Results and reports by Event

T'was the night of the 5th December. Cold, ferocious winds were whipping across the lands. Cries of help were echoed afar, East Anglia was threatened of being flooded. Our captain, leader of our ship, Big Ben Evans, had to spree on the night of the 5th to save East Anglia from its woes.

With Ben unfortunately out, we were fortunate enough to be handed with Martyn to replace him. In all honesty, whilst we have committed to our land training well this term, our on water training has not been as consistent as we all had hoped. Needless to say, I think I can speak for everyone when I say we were quite apprehensive about the race ahead of us. Nonetheless we gave it a crack. As Ed describes below, we built the start up well. Our two focuses of the race were to keep it loose and quick catches. This paid off, as the boat was feeling light and moving along nicely. As we were approaching Chesterton Bridge, Ed made it clear we had visual on Queens II, and moving underneath the bridge we had closed the 60 second gap to around 4 boat lengths. We chunked on down to the top of the reach in a similar fashion as to how we started. This was when we were really closing on Queens. Past Ditton corner we got the overtake and got half a boat length distance between us. Then we stopped (relatively). Queens put in a good push, and we were rowing not very well. Sluggish, sunken and not very together. This went on for what felt forever, but was more like 15 seconds. A rhythm call got us back on our striding ways and the quick catches came and the boat was all of a sudden singing along once again. Our last build/push/whatever you want to call it, came at first post corner. As we approached the motorway bridge we went for an 'empty the tanks' call. The boat was wobbling a lot in this, as I think we were getting overexcited/exhausted, and lost our composure, so I am not sure how much faster we actually went, but the commitment was there. We eventually crossed the line (some confusion where the finish was... 5 more strokes, 10 more strokes, now last 5 strokes!). After finishing the race, we immediately felt like it was a good row. In fact, it was the best high rate row we had done all term (timing it to perfection). I am not saying that the row was flawless, far from it (as made evident by looking at our catch timing from some of the photos!), but we took a really positive step today which we can press off from for next term.

Our 8th college crew placing is the best we have done in recent past. The CBC website only goes as far back as 2006, and in that time frame, we have placed the highest in a Fairbairns race. We all really enjoyed the race, and the crew is eager to continue with our training and really iron out the kinks for Lents. Yellow Fire!

Uploaded Saturday 7th December, 14:42

After a couple of abortive moves off from backstops - "we're going to have to easy again before we start racing, guys" - the build into race pace, when it came, was smoother than it had been in any of our training. Rating at a 33 that felt as if it was in the high 20s, we settled onto our rhythm coming under Emma footbridge. This was followed by some quick catches as we came through Riverside, at which point we caught sight of Queen's II in front of us and started to work off them. Coming out of Chesterton, we shifted the focus onto the glutes and body swing, all the while eating into the gap between us and Queen's.

It wasn't long until we'd closed the entire 8-length gap, and so we moved to overtake them on the inside of Ditton Corner. Pressing the finishes out to drive past them felt fantastic; the work we'd done on staying loose was really paying off. We stalled a little once we'd got half a length of clear water, but by focusing in we were able to regain the boat speed and open up a commanding gap in our favour.

In the Gut, we ticked along, getting ready for our big move out of First Post Corner. The last 800 metres were really where we emptied the tanks, suspending hard and striking 33 once more. Coming over the line, it really felt like we'd committed to the race, and the results bore that out: to beat Queens', Caius, Christ's and Pembroke (amongst other first boats) is a great vindicator of all the hard work we've put in this term. Of course, it also lays down a marker for what we can do next term, but if what we saw today is any indication, I'm certain we can rise to the challenge.

Uploaded Friday 6th December, 22:01