We had a choppy row down to the start but managed to pull together a few good bursts along the way for confidence. A good line from Tom gave us a solid start and we were gaining on the Caius crew in front of us quickly. The pushes around corners came, but perhaps we weren't experienced enough to navigate around 1st post and grassy efficiently, and a well recovered crab past the grassy upset the rhythm and power a bit. Coming into Ditton corner, John had a seat malfunction and was reduced to arms only, but luckily with the 1600m course, the finish line was in sight and we managed to cross it albeit with a much slower speed, and with Caius pulling away. The row home demonstrated one of the best 8s rowing we've had as a crew, shame Charlie couldn't be there to witness it.
Newnham Short Course 2009-10
Newnham Shourt Course took place on Saturday 30th January with 5 Christ's crews entered.
More details on the event can be found here.
After lasts weeks results we knew that we could be fast over a shorter course, and we’d had some good training sessions, so we went out with a race plan of attacking from the beginning, which I feel we achieved. We wound to 34 in the start, and quickly settled to a strong 32, which we maintained solidly for the rest of the course. As per our usual race plan we had pushes for 5 going into and coming out of corners, which served to really pick up the rhythm and consolidate our timing. From our pre-race chat we’d established that Ditton marked the beginning of the sprint for the line, and our push onto the reach was awesome, you could really feel that everyone was mentally switched on to what the corner meant. Scott then called for us to take the rating up one every 10 or so strokes, which was well responded to. However, our final push for the line was scrappy, as we all tried to give it everything on our own, and the rhythm and balance suffered as a result. Although a small part of the race, this is something we’ll definitely need to keep focusing on in our training – keeping loose when tired and under pressure is, after all, the real test of Bumps crews! The race was notably missing some of the crews that have been providing the strongest competition of late, but it’s a pleasing win nonetheless. Thanks to our awesome bank party as always, looking forward to taking the skills we’ve learnt and applied in this race on to next week’s longer course!
This felt like another strong race with good pushes out of the corners and pressure in the water for the majority of the course. The last quarter began to get a bit scrappy as the rate came up and rushing crept in, leading to a loss of power compared to the first half of the race, but it was still a good row. After having been declared the winners of our division we ended up having to settle for second as an (apparently rather subbed) Emma W2 got reclassified. At least now we have someone we have to beat...!
This was our first race of term now that we have a full crew and was the first race ever for some people in the boat.
We began with a well timed start that saw us settling into the rhythm for the race just as the starting horn went. We continued well round first post corner, though a slight rush on the slide kept us at a higher rate than it was really possible to maintain. By Grassy the tiredness was beginning to be felt, but a push out of the corner and then again on Ditton corner as we came round on the reach helped us to maintain boat speed and everyone gave it their all for the final 200m to the finish.
We finished with a time of 8.37 and beat a number of both W2 and W3 crews and even FaT M4 (though they probably crashed). But with no crabs or crashes this was a very successful first race especially for a crew which had only had 3 water outings before. We look forward to Robinson Head with eager anticipation.
