After a bad performance on the first day of Bumps, W3 met at the boathouse at 1pm on a very cold and snowy afternoon. The day before our nerves had got the better of us, during a very frantic standing start that had got us bumped too early. So, on Wednesday, the crew was determined to learn from our mistakes and do much better, despite the weather and the fact that one of our crew was injured. Thankfully Felicity, our coach, subbed in for her, and having a more experienced rower in the boat gave us confidence.
The paddle up was mild at first. However, by the Long Reach it had started to snow heavily again, and a strong headwind, worse than we had ever seen before, slowed us down. Even though Hannah, our cox, was almost completely covered in snow, she encouraged us to press harder and row against the wind. Luckily, the weather quickly improved, and by the time we reached the Motorway Bridge the snow had already ceased.
We arrived at our station only five minutes before the race. Thankfully, Mark was there to push us out and to give us a last-minute pep talk. As we were the first boat of the division, our main objective was not to get bumped (and to row over). In order to do that, we knew that we had to focus not only on getting a good standing start, but on maintaining a strong leg drive until the very end.
The cannon went off, and this time our start was much better. However, we could not get in time, and Emmanuel III was getting closer. Hannah called for a Power 10, but Emma’s crew was faster than us, and so we got bumped.
On our way back to the boathouse, it started to snow again. Despite the disappointing result, I think we all felt a shared sense of achievement. Neither the weather nor the bump got us down, they just made us even stronger. We would be ready for Day 3 of Bumps!
Camila Armirola, stroke