The Club's Results
Radegund Mile Head Race, May Term 2024
2nd women's VIII (College VIIIs)
| 2nd women's VIII | |||
| in Amanda | |||
| bow | Ellen Forsman | 2 | Kasia Kobalczyk |
| 3 | L Kearney | 4 | Dido Coley |
| 5 | Zara Bek | 6 | Julia Roberts |
| 7 | Charlotte Fischer | str | D Underhill |
Coxed by: Bao Tao
1st in Lower VIIIs
Time: 8:24
Time: 8:24
To get me to sub, all you have to do is ask.
Especially when I get to walk away with a hip flask.
Going into the race, spirits were high, and our row down to the start was powerful.
Marshalling was slightly tricky as we were double-stacked, with Clare trying to sit outboard of us and Kings.
We knew the results of the previous division while we were marshalling, so we knew that anything under 8:38 was likely to be a winning time.
On that basis, plus a £1.99 GPS app on Bao's phone we knew that as long as we kept the split below 2:09 we should be good, so Bao said he'd yell loudly if we went above that.
We paddled down to the start, and our rolling-start-gremlins reared their ugly heads once more, but we made it across the line at 90%+ of max boat speed, and probably only lost a second or so.
Down 1st post reach we were on a 1:53 split, and so I focussed on setting a powerful rhythm and letting the boat row efficiently.
We settled onto 2:04 at a sustainable r32, knowing that we were doing well.
Our split dropped off around the corners, with 2:18 being called on the exit of Ditton, but a huge push as the rudder came off brought the split back.
I avoided the mistakes of Head-to-head and took the rate up to 35 for the last 300m
Just as I could feel myself on the point of completely blowing, I heard Csongi (our wonderful bank party) call for the last 5 strokes so gave it everything and we crossed the line with a time of 8:24.86
We knew already that it had been a quick race, and the results were live updating so we were all asking Csongi questions about other crew's times as we paddled home.
We got back to the boathouse, and took our crew photos, one with the wonderful Amanda and one with the traditional crossed blades.
Finally, prizegiving was at the Haymakers Pub so some of us went over there to pick up our hipflasks, and have a celebratory pizza and drink.
Well done to everyone, and a huge thanks to Csongi and Chiara for bank partying, and to Zara and Lily for subbing in for the day and providing a lot of watts between them!
My first win in the stroke seat, and I couldn't be prouder of the crew I had with me!
💛💙💛
Links
Full May Term 2024 2nd women's VIII results
Radegund Mile Head Race 2nd women's VIII results archive
Compare this time with all Radegund Mile Head Race times in the archive
