The Club's Results
Cambridge Winter Head, Mich Term 2023
A timed head race over 2500m, from the Motorway bridge to the (no longer extant) Penny Ferry pub.
Sat 11th November
At the bottom of this page there is a link to Cambridge weather. Club members, please go here to add (or correct) results, crews or race reports.
1st men's VIII, BR S2
2nd
Time: 9:18
Time: 9:18
The second race of the day, and after the shenanigans with Worcester earlier in the day we were moved off head of div by request of some other crews.
Yet again, we had a crew in front (though this time they did concede some sort of racing line, admittedly).
Grr. At least I only started tensing my arm after the White House this race, and so avoided cramps this time. Better?
We changed the gearing, with the aim to rate high and test how it feels. We still died at the white house, when the overtake properly began. 8 lengths down by Ditton corner, and the remaining two lengths take us until just over the line.
Grr. At least I only started tensing my arm after the White House this race, and so avoided cramps this time. Better?
A very frustrating day for M1, that we don't feel accurately represents the strength of this crew. Coming second just reflects how less-entered the BR category is, though I suppose top 50% is still a feat. Time to eat a few sad bananas in the shower, ready to come back both hungrier and less hungry on Monday.
1st men's VIII, Student First VIIIs
12th
Time: 9:22
Time: 9:22
Redacted
In the beginning, Worcester (Ox) randomly started in front of us, having moved from div 4, where they were meant to start behind us in our second race. This made many people very angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad move. What do you do when a crew new to the Cam refuses to concede the racing line at Grassy? In response to some calls, they eventually moved out to the outside once we'd made it a fair bit along the Reach.
We didn't go in expecting to have to row in such bad water for so long. That's our bad. We should have been ready for these circumstances (i.e. bumps in a head race), and we were not. Personally, I would call that the worst bit of rowing in a race I've done since Winter Head two years ago, when I was a novice and still had the breath to sing "Let It Go" during the race, as well as some synchronised grunting in the last 500m. My outside arm cramped hard after the railway bridge, and if that's not the best sign ever that you've been rowing like a muppet all race, I don't know what is.
Sometimes things don't go your way, and you have to adapt, improvise and overcome. We did the improvising part.
We didn't go in expecting to have to row in such bad water for so long. That's our bad. We should have been ready for these circumstances (i.e. bumps in a head race), and we were not. Personally, I would call that the worst bit of rowing in a race I've done since Winter Head two years ago, when I was a novice and still had the breath to sing "Let It Go" during the race, as well as some synchronised grunting in the last 500m. My outside arm cramped hard after the railway bridge, and if that's not the best sign ever that you've been rowing like a muppet all race, I don't know what is.
Sometimes things don't go your way, and you have to adapt, improvise and overcome. We did the improvising part.
Next time, we do it better.
At least we practised overtakes for Fairbairns?
At least we practised overtakes for Fairbairns?
2nd men's VIII, Student Lower VIIIs
6th M2, beat several M1s
Time: 9:40
Time: 9:40
This was the first time we had rowed as a crew and also the first time any of us had been in a senior VIII in nearly a fortnight so we were setup for a good race.
We arrived (roughly) on time but were informed by a marshell everything was running 2omins late. We pushed off and had a good row up to the start. The first burst we did was awful (I was rushy) but by the third we had found our rhythm.
We did our rolling start as expected and built to a sustainable rate 32 which we held for the entire race. We rowed technically and together and every stroke we took length off Sidney M1 who were directly ahead of us. As we came under the railway bridge we managed to overtake them entirely. Given the massive head start they had Luke worked out we had taken 9 lengths off them over the course.
We paddled home in sixes with our heads held high after what we all deemed a successful race. We then realised we were only on average 20 seconds slower than M1 which has made us very hopeful for our Fairbairns race.
1st women's VIII, BR Senior
4th
Time: 10:27
Time: 10:27
Polly's pre-start warning that in no way were we to lose to Homerton with her sister in the boat was communicated however this may not have been heard by the crew however as Homerton was up on us throughout the whole race. After overtaking two crews and Homerton taking the corner a little wide, we put a little distance between us. Ultimately we ended up losing to them which was quite unideal however we did show that we could put up a little fight after not letting them get around us.
The slightly awkward 30s difference between the two results was not unnoticed by Bomber and (I can only imagine for extremely related reasons) we now have 30r20 tests this week so that should be fun...
1st men's novice VIII, Student Lower VIIIs
1st women's VIII, Student First VIIIs
19th
Time: 10:59
Time: 10:59
10:59 first race, 10:27.5 second race
A decidedly unideal day of racing started with a division 1 race which is probably my bad for forgetting w1's aversion to morning outings and assuming this wouldn't transfer into an aversion to morning races. However, we go on. Having lost Hajna the night before, we put it in a decidedly average performance with results reflecting it. We should be better next race.
2nd men's novice VIII, Student Lower VIIIs
Time: 11:30
This was our first race as a FaT crew, so participation was an experience in itself. The decision was made that our coach, Luke, would cox us as it would have been too chaotic to have a novice cox and crew participating alongside all colleges' senior boats given the conditions.
We were happy with the result considering we had had about 2 hours of proper rowing as a team prior to this race. Looking back at the footage, there was a lot that we could have improved, and have subsequently improved: e.g. pacing, timing, technique, general rowing competence. The consensus was that we had a lot more to give, and given the high bar set by NM2 in Mich 2023, we will be working to give a strong performance in Novice Fairbairns at the end of term.
1st women's novice VIII, Student Lower VIIIs
| Cambridge weather: | text or graph |
Links
Full Cambridge Winter Head results archive
Compare these times with all Cambridge Winter Head times in the archive
