The second day of Bumps for W2 was even colder than the first, and even in more layers than we could count we were still freezing. When we arrived there was confusion in the boathouse: we had two subs for 6 and no cox. Luckily one had coxed before, so could hop into the stern. We followed her calls well to the P&E; the previous day’s race had clearly had an effect on us, as we were more sat than usual. The biting wind was against us as we rowed up, making each stroke more difficult, but we still arrived to marshal in good time.
We decided that there was no way we could catch Catz – they had bumped us so quickly the day before and had even overtaken us in Newnham Short Course. Our game plan was to row over, hoping we could hold off Downing for long enough for King’s to catch them.
Rowing up to the start, the nerves started to show – when Sarah called for a practice start we caught a crab, though we recovered well.
Mark was at the start alone to greet us, and at 30 seconds to go began pushing us out. He counted 20 seconds to go. Then 10. Then “2, 2, 2, 2!”. 2 took a tap and we came forward as a crew, but we had lost track of time and the cannon firing took us by surprise. The first stroke was weak, though our start gained strength and we began to lengthen. It soon became obvious that Downing was gaining on us. Catz were pulling away in front, and it was seemingly only a matter of seconds before we were bumped. We cleared the river quickly (much more cleanly than on Tuesday), and watched on as other crews raced hard past us.
The results didn’t matter too much to us; as usual our spirits were lifted by just finishing the race. And even in the short time we had rowed that day, we could tell that we had improved as a crew. We rowed back in a mini-blizzard, looking forward to a day off before we could exact our row-venge on Downing.
Phoebe Thomson-Bird, 6