It was freezing on the day of Fairbarns 2017, but W2 arrived at the boathouse ready to row our best and show off how much we had improved, both individually and as a crew, over the course of the term. After a quick warm up on the ergs, we quickly got the boat out, only to find out that the race was running late. As we waited for our slot and watched other crews row past, the excitement was mounting.
Finally it was our time! As we had only rowed a short distance from our boathouse to the start line, it took us a few strokes to get into our groove, but we quickly got our legs working as we fought away the cold. At stroke, Beth set a strong, steady pace for us to follow, and Watson and Issy kept us motivated from the bank. Despite the cold, and the fact that this was the longest race we’d done as a four, we managed to keep our rate up throughout, helped greatly by Alice’s encouragement. After a strong start, we began to gain on Girton, and we kept up this good pace for the first half of the race. The fatigue got to us, however, and the Robinson crew behind us began to gain. As we neared the end of course, this in fact proved to be a blessing in disguise, as we rowed our hardest to hold them off.
Fairbarns 2017 was a great way to end Michaelmas rowing. Although the whole crew was suffering from end of term exhaustion, we worked well together and put into practice changes to our techniques that we had been working on all term. Fairbarns Dinner after the race was the perfect way to celebrate our accomplishments!
Juhi James, bow