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Women's 3rd IV+ Fairbairns 2009-10 , Fairbairn Cup
Women's Senior VIII's
19:55.05

We knew we were going to have a tough time in this race as crew commitments in the afternoon meant that we were racing the full senior eights' course instead of the considerably shorter fours' course! Our goal was to beat at least one eight and as we waited to go off there was a definite presence of excitement and nerves amongst the crew.

Our plan was to go off at about rate 27, knowing that we had a very long way to go. We were prepared for this to feel very slow but were still taken by surprise at our cox's calls to drop the rate still further as we came out of our start. We went off strongly and maintained the rhythm as we came past the boat houses.

After our experiences with head races this term, we knew the section between the P&E and the railway bridge always feels much longer during a race and we were prepared for this. Calls for a new race as we came under the railway bridge helped us to focus and go strongly down the Reach as relief that we were now more than halfway filtered through.

We really began to feel the length of the course as we came round Grassy, but as we came round First Post corner there was a massive lift in the boat as the cox called for a final push and we charged down the last stretch with Kat and Charlotte cheering us on from the bank. We agreed later that this final section was some of the best rowing we've done all term and despite the pain we were feeling it felt fantastic at the time!

Our final time is one we're very proud of and most importantly we beat Sidney Sussex's third senior eight! We're delighted with what we have achieved this term and we're looking forward to getting back in an eight for Bumps next term!

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Women's 3rd IV+ Fairbairns 2009-10 , University IVs , Day 1
Trinity Hall W2
Won Easily

We began with a fairly scrappy start that led to us being skewed across the river and Tit Hall began to pull away, but we managed to take control of the situation and moved past the start and into a steady rate 28. As soon as we settled into this rhythm, we began to move back up on Tit Hall and we quickly caught them up and passed them easily. By the railway bridge, we were about a length ahead and still increasing the distance between us with a push for 10 away from the bridge. The strong winds made it difficult to keep the rate up, but we focused on keeping our strokes long and finished several lengths ahead of the Trinity Hall boat. We were very pleased with our performance and we are determined to improve our start for tomorrow!

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Women's 3rd IV+ Fairbairns 2009-10 , University IVs , Day 2
Emma W2 Pink
Lost by 22 seconds

We knew today would be a more difficult race than yesterday as Emma had put in a strong performance the day before. Just before our race took place, we saw Christ’s W2 beating Downing W2 and so knew that if we won today’s race, the next day would be a Christ’s-on-Christ’s Final! With this as our motivation, our start was a lot more successful than the day before and we held Emma for a short distance, but they soon began to pull away. We tried to close the distance with several pushes for 10 down the reach and managed to pull back half a length just under the railway bridge, but Emma proved to be a very strong crew and we weren’t able to make up the distance between us. We were proud of how we did though – taking over 30 seconds off our time of the day before – and hope W2 can get revenge for us in the final tomorrow!

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Women's 3rd IV+ Fairbairns 2009-10 , Winter Head
Women's Students Novice 4+
2
12:26

After a week of bad winds that saw all our water outings replaced by erg sessions, there were some pre-race nerves in the boat as we rowed down to Chesterton. Fortunately, we soon got back into the swing of things and our rowing became much better on the way to the start of the course. Our practice starts felt good and we were excited as we waited to go.

Our start was a little scrappy and lead to us veering rather close to the river bank initially! Fortunately some good calls from our cox and a mighty effort from bow side got us straightened out and settling into our rhythm fairly quickly. We kept the focus on technical aspects of our rowing, concentrating on keeping our strokes long in the occasional strong gusts of wind.

We could feel ourselves beginning to tire as we came on to the reach, but a call for a new race mindset and some good pushes for ten kept our speed up and as we came under the railway bridge we had the motivation of Clare College's first eight chasing us to keep us pushing hard. We managed to hold them off until we were just over the line, something we were quite proud of!

All in all, a good improvement from the Autumn Head just a few weeks ago - when we were still rowing trailing blades! - and we're extremely keen to do well in Fairbairn's in a couple of weeks.

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