The Club's Results

Having been rather ill for the past week, I was happy to be back in a yellow boat for the first time since Monday, even if I was doomed only to be racing once as I was still recovering. The rest of the crew had already raced, and weren't entirely pleased with how it had gone. It hadn't been smooth, and we'd lost to Peterhouse by 10 seconds. We set off first in our division, ahead of a 4- filled with ominous all-in-ones from various universities, and stayed at rate 36 off the start, before settling into 32-33. We stayed at sub-1:40 splits for a surprising length of time - though the Gut did put an end to that. Plough Reach was smooth, controlled and almost pleasant. The Long Reach was quite bad. The wind had picked up from the morning, and it was immensely scrappy rowing along it. Calls of 'get below 2-minute splits boys' were not quite as encouraging to the heart as they were to the legs. We made it through eventually, seeing the four close some distance as we did. The drive home to Green Dragon was again far smoother than I'd have expected, and we finished in exhaustion. All smiles, nevertheless, as the rowing felt significantly better than the first race according to those who were there, despite the time being slower. I blame the wind for the loss of this impromptu seat race. (Thomas Frith)

After our first race (in div 1), we were back at the boathouse and inside by 9am. A quick crew shower, and only Csongi and I remained, while everyone else left to do work. Csongi ate food and napped on the changing room benches. I ate food. Six bananas, a block of halloumi and a packet of crumpets (Warburtons, not Sainsburys' own as they had run out when I went for supplies). Looking over the stats from div 1 was fairly nice - showing progress from Autumn Head (beaten by City M1 by 40 seconds, rather than by over a minute) and also beating other M1s (Christ's and Robinson aren't massively big names, but after spooning in Mays and losing stern pair, a win is a win).

Our warm-up was not awful. Our getting-the-boat-out was awful. We spent so long at shoulders waiting for other boats on the region outside the boathouse (the "hard", so I am told) to move that we ended up reracking 805 to save our shoulders - at least, all bar Krisztian's. Paddling down was slow and smoother than I had expected, with the highlight being overtaking a Jesus IV. By Tesco bridge (the white wingéd bridge) we hit a queue. Such joy! As we drifted along, we chatted to the Jesus IV about the evening's swap (turns out their bowman was headed to a Jesus x Clare MCR swap instead, and we didn't realise this for way too long). My suggestion of karaoke was, as usual, voted down, and instead we passed the short time on the water by hearing a certain 3-seat express his need to pass water in a short time. A mere 30 minutes of queueing later and we were off. 

A practice start underneath the railway bridge was delayed by "severely unprofessional behaviour" (in the words of our beloved cox, Connor) from Xander and Isaac. Though their complaints did stop, so I suppose that's a win. The practice start was acceptable, though limited in stroke number after Connor acceded to demands of the marshals by getting us to move on. We catch up with Bomber on Plough Reach, and make it to marshalling without disaster, nor further unprofessionalism. While waiting in the boat, we observe Peterhouse M1 slinking off into the bushes, and appropriate jokes are made.

We're in fairly good humour at this point, having raced well earlier, and aren't expecting much beyond racing hard.

Off our start, we barely hit rate 37, and have already taken 10 strokes at rate 36 before we cross the start line. We settle into rate 33 before we hit the end of First Post Reach (one lower than the first race), but the boat speed still feels just as good. Observing the crew behind crash into the outside of First Post corner is interesting, as I only really process it when we're on Plough Reach, which still feels like good boat speed, even if we're a little slow. Connor calls "1:43" here (thanks to the fancy coxboxes with splits shown on them), and I feel surprised, knowing that our average for the first race was 1:45.5, and that we were at 1:51 here (oops) earlier in the day.  We make it around Ditton, with a good line (as ever - thank you Connor) and are a third of the way up the Reach when we really start digging in, thanks to Connor's stunning - and minorly original - call (not to be repeated here, as it would have resulted in fines in a Bumps race, but it was a step up from "swan mentality, boys"). We push, and push, and push. Ten strokes on from the Railway Bridge, Connor calls once more for power, and I see Csongi go for broke. In the first race of the day, I followed Csongi when he went for more because I wanted to, and had more left in the tank that I could use. Now I follow because I must, as I cannot slow the boat down. We reach rate 34.5 again, and it's a slog through to the end, at which there's clear water as far as we can see behind us. 

In the boat, we're not particularly jubilant after the first ten seconds of exhausted celebration (apart from Connor, Connor was very happy and lifted our spirits), just shattered. George (current Overall Captain) looks particularly out of it, while Matthew and I are competing to see who can spasm their diaphragm the most powerfully. We row back, and even the call of "don't let M2 catch up to us" fails to wring more power from the boat. They're rowing all eight while we row in sixes, and we do pull away in the end. Getting back to the boathouse is a more difficult task than I'd like to admit, with div 5 boats impeding us, and we're not responding with any kind of alacrity to Connor's calls. We make it, we don't crash, and we put the boat away. Bomber left us on Plough Reach, and the debrief is about how gutsy the rowing was that he saw, and that he can hypothesise from the time. High praise from that man. Csongi has a somewhat different take on what changed: "This race I actually finished my strokes." A reminder of how we are all truly at the mercy of stroke seat.

When the times come through (8:42.5, with a 3:34.8 first 1K, compared to the first div 8:47.6, with a 3:33.5 first 1K), we're happy, but a little disappointed. Our TAS is faster than Peterhouse M1 (first race's first 1K, with second race's last 1.5K), but no individual race is, putting us third  by 1.2s behind them and Caius. Maggie didn't enter an M1 VIII. We beat Downing, Pembroke, Jesus and Clare. After Mays, this felt good. For stern three, this is over 2 minutes faster than last year in NM1, and a really good sign of just how far we've come.

George turned out actually to be ill in general, and not just with post-race exhaustion. Presumably with him in good shape we'd have shaved off 20 seconds to beat Caius. 

Luke obtained quite a lot of footage (that can be slowed down to 0.125x speed), and certain individuals have had great fun pointing out errors. I will leave you with but one optimisation that could have been made. Throughout all footage that we have of the race, Krisztian was squaring during his body rock. Taking his "squaring early is good" mentality to its logical conclusion, his next step will be to square as he finishes his previous stroke. 

I am looking forward to Fairbairns very much and hope to see many people at the dinner following.

(Thomas Frith)

(Krisztian Hunter)

Well, we went in hoping to be fast.  (Thomas Frith)

In the interest of historical accuracy, the remainder of M1 wish to add a factual correction to Frith’s race report. (Matthew Yoko)