Lent Bumps 2016: Day 3 W1 Race Report

The weather at today’s race was sadly not as wonderfully sunny as the earlier days, with grey skies but happily still no winds. We had a steady row down. There was plenty of excitement with the prospects of rowing out ahead of Churchill and giving Pembroke a good scare while we were at it.

Spirits were high before the cannon went, and we prepared ourselves for a long, tough race. We took off with a fantastic start, just like the previous two days, quickly gaining ground on Pembroke! The start was confident and purposeful, with a good rhythm. As we took out the stroke length and settled into the racing pace we kept gaining and leaving Churchill behind with some distance, to the point where we managed to get one whistle on Pembroke! Unfortunately after this the past two days of rowing with no rest day started to take their toll, so we didn’t quite manage to keep the good form we’d been maintaining so far. After some unsteadiness and some massive effort from Churchill they managed to close the distance between us, but we made them work for every stroke and fought them hard all the way to the Plough, where they managed to bump us.

Notable in today’s race is our continuing great performance early on in the race, which has been consistent throughout bumps this year. There’s a notable difference compared to just a couple of weeks ago, when our starts were substantially less stable and confident. After spending a few outings focusing on sorting out the starts we’ve improved so much, showing that we have it in us to do anything we set our minds to!

Next race will be tomorrow, the last day of the 2016 lent bumps! We will be chased by a very strong Girton team going for blades, with Churchill in front of us. This will be the time to pour out all of our remaining energy into the race, and really make Girton struggle! And of course, the dream is: revenge-bump on Churchill! Keeping up our strong starts we can gain on them fast enough to make them nervous, and if we really give it our all it’s possible! And with Girton coming up behind, it looks like it might be a short race, whether it’s bump or getting bumped tomorrow. Anything is possible!

Amanda Sjödahl, 5