Final day of Lent Bumps and what a fantastic end to the week! Although the weather was not quite as nice and sunny as the day before, we set off in good spirits that we would have a successful final day. With many of our parents and other family members watching, we were especially keen to do well. Our row up was strong and steady, although our practise start was a bit messy. As we waited at our new station (station 10) for the cannons to go off, Mark gave us one last motivational speech on how to catch Caius. We thought it might be slightly more of a grind down that the previous days relatively quick bump against Catz, and we were prepared for this. We waited nervously, talking with Dame Barbara and Robert the Bursar before the one minute cannon went off and we focused in on the race.
We got off to a good start and before we knew it we had one whistle on Caius. We kept focused and didn’t start to rush as we had done the previous day when we started to gain on Catz. The strokes felt long and strong as we followed Christina’s calls to extend. As we moved up to two whistles we kept calm and picked up the boat speed ready for the bump. The boat was moving well and we still had lots of power to give. Then we had three whistles which very quickly became continuous whistles, with the Caius cox conceding just before grassy corner. We moved over to the bank before starting the celebrations. For most of the crew their second bump ever! It was an incredibly exciting moment and a great way to end Lent Bumps! There was plenty of time to fix some greenery in our hair, take lots of photos and have a chat with our bank party before our victory row home began.
Well done girls! We’ve shown what Murray Edwards W1 can do, bring on Mays!
Katharine Moore, 3