The Club's Results

This race, being our first outing of the year, was the real acid test of the revolutionary weight training and "nutrition" programme that we've been following since September.

The first stroke, often cited as the most important of the race, was excellent, fully connected yet remarkably explosive. This, combined with some judicious bow pair tapping between "attention" and "go", gave us a 3/4 length lead. For the second stroke, we pushed for clear water. We drove the heels into the footplate and literally catapulted our stern clear of their bow. By the third stroke, the boat was moving quickly enough that we were able to stride into our "power clean" rhythm at rate 28.

After 20 strokes we had increased our lead to three lengths of clear water, and Natasha called a three stroke push to extend this to "a considerable margin". It felt good, but we heard a passer-by remark that we looked to be "some five lengths" ahead, so we put in another three stroke burn to remove any possible doubt that we were completely dicking on them.

At this stage, it became clear that our lack of aerobic conditioning could cost us in the second half of the race, so we conserved some energy by halving the stroke rate. This wasn't quite enough, so we easied at the railway bridge and allowed the boat to drift across the finishing line, leaving Mordling to flounder in our tsunami. (Tom C)

This was an exciting race for us; Downing achieved "Champs" status last weekend and seem to be the crew to beat. Again we were on the meadows side and started well, but in the second half of the reach they established a solid lead. We came back a bit when the river turned in our favour, but never got within striking distance.

We were pleased with the improvement between the two races, in spite of tired legs, and the result is rather better than last year's sparring.

Thanks are due to Mr Gray for subbing, and to Downing and Magdalene for getting involved. (Tom C)

This was a very windy day. I had previously 4 times with M4b, and I'm pretty sure that the towpath side was favoured, and we were on the windy meadow side. Anyway, we started, and promptly went half a length down, in my opinion due to the wind. Then, Murray Edwards crashed into us. To be fair, they had been told by the marshal "Point your boat into the middle of the river", which does perhaps increase the likelihood of a crash. Anyway, by the time we were separated, we were a length and a bit down. The loss of power on bowside also lead to me being in their wake, so I had to steer out of that, leaving us further back. At this point panic settled in. Our stride took us to a spannerish 38, our second stride took us to a spannerish 39, and a third stride finally allowed us to rate 35, still reasonably spannerishly. We then proceeded through a series of boat stopping gusts until we finally crossed the line about 2 1/2 lengths down.

A disappointing result, however, I'm not reading anything into it. The wind was a large factor, and being crashed into was obviously not ideal too. It's a pity we couldn't have had more races, or better conditions to actually have a useful comparison. (Swords)

We rowed very short, and very rushed, and as a result lost fairly badly. (Swords)

This was the first time Rachel coxed a regatta race and she was certainly excited by it all during the first race!

We had a decent start and seemed to be holding level with King's for at least the first quarter. Unfortunately the race was generally rushed and a little panicked and King's just seemed to be a little more together and slowly opened the gap from just after the kink. (Mark)

we rowed with less rush, and longer, and as such we won. A panicked response to a large Girton push was not ideal though (Swords)

A much better start against Girton, giving us about 1 length within 30 strokes. The catches were sharp and we moved a lot better in that first quarter.

Generally the Reach was quite comfortable, we started to feel the rhythm more than in the first round and we weren't rushing as much into the front end either.

We were about 1+1/2 to 2 lengths up approaching the Railway bridge but then all of a sudden the Girton crew put in an enormous push, visibly eating up the gap between us on every stroke, probably closing by a length in their burst. Credit to the Girton crew for such an attack - it felt like we had nothing to respond to it but it was however all they had after that and we slowly opened up the gap between the bridge and the finish. (Mark)

Much better race. Here we actually hit length. Our start was comparable, despite Magdalene being in a much lighter shell. Once we were up to speed we seemed to cruise faster, and it was nice to row with reasonable length and rhythm. (Swords)

This was the best race we had. The start was the best we'd probably ever performed and the race was unrushed, fluid and manageable. I think the crew would agree that we went faster but with less effort - I certainly didn't feel as exhausted after the race.

The start was slick and we immediately went up in the first 10 or so strokes; a lead which we gradually opened up so that we had a several lengths of clear water at the finish. (Mark)

Possibly our best race. Emma were faster and on the faster side, and in a faster shell, so I feel the result was a little flattering, although they probably slackened off towards the end. It was nice to get into a proper rhythm, and row well, so we could actually get the full magnitude of our turboguns into the water, rather than simply attempting to drench Norfolk.

A good days racing. (Swords)

Having despatched M4 in the previous round we knew Emma were going to be tough.

The start was not as clean as the last, with Emma going up slightly in the first quarter and slowly extending that to 1 length up by the kink. We didn't cope well with the strond wind just after the kink, missing loads of water and the rhythm failing. From that point Emma opened up to about 3 lengths as they crossed the line.

On the whole, an excellent set of races and we improved significantly just in this day of racing so I have high hopes for Bumps! (Mark)