Reflections on our race

It's said that history is written by the winners; this year for the second year running history will be written that CUWBC lost all three of their Henley Boat Races. History, like the news articles that have been published about the race, however, do not tell the story of CUW over the last couple of years. They don't tell of the journey we're on or the real reasons we continue to trial year after year.

We lost our race two Sundays ago. We'll be the first to admit it wasn't our finest performance and the margin shouldn't have been anywhere near as big as it was. Crossing the finish line second for a second year running is crushing; you've poured your heart and soul into training all year, finally you get your chance to show your friends and family everything you've been training for all year and yet you fall short.

We live by the sword; the Boat Race requires you to put heart and soul on the line, it's a cruel experience for one crew exposing their every weakness. While the victors can be happy with their results and celebrate their win, the losers are left to analyse the race over and over again, every photo and video, picking out every little thing you could have done differently. Then you have to wait another year to race all over again. Sure there are other races and goals along the way, but in the aftermath of another defeat you can be sure we're all itching for revenge. 

However, trialling is about more than just winning the Boat Race (even though that is it's major focus, don't get us wrong), otherwise we could have finished our trialling lives a couple of years back and spent our time seeing friends, working and going out (or whatever it is that non-rowers do). Trialling gives us all a chance to get stronger, fitter and to strive to better our best performances to date. Trialling is a chance to push our limits, find places we've never been before. And trialling has given us a chance to meet some of the most amazing people. Some of the squad get awestruck when they get to meet Olympians, however these are not the amazing people we have in mind. It's the other girls in the squad, the girls who get up at 5am to train, have to have full days of lectures, essays and supervisions, before training again,  having to diet if they're a lightweight and having to try and keep some form of social life before going to bed exhausted and then having to get up to do it all again. These are the girls who keep you going when training's tough and who keep you smiling. A couple of weeks ago we were sent through some media questions; one of them was 'if you could pick one girl from the Oxford crew to be in your boat who would it be?' Our answer now, even after the result, is exactly the same as it was back then - we wouldn't want any of them, nothing personal to them, but we couldn't imagine 8 other girls we'd rather have been in a boat with. 8 other girls who have shared the highs and lows of the past 7 months/3 years, girls we've laughed with, cried with, pushed as hard as we could for and who have become some of the best friends we could ever ask for. 

8 crazy friends who have made the last year so unforgettable and fun

While you can feel disenchanted, empty and at a loss having lost the race, one thing we will never feel is regret at having had another amazing year surrounded by an awesome squad. We've got so many amazing memories to take from this year, even if it looks like we'll have to save the memories of winning again until next year. 

Where's the last term gone?!

Somehow the last term has flown by in a blur of lambing shifts, exams and more hours of training than  we care to count and now we've arrived back in Henley for our third year here. It's almost starting to feel like a home from home, returning to the same beds, being greeted by the dogs and with a great view of Leander and the river from our bedroom  window.

To try and condense what we've been up to over the last term since our return from training camp could be a bit of challenge but we'll try and give you a bit of an overview and a bit more of an insight into what the build up to the last Blue Boat Henley Boat races has entailed.

After camp we moved back to training on the not quite so glamorous River Ouse at Ely and have been treated to a full compliment of different weather conditions over the last 8 weeks. Thankfully with no flooding though, while the rest of the rivers in the country seemed to have burst their banks and be largely un-rowable the water levels at Ely just seemed to get lower so training was able to continue in earnest for us. This term has also been filled with trips away to train too, we've been to Nottingham for a weekend, getting very soggy (although massively enjoying the amazing showers and  the Saturday night tv) and we also had a trip down the Tideway for some great sparring experience with Thames Rowing Club.

Interspersed with our weekends away we've also had a few exams, the rest of the squad now know a lot of vet knowledge especially a lot of diarrhoea related knowledge following our alimentary system exam (thankfully for them we've got alimentary part 2 to come after Easter so they still get to enjoy more poo chat). This term we also had lambing shifts to fit in as well, 12 hour shifts out at the university farm. The romantisced view of our lambing shifts would be getting to bottle feed the pet lambs and watch cute newly born lambs pronking around in the straw, however while these things do feature in the reality there are also some slightly less glamorous aspects - the intermittent couple of hours of trying to sleep in between your turn of checking the cold lambing sheds, the smell of sheep that sticks with you for long after your shift and becomes a feature of your next training session and the tiredness that stays with you for days afterwards with you unable to explain to anyone who's not a vet and a triallist quite how you're feeling and why you are quite so incapable to human interaction after about 8pm. However, it wasn't all bad, getting to see a lamb being born and taking it's first couple of steps and the initial bonding with its mother never fails to be amazing, even if it is the middle of a cold night having been on our way to Ely at 5.55am that morning.

Now the craziness of term has finished and already seems a long way away, being back in Henley the excitement for the race is building, 5 days to go......

Sun, seats and over-knowledgeable coaches

Although we may have been back from training camp for a couple of weeks now, during the cold, windy and often rainy Ely mornings we've often looked back fondly at the warmth, dryness and relative unearliness of the sessions we had on training camp. Now we've also got round to writing about it as the next stage of our trialling adventure.

Training camp is a massive learning curve: you learn  about rowing, you learn more about yourself and you also learn often a little bit too much about some of the other squad members. 11 days together all living in the same hostel and pretty much spending 24/7 together, can lead to plenty of in jokes (donde este moustache anyone??) and the coaches hearing far too many conversations they probably wish they hadn't (and we probably wish they hadn't either).

This year we left Souston behind and headed south to Banyoles in Spain in search of better food and weather. Banyoles has a beautiful lake surrounded by wooded hills, snow capped mountains in the distance, sun and our coach assured us no wind (we discovered otherwise, although thankfully only for one day and nothing compared to Ely's apocalyptic head winds). All in all it was perfect for us to get lots of good water time, working on technique and speed without other commitments of normal uni life hanging over us.

Not a bad place to row

Our search for better food wasn't as successful though, with a chef who deemed making our meals "more interesting" was of more importance than nutritional content. Bananas in lettuce, green unidentifiable sludge and the game of where's the carbohydrate in this meal, definitely made mealtimes more interesting; so I suppose he achieved his objective in some ways, returning home to our own cooking and "uninteresting" diets featuring carb, carb, more carb and protein has been a relief though.

Our training camp falls at a time of year close to crew selection. Everyone knows that camp is a great chance to prove to the coaches which crew you should be in, show them the changes you can make and to seat race yourself into your crew. This is a strange situation in many ways to be in, but it's testimony to the strength of friendships within in the squad and the friendly atmosphere that we can leave our  rivalries for seats on the water and not let them affect our friendships and the fun we have off it. This leave us free to have evenings together playing cards, watching films and "working" which may have once or twice turned into youtube watching sessions, one of our personal favorites being this one (we are training to be vets after all):

It goes without saying there were also lots of rowing videos watched too. Thankfully this year however, we were saved from the resurrection of the videos taken of us at the start of our first year of trialling (we like to think we've come a long way since those days).

A little different to Nottingham's weather conditions

We're now back in Cambridge, back in lectures with the additional excitement of lambing shifts at the university farm this term (at least we're good at being awake early in the mornings, past 10pm may be more of an issue). We've already had a trip away to Nottingham and were treated to some traditional Holme Pierrepont weather the perfect antithesis to the beautiful Banyoles sunset of a few weeks ago. We've got a couple more sparring weekends to look forward to ahead of The Henley Boat Races which are now only 58 days away!

Tideway Trial VIIIs

Trial viiis this year was our first chance to race side by side from Putney to Mortlake on the Championship course that is due to become home to the Newton Women's Boat Race as of 2015.  Having watched the men's boat race for years and participated in the women's race  for the last couple of years, it goes without saying we were very excited about our first chance to race the course.

For those who don't know, trial viiis is an intra-club competition where the coaches aim to form two matched 8s in which we train separately in the lead up to the race so that we line up on race day knowing we'll have a good race but not knowing exactly how good the opposition is or what they've been working up in the run up to the race. This year we were in opposing crews Holly in Nudge Nudge and Caroline in Wink Wink; here we'll give you our views of the race and rowing on the Tideway from both a winning (Holly) and losing (Caroline) perspective.

Caroline

After a week struggling with illness in our crew resulting in us having very few sessions in our race line up we still felt confident going into the race; we knew we had a decent start and we'd bonded well as a crew, we'd definitely reached the stage we wanted to win as much for each other as we did for ourselves. On the start line I felt calm, confident in my crew, this confidence proved to be well founded and we stormed away off the start, taking more out of the other crew than we ever could have hoped. Knowing Nudge Nudge would have the initial advantage on the Middlesex station going past Craven Cottage we tried to settle onto our rhythm and not worry as they started to move back on us knowing that the bend would soon turn in our favour around the big Surrey bend and that we should be able to regain our lead at that stage. Coming into Hammersmith Bridge we were pretty much level, still feeling in control this was fine, but they kept moving on us, we followed our race plan but eventually Nudge Nudge broke free. Being used to rowing in the bows it was strange rowing towards the stern with less visibility of the crew by your side moving on you, despite the fact that our cox was making calls saying how much water was between us I always felt like they could have still been by our side just out of my peripheral vision.

Barnes bridge to the finish was one of our strongest sections of the race and we managed to move back on Nudge Nudge however it was too little too late and we didn't manage to regain contact and had the crushing moment of hearing the other crew celebrating while we were still rowing.

After regaining some breath we then paddled through Chiswick bridge and were made to come together with the other crew to shake hands. It was such a hard moment having to shake hands with the people who had just beaten you and made you feel so terrible, having to come to terms with the fact that they're your friends and that in the world outside of competition you wouldn't be friends with people who make you feel like that. Yet in the rowing environment you have to learn to take your friends making you feel that bad by beating you as being a good thing, learn that they're pushing you to be better so that when the real test comes against Oxford in just under 3 months time,  you'll be mentally and physically stronger. So thank you for the great experience of racing against me on the Tideway Nudge Nudge and in many ways thank you for beating me, i'm very glad I'll be lining up with you on the 30th March rather than against you - one of us had to lose trial viiis, thankfully none of us have to lose the Boat Race.

Level under Hammersmith, with the 3rd eight "Say No More" on the bridge 

Holly

The week or so leading up to the trial viiis race is a strange experience and sets an interesting dynamic in the squad. Although we have been competing against each other as individuals for seats in the top boats since the start of the season, we have not yet been placed in matched crews competing so directly against each other. Suddenly your best friends are 'the enemy' and tactics such as answering questions about how your outings have gone with a non-committal shrug and an "ermm, it was ok"; you speak about your race tactics and start sequence in the changing room on pain of death. However, it's also a great opportunity to get to row with and get to know a lot of the squad you haven't spent much time in a boat with during the season and form a crew identity.

I was at stroke of Nudge Nudge, a crew that had not fared well in paddling in the last few outings prior to moving down to the Tideway- we knew we had a lot of work to do. The outings on the Tideway went well, we learnt lots; not least some of the skills required to deal with the unpredictable water on the course. Depending on a number of factors including the direction of the tide and the wind direction in relation to it, different sections of the course can range from flat calm to white horses, changing in a matter of a couple of strokes.

In the race itself, our start wasn't great and we found ourselves a fair way down by the line of boats. The confidence in the crew and team mentality we had built up allowed us to stick to the rhythm we had practiced and push the psychological advantage Wink Wink had gained by being in front out of our heads. We held Wink Wink through the bend to our advantage and on the Surrey bend (our disadvantage) used our crew move to inch ahead. Holding, and then using another move as we came alongside Chiswick Eyot, we moved ahead to clear water. The incredible feeling of being up negated some of the fatigue from the many pushes and allowed us to hold our heads high as we continued in our rhythm to the finish, but always with the threat of Nudge Nudge drawing back. Still, the Championship course is a long, long way and I don't think the supposed 4 minutes from Barnes to the finish could have possibly seemed any longer.

After the elation of a win, exhaustion set in and then, as we shook hands the realisation that we were one team again and how glad we were to be facing Oxford with the same girls that had just pushed us to our absolute limit.

One team again

Now, we're back as a squad on training camp in Banyoles, Spain, enjoying the balmy climate and some beautiful flat water!

We found fremitus, GB trials and IV's head

So once again it's been a while; somehow balancing rowing, vetting and maybe the occasional social event means writing our blog goes a little by the wayside. Ultimately this means we suddenly realise quite how much we've done and how much we've got to tell you of our trialling adventure this year.

Since we last wrote we've been to GB trials and raced IV's head, as well as sitting a couple of exams (as clinical vets we now how multiple exams a term and have come to realise #everytermisexamterm can be read in more than one way!). Plus, we're getting to do more stereotypical vet activities - yes we did have a cow rectaling practical and are still struggling to understand how our non-vetty friends don't find the revelation that we managed to locate fremitus and various organs inside the cows as exciting as we did.

Back in mid-November we adventured to Boston, and to probably one of the few stretches of river in the country that can match Ely for blandness in parts, although both do provide views of the Cathedrals from the water:

The first day of trials was a 2k erg test. Being used to doing these in Goldie (the University boathouse in Cambridge) surrounded by the rest of our team-mates, with loud pumping up music and the members of the squad not testing cheering you on, we found ourselves in a very different atmosphere. We were tested in a sports hall with two lines of ergs and different groups of people being tested every 15 minutes, meaning you get to witness the pain of the 2k many times over before you have to do your own. However, it was exciting, knowing that you're in a room of future Olympians does helps you raise your game. Day 2 then bought the 5k single scull, always an interesting one for predominantly sweep rowers used to only one blade and having a cox to tell us what to do. Never the less we finished, stayed dry and managed to pretty much hold our ranking positions from the 2ks. More excitingly the end of the 5k also heralded the end of our autumn soiree into sculling and our return to sweep rowing in preparation for IV's head.

IV's head was our first Tideway race for the season and the first race representing CUW for many of the new members of our squad. With most of our boats going off in the 400s it made it almost a test of bladder strength, staying warm  and not getting too hungry before we even started the race. After our couple of hours of marshalling though and some interesting start orders we were off amongst many junior crews with the plus of giving us lots of crews to overtake but also the negative of having to negotiate a river filled with crews. After our first taste of Tideway racing for the year we started to look forward to our next taste of the Tideway with our Trial VIIIs race later and our  first chance to race the 2015 Boat Race course side by side and on the Boat Race tide- a daunting yet incredibly exciting prospect.We'll let you know our thoughts on Trial VIIIs in the next installment, it definitely deserves it's own post!

We only wear trackies on Thursdays...

 Unbelievably we're now half way through our first term of clinical vet school and two months into our trialling year and are gradually learning how to balance the two (most of the time).

We're pretty sure our vet year group think we're a little odd,  for a variety of reasons:

1. Our Hackett jackets have become almost a uniform. Given we're all so attached to them and never leave home without them it means we're constantly matching, something other members of our year have commented on on several occasions. We like to think the rest of our dress is a bit more variable - we only aim for one trackies day a week and on rotations even have to go for "professional" dress, resulting in us looking like we almost don't row (atleast when we're inside and not wearing our jackets anyway).
2. As the vet school is on the opposite side of town to the station, our arrival back from Ely necessitates a sprint cycle through Cambridge to make it to 9am (or more accurately 9.12am by the time we arrive) lectures. Piling in sweaty and loudly dekitting doesn't exactly make for a stealthy entrance.  
3. Along with our fellow fourth year vet triallist Claire, we now travel everywhere as a pack. 
4. Our lecture theatre is the most uncomfortable ever made and whilst most people bring in their own cushions, our ingenius solution is to sit on our seat pads.
5. Eating between every single lecture, even the ones straight after lunchtime. Then clocking the calories on My Fitness Pal.

Ultimately, to the rest of our year we must look like the rowing equivalent of Mean Girls - only we like to think we're a lot nicer and we rely on BBC weather rather than our other assets to predict what the Ely weather may be like.

In other very exciting news, we competed in Brit Champs a couple of weeks ago. Coming so early in our season, Brit Champs is a challenging one to prepare for, with limited time in race crews and minimal race fitness preparation. The day ended with an exciting final in which we won the University pennant and came third overall! Possibly the best part of the day was standing on the podium with a multitude of big rowing deals, who dwarfed us- all standing about a foot taller than our crew. Brit Champs is a great event from this perspective, looking across to your opposite number on the start line and seeing that it's an olympic champion is an experience you really don't get very often!

Looking up to the olympians in more ways than one.

Bronze medallists!

We also got to go on a trip to London last week for the President's challenge, leading to more country girls in the city fun. Unlike our last trip to the capital this time we managed to avoid getting stuck in any ticket barriers; although getting stuck crossing the road we did have to be escorted across by a man dressed as a giant banana. There was also the obligatory dash to the train at King's Cross, challenging in blazers, pencil skirts and heels to say the least. Getting to go the BNY Mellon offices again was exciting though. Highlights definitely included Esther's calamity acts; her powerful coin toss into the crowd (she may be a cox, but she really doesn't know her own strength- just ask her what her party trick is) and the shield somehow falling off the stand while we were having our photo by it.

The Challenge.

Coming up we've got weekends to the Tideway, GB trials and IVs head to look forward to before the end of the month, more on those to follow....

It's been a while... Our Musings on Summer Training.

So we're already back to trialing for the 2014 Boat Race, a surprise to none of our friends that we've decided to trial for a third time. It definitely would have been a surprise to us if you'd asked us two years ago if we'd trial for at least three years, or if you asked us after some of the colder, more miserable Ely mornings where you'd probably have heard us bringing out lines akin to Redgrave's classic of Atlanta '96. But here we are again, through love of rowing, enjoying a challenge or sheer stupidity (possibly a mix of all three) who knows.

Since we last posted we've had the highs of BUCS regatta (with vast improvements on our Boat race performance), the excitement of Henley Women's as well as College Bumps rowing and coaching. We've also had our last long work experience free summer holiday...

Summer gives the opportunity to train in different ways; take a break from the erg or the boat and get away from the Cambridge bubble for a few weeks. Our top 5 great things about summer training are as follows:

1. Runs in beautiful places; running is great for when you're away without much equipment and has the added bonus of finding some amazing views. some of our examples...

Barefoot run along here anyone?

So glad I had my phone to capture this! 

2. Bemoaning the loss of a squad to train with leads you to finding new training partners, leading to competitive training against siblings (we will not be beaten by younger siblings, or older ones for that matter, even if our UT2 jog ends up turning into a near sprint.) Being keenly observed erging by the dog, who is also very keen, even if you have other opinions to try to help lick off your sweat between pieces and the long suffering friends and boyfriends who having put up with you disappearing off to train all season suddenly get the joy of accompanying you.

Nothing escapes the watchful gaze of coach Henry.

3. Sun; making the most of every opportunity to work on the tan lines, plus even erging in the sun can be (almost) enjoyable.

4. Tour de France inspired cycling challenges; home to Cambridge, to the beach or just out to explore the countryside- spending a day out in the open is great (until you come across a hill).

5. Training whenever you like. From early morning barefoot runs along the beach to late night erging under the stars, suddenly training is able to fit around your life rather than your life around training.


Four weeks into the season, summer training already seems a very long time ago, but we're enjoying being back with the squad and back in the boat and are looking forward to our first race of the season. Plus, we're now clinical vet students, more on this to follow!