After a week of slightly disrupted outings, nerves were high as we pushed out from the boat house to make our way up to the marshalling point at the start line. Race conditions could not have been better, however, with relatively mild temperatures and barely any wind, and we soon relaxed into a solid row up, reassured by a strong practice push for ten through the corners.
Since we were racing in the first division of the day, marshalling time was surprisingly short, and we just had time to sample one of Holly’s interesting home-made protein balls, before we were told to row up to the lock and spin in preparation for the start of the race. Rowing down towards the start line at the motorway bridge, we established a strong platform, and when Christina called for us to take it up for the start, we pushed into a good powerful rhythm, and started the race with a power ten off the bridge.
Spurred on by Christina’s motivating calls, and pushing for Georgie whose back injury meant she had to watch from the bank, we made excellent progress through the corners in the first half of the race, and coming onto the reach we were catching up on the crew from Hertford College, Oxford, in front. Inspired by Mark’s calls for us to attempt an overtake, we tried to push on and close the gap between us.
We made progress at first, with Mark blowing his whistle in bumps style to indicate we were a length away, but we lost some of the control we had had in the first half of the race, and didn’t quite make it past them. We stayed close on their tail for the rest of the course, however, and as we came under the motorway bridge, Christina called for a mental restart and a final push into a sprint finish. We pushed on, but, pretty tired by now, we were unable to gain the same power we had at the start.
Still, we gave it all we could up to the finish, and ended up with a time of 10.18 minutes, which placed us third of all women’s crews behind FaT and Emma. Although not quite the winning result we were hoping for, we were happy with the race, and it has given us areas to focus on as we come into the last weeks of training. Bring on Fairbairns!
Emma Jones