The sun was out and we were feeling excited and apprehensive for our first day of bumps. There were nerves in the boat as we knew we were being chased by Caius, who had unfortunately beat us only three weeks before in Pembroke Regatta. Despite this unease, we had a good couple of practice starts on the row up, and by the time we got to our station we were about as ready as we were going to be.
Before we had time to gather our thoughts, the 4 minute cannon went off, startling not only us in the boat but the bank party as well (much to our amusement)! With a pep talk from Abbie and Reana making the time between the 4 minute and 1 minute cannons fly by, we were suddenly being pushed out by Mark and lining ourselves up for the race.
The start cannon went and we were off. Following the advice of Reana, we were cool, calm and collected. Clinical. The start was one of our best and Caius very quickly drifted off into the distance. We rowed strong and hard and soon had gained one whistle on Clare. The crews behind us bumped out and so we just had to plough ahead, without worry of being caught. The rowing of the first few minutes was the best we’d done all term, and we maintained the water we’d gained on Clare. However, their crew was strong and we lost our drive a bit and didn’t manage to gain any more. We powered on down the reach past the waiting M1 and breathed a sigh of relief when we finally wound it down at Chesterton, having rowed over.
We’d worked really hard and rowed really well, and by the sounds of coughing emanating from most of the crew, we’d given it everything. We rowed home drained but feeling optimistic about the day ahead. The sun was warm at our backs.
Emilie Cousin, 4