Category: W1

On this very breezy Saturday morning, W1 arrived at the boathouse determined to show they had earned their seat in this newly formed crew by the sweat of their brow, and could flex their muscles!

After a quick warm-up, we got down to the flooded bank to take Octopussy out, quickly boated and pushed out. Chesterton Footbridge’s traffic lights were soon upon us, and with them, the usual mess, made even crazier by the horrendously fast-flowing waters of the Cam. After marshalling for a bit at the P&E, we were off again. Ying was now cycling alongside, filming (as always) and ensuring we stayed focused on power and technique. Two good practise starts later, we reached the Motorway Bridge, starting line of this soon to start race.

Under Christina’s instructions, we rowed our way through a very chaotic lock, where boats were all over the place, trying to spin and marshall. We finally parked ourselves, giving Ying yet another occasion to take very flattering pictures of the crew… As the minutes went by, we all got into a very focused mindset; we knew from the row up the race was going to be long and difficult.

Before long, we were off. As we started racing, the gusty wind, and insane stream, combined with a reluctant cox box, displaying a taunting rate 0, made it hard to tell whether the boat was rating as planned. However, as Christina called for the first power ten on the legs, we could feel the boat moving faster, in slighlty more sheltered conditions, and were keeping up with Jesus W1. After an intense big Grassy Corner for bow side, with Christina’s calls for power, and Ying encouragments, the crew went for a decent push past the Plough. Getting around Ditton corner, one for stroke side, marked the heaviest moment of the race, as we were entering a even more windy reach. Back into a straight stretch of river, we all knew the race was coming to its end, and lifted the boat towards the Railway Bridge. With a final call to empty the tanks from Christina, echoed by some raging sounds coming from the middle of the boat, we sprinted our way to the finish line. The whistle was blown, we winded it down. With a time of 12:10:17 minutes, we placed joint fourth with Jesus, behind FaT, Emmanuel, and Clare, which is a rather encouraging result showing our potential as a crew.

On the technical row back, Christina reminded us of Reana’s amazing race baking awaiting us at the boathouse… What better way to motivate a bunch of tired rowers!

Laurane (W1)

Michaelmas is a hectic term on the Cam. Seniors and novices of MECBC fight for river space in the attempt to test their stamina in longer pieces, to perform in the landmarks that are Winter and Autumn Head, and to push towards the ultimate goal of winning Fairbairns.
Unlike on novice race day, there was little wind to hinder our efforts – a good sign for all involved. We focused our thoughts on the race ahead and Chloe (our cox for the day) coxed us through our short row up to Jesus Lock, where we spun and pulled in just past the Fort. Coach Mark was not the only one to offer a motivational speech; for the first time in recent MECBC history, W1 were greeted by the President of our College, Dame Barbara Stocking, who kindly volunteered to join our bank party for the first part of the race.
Chasing Jesus Women’s VIII, our start sequence of seven drives and a power ten took us thundering past their boat house. Our start was hard and fast and before we knew it Chloe called for a push off Chesterton footbridge to bring us closer to the P&E.
After the railway bridge, the crew were moving together but it was becoming apparent that we were all a little tired. With so much of the race still left, we needed a pick up to refocus our attention. A ‘push for Georgie’, who was supporting us from the Plough, made us give another surge of power.
On our way to the motorway bridge shouts from the bank informed us that we were making ground on Jesus but the length of the race was certainly taking its toll. Chloe called for a string of power tens and we gave everything we had left to the finish line.
Clocked at 17:32.3 mins, we were placed joint third with Queen’s behind FaT and Downing. Unfortunately, this was not quite the result we had been looking for, but one to be proud of nevertheless. The row back to the boathouse allowed us to reflect on our experiences as a crew and get excited about Fairbairn’s dinner!
Finally, no race report would be complete without a shout out to ‘New Hall Men’s’ IV’, who were sporting some surprisingly stretchy MECBC lycra and coming second out of all Men’s invitational IVs with a time of 12:51.2 mins.

Rowanne Willet, W1

After a week of slightly disrupted outings, nerves were high as we pushed out from the boat house to make our way up to the marshalling point at the start line. Race conditions could not have been better, however, with relatively mild temperatures and barely any wind, and we soon relaxed into a solid row up, reassured by a strong practice push for ten through the corners.
Since we were racing in the first division of the day, marshalling time was surprisingly short, and we just had time to sample one of Holly’s interesting home-made protein balls, before we were told to row up to the lock and spin in preparation for the start of the race. Rowing down towards the start line at the motorway bridge, we established a strong platform, and when Christina called for us to take it up for the start, we pushed into a good powerful rhythm, and started the race with a power ten off the bridge.
Spurred on by Christina’s motivating calls, and pushing for Georgie whose back injury meant she had to watch from the bank, we made excellent progress through the corners in the first half of the race, and coming onto the reach we were catching up on the crew from Hertford College, Oxford, in front. Inspired by Mark’s calls for us to attempt an overtake, we tried to push on and close the gap between us.
We made progress at first, with Mark blowing his whistle in bumps style to indicate we were a length away, but we lost some of the control we had had in the first half of the race, and didn’t quite make it past them. We stayed close on their tail for the rest of the course, however, and as we came under the motorway bridge, Christina called for a mental restart and a final push into a sprint finish. We pushed on, but, pretty tired by now, we were unable to gain the same power we had at the start.
Still, we gave it all we could up to the finish, and ended up with a time of 10.18 minutes, which placed us third of all women’s crews behind FaT and Emma. Although not quite the winning result we were hoping for, we were happy with the race, and it has given us areas to focus on as we come into the last weeks of training. Bring on Fairbairns!

Emma Jones

After pushing off, W1 had a really solid row down on the way to the start of the race. Being the first race of term, we were all thoroughly excited and also nervous about what the competition may bring. After building the rate up over 5, we soon settled into a really nice sustainable rhythm. With a “push for 10” off every corner and any landmark, we really felt that Octopussy flew down the river now and again! After a long 2.6km, we had finally finished. Coach Mark had timed us and we had come in at about 11:10 min, which we were all happy about as it beat our time from last year. When the official results were released later, we discovered our finishing time was in fact 11.07 min, even better! With this, we managed to beat all the other College W1’s and get our first tankard of the term. Well done W1!!!

Jess Manning, Stroke

Unfortunately the weather was not as pleasant as we would have hoped for May Bumps, especially when we had to Marshall in the wet and windy conditions for longer than expected due to a re-row in the previous division.
I felt the start was solid, and it was really encouraging to hear a whistle on Churchill quite early into the race, unfortunately this was the closest we got to them today. Hopefully tomorrow we will have more luck in catching up with them! Go MECBC!!

Jess Manning, W1

Sally-Anne Bennett, Bow, W1

Nerves in my stomach, but exams over, can only mean one thing – bumps! I was definitely feeling nervous at the boathouse, but a good crew huddle/chat/very girly “wooo” call – which will be changed to the more solid “well hard” call tomorrow – calmed me down and made me focus. The row to marshalling settled us down, and then Haribo whilst marshalling hyped us up. Amy’s news about W2’s disappointing row over just made us keener to bump.

The row to the start was good, keeping up with Sidney and having to pause to give us space for the rolling starts we wanted to practice – late divisions meant no proper practice starts. I thought the cannon would go off whilst we were still in the middle of the river when Churchill decided they wanted to row from our starting position instead of their own, but a fault with their coxbox meant the start was delayed anyway.

Eventually we were into the countdown, with only the slight worry that I couldn’t see our pole, but Mark had that covered and we were pushed out early. The cannon went, and so did we. Despite a messy start, we got a whistle on Churchill fairly quickly, then it was two. We firmed the finishes and had several big pushes, but couldn’t close beyond the half length. We stayed between half a length and a length for much of the course, at one point suddenly hearing a Churchill whistle: clearly they were gaining on Kings. We had a wonderful push at the railings, regaining some whistles, but we didn’t have enough to close the gap and Churchill got away from us.

Four row overs at the top of the division means we have the same fight tomorrow, but we know we didn’t row our best today and can definitely do better tomorrow – let’s bump!

View Cambridge May Bumps 2013 in a larger map
Map with helpful tips on where to watch the races, and where you can and can’t cycle.

MECBC have FOUR boats on for Bumps this year. W4 had an excellent row in GoR and secured their spot, and will be racing in Winston. W3 will be looking for a repeat of last year’s blades in Greta. W2, in Owen, can’t wait to show the Cam that they are the fastest boat in their division, and W1 in Octopussy will be aiming to continue their upward trend into the first division!

Wednesday 12 June – Friday 14 June 2013
W4 starting 3rd in 5th division, racing at 1pm
W3 starting 8th in 4th division, racing at 2:30pm
W2 starting 12th in 3rd division, racing at 4pm
W1 starting 3rd in 2nd division, racing at 5:30pm

Saturday 15 June 2013
W4 racing at 11am
W3 racing at 12:30pm
W2 racing at 2pm
W1 racing at 3:30pm

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/132639153603135/
Twitter supporters: our hashtags are #supportmecbc and #mecbcwellhard

Rowing away from a very crowded boathouse, we warmed up quickly, and had a couple of good practice starts on the row up. Spirits were high and we were all hoping to do better than our previous race, having improved greatly throughout the week. Eager to show this in our race, we got our focus together for the standing start by the Plough, and braced ourselves for the wind on the Long Reach. As Georgie called for a mental restart just before the railway bridge, we were giving it all we had, as we knew there were only about 2 minutes to go. Our finish was strong, and although this wasn’t some of our finest rowing, our efforts were rewarded with some shiny new tankards as we won the Mays second division ! My first tankard to go with my new blazer… so excited about Bumps already !

Laura Desert, 2

On one of the better row down’s we have had all term, W1 were excited for the upcoming race, despite the fact it was a back to back 2k! The marshalling was interesting, with us bumping into a countless number of boats!

The first of the 2k’s, I feel was quite solid. Which shows when one looks at the timings. With us having already raced, and with the headwind on the way back, our time drastically increased, but we still ended up doing well averagely in comparison with other crews in the Mays 2nd division, despite the awful conditions! It gave us all something to work on in preparation for the next race, and also for bumps in the future! Go Murray Edwards!

Jess Manning, Stroke

It all started on a very cold March evening when we got on the train for London, and met up with everyone at Pizza Express in Putney. Luckily the room we were in was very warm, and spirits were high as we were all excited to be in this foreign land. Dinner was lovely and went by in a flash, as rowers, coxes, coaches and alumnae discussed all things boatie-related over hot food.

As our party split into groups for the night, we headed over to Emma’s house, where her family greeted us warmly, despite nine of us showing up wet and tired on their doorstep. Although we started to watch Little Miss Sunshine, many of us were too tired to make it to the end of the film, and we slowly filtered off to bed.

On Saturday morning we were treated to a breakfast fit for a King, then, kitted and wellied up, we walked to the Thames Rowing Club boat house, our HQ for the day. After putting Octopussy and Owen back together again, we headed towards a shopping mall for lunch and Clinton’s (it was Mothers’ Day on Sunday…).

Then it was time to get our heads together, and after a very entertaining warm up session led by Emma, we took Octopussy down to the water, for her first encounter with a river that was not the Cam. Pushing off swiftly as there were dozens of other boats queuing up, we quickly got accustomed to the Thames, which luckily wasn’t too rough, as there was barely any wind. As we marshalled, we watched the first crews rowing off, and gradually paddled up to the start. We spun and within a few minutes we were off. As we went under the bridge, we distantly heard the umpire shout “Murray Edwards, go !” and then Georgie confirmed : “And we’re racing !”, getting all our attention and focus in the boat. Already we were set to overtake the boat in front of us, and after settling into a nice rhythm, we did just that. Most of the race was a bit of a blur to be honest, as there was so much going on and so many boats. The main focus about halfway into the race however was Newnham W1 who had done some overtaking of their own, and were hot on our heels. We could even hear their cox giving calls to push into us and overtake, but we never let them get past us, and right until the finish, we pushed as hard as we could off them. I think this mental motivation definitely improved our overall performance, as we went up 10 spaces and rowed the course in 20:55. A good end to a great term !

Laura Desert, W1, 6