The Club's Results

This was perhaps not the cleanest of races (though I rather regret the lack of William Connolley's drone footage - despite it hovering above us during the race, his uploaded footage begins only at Jesus M2, who set off behind us). 

However, in terms of want for speed/cox responsiveness (thank you Mate for stepping in on such short notice to cox this, you legend), this was excellent. Not since Winter Head 2022 have I felt such a series of pushes in a crew. There would have been a good meme format opportunity here: 
"M2 before Ditton" vs "M2 after Ditton" with your favourite before/after meme format used, where the after is noticeably better, but I do not wish to crash this website. 
After Ditton, we pushed. We proceeded to have another push off the railings, at the whitehouse, into the railway bridge, off the railway bridge (including Morgan (at str) shouting "build, build") intending to fly for the finish from there, which we then did from the P&E, building all the way to a "majestic" (and far too foreshortened for what it was) 34 or thereabouts by the finish.

Slow? Yes.
Yanking with the arms at the finish? Yes.
Bomber telling us that we'd have gone 20 seconds faster had we finished in a more relaxed fashion (he didn't see us after the railway bridge...)? Yes.
Still losing by 25 seconds to Jesus M2, who we're going to row away from so hard on the first day of bumps that we accidentally hit the crew in front while styling on them? Yes.
We had commitment, and as of right now that's not a bad thing to have in spades. 

- despite being over a minute slower than when I won this in M1 two years ago, this race felt like it had more potential, and we beat last year's M2 by over 35 seconds, and we know how they ended up...

We finished the race, and I think that everyone in the boat felt both shattered and happy. It's an OK place to be. Thanks everyone for being there! 

As a side note, 5 and 6 are indebted to a certain individual out running around the top of the reach, whose presence "made it feel like I had to row better - 5" and made me smile, thus reducing perceived effort (I'm trying this out for my next 2K...)
(Thomas Frith)