The Club's Results
Cambridge Autumn Head, Mich Term 2023
1st women's VIII (W8+ 1st Coll)
| 1st women's VIII | |||
| in Queen Elizabeth I | |||
| bow | Zara Bek | 2 | Weishi Chen |
| 3 | Anne Schreuder | 4 | Qingyue Zhang |
| 5 | Philippa Stokes | 6 | Hajna Williams |
| 7 | Polly Shorrock | str | Sophie Harper |
Coxed by: Madeleine Carruthers
2nd in Category
Time: 12:01
Time: 12:01
Is it a race without illness or injury? No.
Charlotte came down sick the night before the race and the sub search began... resulting in two different subs for the races. Not a bad result with 12 hours notice. Weishi subbed in for the first race, Maraia for the second (with me switching sides as per usual).
We got there extremely early for the first race and got to marshal in the reeds whilst holding onto the blades of Clare M2 to stop us all crashing into each other.
First race- hit rate 33 coming out the bridge, settled to 32 and pushed out of all the corners well thanks to Maddie's excellent calls. Magdelene seemed to be catching us as we came round first post, giving us flashbacks to the day before when Bomber told us to not let them catch us when we were paddling. Despite a crab coming round grassy, we held together and looked good enough for Bomber to describe it as a 'good race for the first race of term'. We were happy with the time, especially given we did hold of Magdelene by some distance.
Awaiting post race feedback I knew what mine would be given I could feel my shoulders burning. Who says all the power doesn't come from the shoulders?
Second race- Maraia graciously missed the Great Court Run to sub into the bow seat and I got shifted to two. Bomber gave us the target split of 2:12 and told us to gear up our blades. Paddling down to the start, we hit 2:15 at rate 18 which confirmed the stream had just gotten worse. Off the start we hit rate 34, settling to about 33 for the first half of the race. As we came onto the reach, Maddie told us to chase down Peterhouse because we were gaining and it seemed to breathe a second life into us. By the end, we hit rate 36 with splits 2:05. Bomber described it as superb.
I then got co-opted into rowing in a novice outing.
In the famous words of Bomber, ‘going fast is fun’. This is perhaps why our two races at Autumn head were not terribly enjoyable. We managed to battle the mighty Cam, comparable in the strength of its current to Horace’s ‘raging river Aufidus’ (Satires 1.1.23), and make it down the course in the absolutely rapid time of 12:01.4, putting down some insane 2:15 splits throughout (Maddie calling this, as we were gunning it down plough reach with all the vim and vigour we could muster, only made my heart sink down into my chest a little). Nevertheless, we all dug in and pulled away from Magdalene and took chunks out of Peterhouse’s head start on us. Feeling exhausted after our race, but rather elated to hear how well we had done compared to other W1s racing in our category (including Caius!!), some of us were rather hoping that the second race would be cancelled due to lack of a sub. (Un)fortunately, Maraia valiantly stepped in so we could race again. Bomber however, munificent in his mercy, finally allowed us to move the clams to give us a slightly easier time of it the second time around. We raced again and managed to beat our previous time by three seconds. The mentality in the crew was great, and we kept lifting out of the railway bridge as Maddie called for another two percent… and then another two… and then another two after that… I think many of us were questioning how many percent we had left in us by the time we made it to top finish, but everyone gave it everything and we were all incredibly proud of one another. Bomber too was absolutely overflowing with praise, barely able to contain his joy as he gushed ‘that wasn’t too bad, girls.’ Yeah FaT!
Links
Full Mich Term 2023 Cambridge Autumn Head results
1st women's VIII Cambridge Autumn Head results archive
Compare this time with all Cambridge Autumn Head times in the archive
