, you really deserve this.

Event: May Bumps 2009 - Thursday
Posted as: Tom L
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So, today in the M4 boat wasn't drastically dissimilar from yesterday. Just more stuff to hit. The corners were improved quite a lot, and we managed to start rather better (taking it to a rate which seemed a little low, and a quick coxbox check revealed was actually 42 - 4 higher than usual), but more importantly we really rowed our own race again with the same level of committment, and unlike day 1 there were more realistic rewards in sight, though they were tough to take, but we really took them. May the stuff to hit keep coming :).

Many thanks to Mark and Kiely for bankpartying us, especially for the really motivational distance calls from Mark (who understands that a gap of 3 lengths and a gap of 5 lengths don't look that dissimilar from the cox's seat).

Event: May Bumps 2009 - Friday
Posted as: Tom L
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Richard's bankside text update: "4th men bumped whilst only 2 lengths off the double overbump". 'Nuff said. There are two exceptionally fast crews in the bottom of the fourth division. We are one of them. Unfortunately, Clare Hall are the other, and today they rowed better than us. Simple.

Event: May Bumps 2009 - Saturday
Posted as: Tom L
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I managed to catch the second half of this race, and it looked like some immensely gutsy rowing given there unfortunately wasn't much up ahead to bump. There was an immense push under the railway bridge which seemed quite impressive from the bank. Just unlucky there wasn't much to hit.

Event: Clare Novice Regatta 2009 - Plate
Posted as: Tom L
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We exist. They don't. Win.

Event: Clare Novice Regatta 2009 - Plate
Posted as: Tom L
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A rather unfortunate draw, coming up against the second novice boat of one of the better college clubs.

Given the disruption to our training from weather conditions and illness, it was a promising first race performance. The start was a bit ropey, and Caius went off pretty hard and took a large chunk of lead in the first 300m or so. However, then having recovered from a couple of minor crabs, the rhythm started to get established and the final two thirds of the course looked very committed and strong, and we did start to make up quite a bit of ground on Caius.

In the end it was too little too late, but some effective rhythm calls from Alex coupled with some formidable committment from the boat certainly looked impressive from the bank towards the end of the race. If we had managed to do the entire race like that, who knows what the result could have been, and it's definitely encouraging as we head towards Fairbairns.

Thanks to Alex for subbing in as coxwain at the last minute and doing a great job, and to Alison and Swords for joining our bankparty.

Event: Clare Novice Regatta 2009 - Cup
Posted as: Tom L
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Yeah buddy!

Event: Novice Fairbairn Cup 2009 - 2nd division
Posted as: Tom L
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YEAH BUDDY! Our decision to rate reasonably low (about 24) with the aim of maintaining length seems to have paid off. Top 4th VIII by quite a margin, and almost embarassing NM3. Brilliant work guys.

Gopal got us into a good rhythm off the start, and the first half of the race went reasonably to plan, with good long strokes still happening into our push out of Chesterton. There was a slightly scary moment outside the P&E where middle 4 seemed to simultaneously crab, perhaps having taken my advice to 'follow the man in front' a little too seriously, but we managed to recover impressively and continue rowing in time with outside 4. With an effective up 2 call from Derek into the final quarter, we stormed across the line.

I'm really proud of this boat, in a way I probably wouldn't quite have been had I not been rowing with you. The feel in that boat was utterly immense - there was a great sense of committment to really working together throughout. It still isn't perfect - there are technical issues, there are timing issues, but you all definitely rose to the occasion it was a real pleasure to be part of this crew for the race. Bring on Lent Bumps :).

Thanks massively to Derek for coxing at the last minute and to Allen, Preeyan and Alison for their support and assistance from the bank. I'll aim to repay the favour tomorrow to Allen and Preeyan if possible, and I hope lots of NM4 will feel the same and turn up to watch.

Event: Lent Bumps 2010 - Thursday
Posted as: Tom L
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Richard has given most of the facts. I'll just reiterate the sentiment that bankpartying you guys for this race was amazing. A couple of unbelievable pushes out of the jaws of defeat to put half a length or so in it again, and staying within station of Emma for basically the whole thing.

If I'd been whistling, there probably would have been one around First Post corner, but it was difficult to judge and Richard is probably more accurate. This is a brilliant crew, with a great spirit, who rowed a gutsy and impressive race. I'm gutted that it didn't translate into a victory today, but I'm sure their day will come, be it in the next couple of days, or in Mays.