The Club's Results

We started from the upstream station, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that we moved away from Queens' off the start. First Post Reach was the only part of the race where we really attacked.

Through the Gut we were rather messy, but our aggressive start had payed off since we made it further than expected down Plough Reach before I saw our opposition come around Grassy.

Out of Ditton we took a rather frantic rate wind, but had extended our lead sufficiently by this point that it made no difference.

Winning with such a slow time was surprising. I hadn't expected to make it through so some last minute organisation was required for the next race. Thanks to Forbes for stepping up.

Preface: I was thrown somewhat headfirst into the race with a message from Jedge the previous night, explaining that they had unexpectedly smashed the first round of Uni IVs and now needed to win the next round. Calculating that this would give me more pleasure (and I suppose, pain) than a lecture in European Union Law, I gleefully accepted Jedge's offer.

Our start was rapid, high-rate, and meaty, and we held it high for quite some time, clearly moving on St Catherine's in front of us, before settling into a decent rhythm. We had a solid race until we'd come round Grassy Corner, by which point the lactic acid had begun noticeably to affect our rowing. Coming through the Plough Reach we were on the passable side of a shambles, and by Ditton it was clear that we had lost a great deal of the quality we had started with.

Fortunately, with a lot of noise we managed to wrench ourselves up a gear and hit a solid 34/35 as we powered down the reach. As Ed pointed out afterwards, it would have been ideal if we'd gone for 32 more often but actually moved more boat. However, the rate increase mentally stimulated the boat enough to give us a decent push down the Reach, and we hauled ourselves through the finish line with our energy spent. St Catherine's beat us by 9 seconds, but we were substantially faster than the previous day. It was especially pleasing considering that we had done precisely 0 outings in IVs, whereas the boat we were racing had been out in that IV frequently since the beginning of term.

Our best race? Of course not. However, the was a great effort made by everyone in the boat, and hopefully we can take a similar attitude - and then some - into Winter Head and ultimately Fairbairns in December. We were 34 seconds of LMBC in the same race; we will have to do our level best to close that gap come the end of term. Well done to everyone, it was a pleasure to row.

A special thank you to Kristina for some fabulous photos, but more importantly for being our bank party...somewhat surprisingly.