The Club's Results

This was the big race of term for FaT, unfortunately the captain forgot to tell anyone about the race so most of the first VIII went home, except Paul, who claims he didn't know term had finished. I don't believe him, I think he has realised it is less effort to not go home.
Fordy was fresh from CUBC training, unfortunately bridge has little bearing on rowing, so this wasn't of much help. He also needed a gentle warm up for his single scull in the next division, and he comfortably beat us on %GMT, despite my best efforts to crash him into every bank when banksteering his single.
Bryn has been enthusiastically trying to encourage the IV to train as much as possible throughout term, bombarding us with endless e-mails suggesting times he would be keen to row, despite this we managed to avoid any overtraining, and believe we were in the best possible shape for this race.
Personally I had trained little, other than my liver, this term, but the others claimed resistance training would be a useful start to next terms work, so I reluctantly agreed to race.
I was glad for the early gentleman's agreement for the corners, with the plan to go hard to Chesterton, then to slacken off down the boat as we reached corners to minimise any steering for Emma.

With the previous IVs rowing by the crew being at best decidedly shaky, we were expecting the race to be an absolute shambles. However we set off at the most unpleasant rate of 30, which soon wound to 31. The finishes were, according to our stroke man, entirely independent of each other, with each of us contributing in our own way to boat speed. The boat was however surprisingly stable, sometimes the riggers didn't hit the water. We were only narrowly beaten by the Women's crew, which we had decided to set off in front of us, not wanting to be overtaken. (Thomas)

As I was planning to claim that my attempt at the fancy dress for this race was "pretending to be someone who can remember how to scull", I wasn't expecting much; my plan had been to get an outing in or two during the week to remind myself what to do with two blades, but the river decided to be frozen for most of the times I fancied going out.

I discovered on the way down that my finishes were, as expected, abysmal if I put any pressure down, but not so bad if I kept the rate high and tapped it along.

After some banter with the two pairs crazy enough to be racing, and a Hughes Hall/Lucy Cavendish mixed eight who kept asking me whether I knew Saulty, I set off in a very wobbly fashion at as high a rate as seemed plausible.
It quickly turned out that having persuaded Tom O'Neill to come along to steer was crucial; I came round half the corners to find myself unable to see anything (including the banks) on the next straight due to the low afternoon sun.
By the white footbridge (designated as halfway) my combination of no fitness and no technique were starting to drag the rate and the speed down, until I realised there was a real possibility of being caught by the Hughes/Lucy eight who had started a minute behind me.
Not relishing the prospect of having to row the last canalised section in their wash, I decided to pick up the pace and hold them as long as I could. It turned out they couldn't sprint very fast, and only went from a (single) length down to 1/4 of a length down from the Emma footbridge to the finish outside Goldie, at which point I conveniently collapsed onto the bank.

Top tip for the day: It turns out returning the three cheers of the crew you've just raced to the line sounds really pathetic on your own, particularly when you run out of breath after two... (Peter)

They definitely got two a canvas, definitely three whistles, maybe even continuous coming past Tit Hall boathouse. (Thomas)

You had a banksteerer??! Surely that's cheating...! (Ulrike)