Results and reports by Event

It was with fiery hearts and hungover heads that W1 bowled up to the boathouse for the first division of Spring Head to Head. At least, that's how I felt. Everyone else seemed pretty fresh.

The plan was to extend our warm up with a cheeky run to Jesus lock, but with a melee of boats clustered and ready to go the plan had to be updated...so the warm up was extended by a solid 80m followed by a rapid spin and a later confused Gripper ("Did Jesus lock move or something?").

The sun was blazing and with the day already heating up, conditions looked good for a benchmark time from which to work off this term. Some while later, with a long interlude for marshalling, parking, moving along, parking, a little more shifting, pushing off etc etc we finally got into our first race of the term. The start felt good off the bridge but started to fall down a little as we hit the second half of the reach. The splits were nice, but the pain faces all round were only partly due to the race. Once into the gut it really came together though, the length coming through as everyone forgot why it was they did this to themselves on a daily basis and the boat moved a lot more smoothly. A strong finish sent us up to the lock only 5 seconds off of Downing and some focuses for the way home.

The way back felt like a far stronger affair, with everyone holding onto each stroke and the rhythm staying a lot more consistent. The toll from the first race showed in the times, but we finished with a lot of confidence and some technical pointers to work on throughout term. We were even done by 10am, leaving ample time for revision during the day - hooray!!

Uploaded Wednesday 16th May, 9:21

Wearing unisuits and suncream, we rowed up and marshalled in the sunshine at the P&E. There was much reflection on how much more pleasant it was than Lent bumps, and we wondered why anyone ever rowed during the winter. A brief pep talk from Ollie ("Do it for Chrysa") and we were off. The first leg started strong, and we kept a rate 32 down the reach. However, as we rounded Ditton the cox box battery failed us, and we were plunged into silence. The race felt very long from this point on (you don't appreciate the distraction of the cox until it's gone). Luckily, we had Gripper's shouts from the bank and had rowed those corners many a time before, so we kept up the strength until the bridge. For the return leg, we managed to persuade one of the marshals to lend us their megaphone, so although not ideal it kept us sane. We had another good row back, feeling the first race in our legs but knowing we could keep up the pace for the distance. We were thrilled afterwards to find out that we had won our division, and were faster than a few W1s! A great start to the term - hopefully we can keep it up!

Uploaded Wednesday 16th May, 12:48

We rowed up to marshal at the P&E with our spirits high, despite Ollie’s race plan of ‘I want to see you all dying 3 minutes in’. Sadly our ‘lucky charm’, the champs cox box was running dangerously low despite it being fully charged when we left the boat house. Thankfully, it lasted us for both races- it even gained charge! (Boat speed powered cox boxes coming soon!!)

We started strong and settled into a good rhythm up the Reach, as we headed toward the Lock the pressure dropped a little and the St Catz crew following us crept closer, giving us motivation for a final push.

After a brief marshal at the lock we readied ourselves to go again, feeling somewhat tired but determined.

Our second start was a bit shakier-it seemed as though the bridge would never go out of sight but we pushed on and were very grateful to Olivia who came to coach us through the second 1000m- we were definitely faster towards the end.

Overall we had a decent time, with the first race being considerably better than the second, we even managed to beat a couple of W2 crews! Maybe Ollie’s race plans aren’t so bad after all...

Uploaded Wednesday 16th May, 16:41