I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous for a race in my life. I tried to calm myself down by performing what has now become something of a bumps day ritual for me – finding and rewriting a famous movie speech/scene to make it bumps-centric and posting it on our facebook page as inspiration for my troops. It didn’t help much. After our bump on Peterhouse on Friday, we knew they’d be fiercely intent on bumping us back. They had nothing to lose by going after us in an all-out assault. We, on the other hand, had plenty to lose – only one more bump was standing between us and blades. The pressure to catch Tit Hall, our target for the day, before Peterhouse could gain on us was acute. Before I had to face that contest, however, I had the great pleasure of bank partying our W3 for their last race, and though they were bumped, it was a heroic fight. I also got to see W2’s victory row home, flying the MECBC flag signalling their blades.
Buoyed by the spirit and success of our lower boats, we had a solid row down to the marshaling stations. The mood in the boat was intense and determined. They were so focused that the usual “Can we get a boathouse puppy?”, “No.” conversation didn’t even come up. As we waited by the P&E, the sun came out and the afternoon turned sparkling and almost warm.
Once we were up to the starting stations, I was full on nervous again, and I don’t think I was the only one. The flutter you feel in the region of your stomach when the four minute gun goes off, then the one minute gun, which starts the countdown from your bank party is a special kind of delicious terror. Just hearing someone count down from 20 is enough to send me into a panic. I don’t think that’s ever going to go away. Mark gave us another pep talk, advising us to forget about Peterhouse behind and focus everything on Tit Hall.
When the final gun fired, we went hard into our start, and though it wasn’t the cleanest row we’ve had this week, we had a whistle very quickly. The second whistle followed not too long after, and we took the pressure up. We seemed to get stuck at three whistles for quite a while, and I wondered if Tit Hall had found some new power and were beginning to hold us off. Three whistles did eventually become continuous, and we seemed to get a bit stuck there, as well, but we found out later that the Tit Hall cox wasn’t conceding and the umpire had to award the bump. We finally got the call to hold it up, and after our haphazard attempt at clearing the day before, we were all tuned into Georgie as she directed us into the far bank. Once the remaining boats had raced past, it started to sink in – we’d bumped. We’d bladed. We pulled back over to the towpath to collect our greenery. I was grinning like an idiot, and, again, I wasn’t the only one. We were approached almost immediately by a race commentator from Cam FM who asked me how happy we were. My memory of my answer is a bit hazy, lost in the euphoria, but I think I said that it was overwhelming and that I was so proud of the crew and the club. Which could not be more true. The victory row home with our flag and our foliage in the last of the afternoon sunshine was a beautiful cap to the week.
BRING ON MAYS!
Reana, 5, W1