The Club's Results

Race downstream went well. I hit a nice rhythm at a not too aerobic rating owing to the quad-geared blades. I had a small altercation overtaking one guy down the reach but otherwise it went to plan and I got another bloke at Ditton to finish in 10:57 - ahead of my highest expectations and faster than several of the women's VIIIs and all but 2 of the singles!

The second leg began even better and I closed again on the guy in front despite having left a large gap. I caught him at Grassy and tucked into the inside to get past. Alas, I got a bit too keen with a tight line and was unable to hear my bank-steerer's increasingly worried warnings as I plouged into a barge at full pressure. The blade quickly crabbed and when the strokeside rigger too began to disappear under said barge whilst water came over the side, I resigned myself to a quick dip. However, I was somehow able to summon up a little more strength and levered myself back up with the blade under the barge.

It took 20 - 30 seconds to extricate myself from this [sculls don't do sideways very well] and I attempted to restart. Alas, I am not as tough as I used to be and my spirit was rather depleted. A series of getting stuck in on strokeside did nothing to help and a couple of full overheads appeared on the reach as I made hard work of re-catching the bloke I was annihilating before. I realise now that the whole levering thing had knocked the pitch off which was a little unfortunate.

As a result my second leg of 14:05 was one of the slowest recorded by anyone all day and faintly embarassing but at least I got one out of three in the intra-FaT challenge! (Ingers)