Training on the Tideway

As the Boat Race is fast approaching, our training programme involves an increasing number of weekends away. Last weekend we headed to the Tideway, a stretch of the Thames resembling a watery treadmill when  rowing against the stream and having sunk many a rowing boat in its time. Weekends away entail packing  vast amounts of kit, attaching several bags to a bike and attempting to cycle to the station, hoping that you won't have to accelerate/decelerate/turn sharply on the way. Having made it to the station in what would normally be considered (at 5.55am) to be plenty of time to buy a ticket and wander on to the train, you are suddenly confronted with the Friday evening rush hour queue for tickets. Heart rate creeps upwards as incessantly slow people attempt to figure out the ticket machine and minutes tick by... a final bit of AT sprinting for the train results in a crumpled sweaty heap of bag/person.

Some effective bag packing/attaching of multiple bags together

Another challenge is mastering the underground, especially for us Suffolk folk, and this trip was particularly bad. We successfully made it as far as Vauxhall relatively easily, yet there we were met by the announcement of long delays and overly crowded trains with not enough space for us, let alone three bags each. Five trains later we used our Ely- practiced train sardine tactics well enough to cram into a carriage, not without first crushing several people, made invisible by the rucksack blindspot. Then came the heat. Sadly, we had not made the most of the platform based de-kitting opportunity and thus paid the price in sweat as the train crept two stations in 45 minutes. Conclusion: London commuting is not for us.

Train sardines, although there was definitely some space in the aisle,
some people  need to learn to tessellate more effectively.

Still no space, #sadfacecrying

For those of you who have not  had the pleasure of rowing on the Tideway, it's amazing, there's so much to look at (or not when you're focused in the boat). However, not all is great about the Tideway, there is the stream to contend with, invisible to the naked eye;  you suddenly look over and see a boat filled with veteran/novice rowers storming through you, despite us doing rate 30 to their 18 purely because they've hit the jackpot of the stream. Then there are the waves to contend with, nothing like those we experience at Ely (mostly a bit of chop when the wind's against the stream), they seem to have an ability to come from all directions at once (or "uppydownysideysidey" as coined by our cox). At bow you become the wave break for the whole boat and effectively feel like someone is throwing a bucket of water over you every time you crash into a wave. But, overall the excitement of rowing on the Tideway far outweighs any negatives, if anything, it just add to the excitement. The sense of suspense, not knowing what the Tideway will throw at you in any given outing, plus the swathes of boats to pit yourself against and push off all make for a much more interesting rowing experience than the Adelaide straight in Ely. Also there's the benefit of being able to play bingo/eye-spy with all the exciting things that float by you, trollies, plastic barriers and massive bits of tree to name some from this trip, thankfully no swimmers though.

The change of scenery has its benefits off the water too. The relative luxury of the boathouses we get to visit fitted with showers, function rooms, nice toilets and even heated kit lockers, for example. All of which are a far cry from our boathouse, with a boiler which probably works an average of 30% of the time. In addition, there seems to be a very definite positive correlation of Tideway rowers and really nice bikes, and so much time can be spent becoming increasingly jealous of the shiny roadbikes locked up outside the boat clubs. The tow path is an excellent people watching location, well populated with runners, walkers, cyclists and the phenomenon known as the "hot guy, cute pet", (think Mr Darcy/hot Olympic rower surrounded by cute dogs, why else did you think we chose to be vets?).That extra few minutes of land warm up is definitely worth it.

When it was announced that the women's boat race was moving to the Tideway some very witty person (sense the irony) decided to comment on a website that they didn't know that they'd installed kitchens on the Tideway. We can safely inform that last weekend they hadn't (although in fairness there probably are enough parts sunk in the river to construct multiple kitchens ). However, one of the other benefits of going away for the weekend is kitchen related, with someone else cooking for you and sitting down and having a meal with your crew. You forget how great  home cooked meals are when you live on a diet of as many carbs as you can cram in between training sessions. You also soon realise that even 7 rowers and 2 coxes will eventually be defeated by 6 lasagnes and 3 apple crumbles between them. Thankfully we've avoided a weigh-in so far this week.....

Overall the weekends away are great, friends, rowing, food and an escape from the Cambridge bubble for a few days as well as a legitimate reason to not be able to go to the library for a few days....just don't tell our supervisors.