All race reports for Polly Shorrock
Event: Cambridge Autumn Head 2023 - W8+ 1st Coll
Posted as: Polly Shorrock
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In the famous words of Bomber, ‘going fast is fun’. This is perhaps why our two races at Autumn head were not terribly enjoyable. We managed to battle the mighty Cam, comparable in the strength of its current to Horace’s ‘raging river Aufidus’ (Satires 1.1.23), and make it down the course in the absolutely rapid time of 12:01.4, putting down some insane 2:15 splits throughout (Maddie calling this, as we were gunning it down plough reach with all the vim and vigour we could muster, only made my heart sink down into my chest a little). Nevertheless, we all dug in and pulled away from Magdalene and took chunks out of Peterhouse’s head start on us. Feeling exhausted after our race, but rather elated to hear how well we had done compared to other W1s racing in our category (including Caius!!), some of us were rather hoping that the second race would be cancelled due to lack of a sub. (Un)fortunately, Maraia valiantly stepped in so we could race again. Bomber however, munificent in his mercy, finally allowed us to move the clams to give us a slightly easier time of it the second time around. We raced again and managed to beat our previous time by three seconds. The mentality in the crew was great, and we kept lifting out of the railway bridge as Maddie called for another two percent… and then another two… and then another two after that… I think many of us were questioning how many percent we had left in us by the time we made it to top finish, but everyone gave it everything and we were all incredibly proud of one another. Bomber too was absolutely overflowing with praise, barely able to contain his joy as he gushed ‘that wasn’t too bad, girls.’ Yeah FaT!
