On our second day of bumps we returned to the river with vengeance on our minds, sunshine in our eyes and teeny-tiny bananas in our hands. With our full crew reunited once again we rowed up to the reach in the now familiar Greta and after an excellent practice start we queued to wait to spin.
We rowed up to our starting position, sandwiched apprehensively between Homerton 2 and Kings 2. We waited in fidgety anticipation for the stomach churning boom of the canons. Well aware we had to build on our start from yesterday we came to front stops, legs tightly coiled, eyes in the boat, game-face grimaces prepped, ready to unleash the starting piece we knew we were capable of.
At the final canon we pushed hard off the footplates, focused on making our first strokes strong. We kept the rate up, pushing off of the motorway bridge and settling into our race rhythm.
But it was not to be. We were suddenly met by calls from all sides to hold it up, and digging our blades into the water we turned to see carnage before us. We looked to our bank party with furrowed brows and bewildered expressions, what had happened? Would we re-row? What even is a re-row? We pulled up to the bank as a crowd of coaches and officials discussed the situation. We were eventually told that a “technical bump” had been awarded to Queens 2.
We rowed home with our backs straight and our heads held high, knowing we had done ourselves proud. Bolstered by the knowledge Carla had retrieved her long lost hot-cross-bun from the depths of her hatch we vowed to return to the river with renewed spirit, (after much sleep and much pasta) to row once more into the unknown in search of that ever achievable but oh so elusive bump.
Beth Sherwood, bow, W3