Race Reports
M2 show fine form at HoRR
Head of the River was the culmination of 8 weeks of hard work for M2, a crew which had shown early promise but unfortunately did not deliver in Lent Bumps. A mix around with the line up due to unavailabilities meant that at the end of term training began all over again for HoRR. But there was a real sense of purpose and desire to succeed and by the time HoRR came around the boat was as good, if not faster, than before. Rowing up to the start we felt confident as the expected poor weather conditions had held off and the boat was sat and relaxed. That was until 2's rigger broke in the middle of the Thames, but thanks to some nifty parking by Esme and a quick repair job by Tom B we were out on the river again, and Laurie was ready to race.
A Tideway Triumph
WEHoRR 2010 was the first time any of our crew had rowed on Tideway so we were all very excited. With a starting place of 287th we had hopes of moving up a few places and overtaking some boat alond the way!
We arrived in London in plenty of time to put the boat together and get ourselves sorted. Thanks to our very helpful bank party pushing off went smoothly and we rowed up to the start steady state. We soon got to the marshalling area and waited for our turn to row.
M1 Racing on Tideway
We'd had a few days up in London to prepare for this race; Matt got used to the course as we went up and down it several times.
By the time it got to Saturday, we knew what to expect. We knew exactly where all the landmarks were, and what pushes would come where. We had a solid start, and quickly got up to our race pace, closing on the boat ahead. The pace was a strong 32, and the pressure remained high through the race. A particularly gutsy fight with Southampton II along the final stretches of the race definitely pushed us on hard, and we crossed the line, knowing we'd given it everything we had.
We finished 253, going up from last year's result, in a time of 19.38.33
Bumped
Race report to follow.
W1 - double or nothing
So it had been three days of pushing and hurting and being bumped, so when W1 turned up at the boathouse we all knew that today we had to perform! Today was our race, our row over!
We were starting head of the second division with LMBC II chasing us. We reckoned they were beatable despite them being on for blades. We rowed up to the start with conditions definitely better than yesterday. Two nice starts again and strong paddling up to our station.
