Losing a boat race

For those of you that didn't already know the other side came out victorious in this years women's race. This is something we could gloss over and not chose to write about, but seeing as we have been building up to the Boat Race since we started the blog we thought we should also give you our thoughts on the race itself and what it's like to lose the race you've been training for for 6 months.


The view from the bows - Caroline

I always joked that about the bows being great as you get to cross the line first in the boat. However, the Boat Race this year also taught me one not so great side of being in the bows, in being able to see the race slipping away. Up off the start and we were flying, having the race we wanted and had planned, (although admittedly the weather conditions we had to face weren't ones that we would have put in our ideal race.)  Then Oxford started to move on us, initially we were holding their pushes and pushing back out again, but then they started to move through us seat by seat until eventually even in the bows they were out of my periphery vision. Further forward in the boat you can always kid yourself you've got contact, in the bows you know otherwise, or at least any contact between the boats is marginal. Saying that I never stopped believing, we'd trained and visualised this race to 6 months and not once in those 6 months did we consider losing. It wasn't until we crossed the line exhausted, lungs and muscles burning that you even start to contemplate the fact you've lost and there's no celebration to take away the pain of the race, only a sense of shock and disbelief, the voice of our cox talking to us, willing us to sit up and breath.

I remember the paddle from the finish line to the pontoon, hands too cold to grip the blade and muscles too tired to move, yet as always we just did whatever our cox told us to do and made it back to our coaches and supporters. To everyone who had been there to support us over the last 6 months, through the highs and lows and who had to watch us lose powerlessly from the bank. Knowing what to say to friends and family who have travelled for miles only to watch you lose is impossible. I imagine it would be impossible in any state, let alone in a state of utter exhaustion not able to think straight, I think my main fall back was hugging everybody. Those moments were in some ways the worst, feeling the disappointment of feeling like you've let everyone you care about down, but, at the same time they were the moments that made you remember that there are people out there who didn't care if we won or lost for any reason other then the effect it had on us, they were there to watch the culmination of our training and support us whatever the outcome, (they also made some pretty awesome banners).

One of the awesome banners.

I think the real feeling of losing didn't begin to sink  in until I was back at the house lying on my bed with a lost feeling. Everything I'd trained for was over and this year the result hadn't gone the way we'd wanted. There was the solace however that we'd had our best race to date and we were continuing to get faster everyday in the build up to the race. The Boat Race may be over for 2013, but there are new challenges, new crews out there to beat and personal targets to reach. Some of my non-rowing friends think it's crazy that I want to keep rowing, but it's what I do and what I love (after all it's what gets me up in the morning) and in the words of Winston Churchill; "success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts."

Despite not winning this year, we've had  so many great memories and made loads of awesome friends.

From the stern- Holly

The feeling of losing is something quite different to what I had imagined it might be; I've heard people say before that it is like a bereavement, but I think this depends very much on the circumstances of the loss. I don't remember much of the race itself, just that it passed very quickly. A couple of moments stand out; Esther calling that she was on the four seat after the start and the amazing surge of confidence that came from that. Secondly, putting in pushes in the second km, convinced we were gaining ground despite Oxford being out of view from the stern. I never thought we were going to lose until they could be heard cheering as they crossed the line ahead.  

Initially, the feeling was shock and not knowing what to say or think. I thought it would be difficult to enjoy the evening but it turned out to be a great squad celebration of how far we'd come since September. Like for Caroline, it didn't sink in properly until a couple of days later, after hours spent re-running the race in my mind, watching the video over and over and coming to the conclusion that we gave it everything we had on the day. It was the race of our lives and we crossed the line with no regrets; like Em (our 7 seat) said "we left everything on the water".

Having believed something so completely, and having a goal that had taken up so much space in my mind and life meant that the loss left me feeling very empty. It was not until we discussed as a group where we wanted to go with our rowing over the next few months, agreeing that we wanted to take the eight further, that some of the hole left by the Boat Race started to be filled a little. If anything, I put even more into every stroke and repetition, knowing that it all adds to the bank for 2014, not to mention the races we have lined up before then. The loss made me think about why I row; obviously I'm here to win, but I love the friendships formed, the constant stream of goals to work towards and the opportunity to push myself further every day. There's no way that I feel any of the time spent rowing with CUW over the last two years has been wasted and I don't regret any of the sacrifices I've made to row. Bring on summer rowing!    

Onwards and upwards.

Race Week

It's been a while since we posted about the weigh in and a lot has happened. Primarily, as most of you will have guessed, the Henley Boat Races took place 2 Sundays ago on a very cold, very wind swept Dorney Lake. Before the race we stayed in Henley for 10 days, in a big three storey house just behind Leander. The Blue Boat have been doing this for a good few years, so we can train on the water that we race on. Race week is so much fun, so we thought we would give you an insight into what living with eight  rowers and a cox in the run up to the biggest race of our year is like...

As we're tapering we only do two shortish outings each day, the first one normally about 10am- when it's actually light- woooo hello lie-ins!! Thus, you would think that we would have loads of time to finish all that outstanding work, write blog posts, finish that dissertation... but no. Somehow, time flies past and by the end of the week you have loaded some papers onto your computer and only written one sentence. Oops. 

It's impressive how much food the nine of us got through in a week. Even though we're doing so much less mileage, we seemed to spend the whole time we weren't rowing eating. The house had a massive aga, which we mastered usage of quite well (we won't mention that one half baked lemon drizzle cake...)  there were multiple shops and many shopping lists to be written, our individual food habits also became evident, there were multiple tubs of nutella eaten and seeds were written off by our coach as an unnecessary item, he had very different views on the jaffa cakes however! All in all, there was a solid effort to maintain our weight advantage, which we found at weigh in round two (which took place on the Tuesday of race week alongside the challenges for each race) to have extended to 4kg per person. Like we said, all muscle.

The classic HBR weigh in shot, at least we know how to smile!

One of the highlights of each day, other than the lie-ins and mealtimes was the daily arrival of post, and there was lots of it. Suddenly we all felt very loved as we received cards, exciting packages and words of wisdom from friends, family and ex-members of CUW. We managed to line the book case with our cards and the windowsill rapidly filled with flowers, it was like all Christmasses and birthdays came at once. There was also the event of making cards for the other crews, involving cutting up magazines to make "witty" cards, Farmers Weekly proved to be particularly useful this year, who knew how amusing a magazine it really was?!

Just a selection of the many, many cards.

There is also lots of time to be filled with what can only be referred to as niche chat, in jokes of the crew that generally no one else dares question us about, this year Mike the inflatable shark sparked some interesting questioning from our coach. Although it's fair to say that generally our coach chose to ignore the "niche chat" rather preferring to sit in the arm chair in the corner of the room either on his phone or "napping" to try and ignore us, however not all our comments passed him by, some being bought up by him at the dinner at the end of the week.....

Mike the shark- the epitome of niche.

Our evening entertainment involved watching a variety of girly films including Pride and Prejudice, Notting Hill and Mean Girls- talk about pandering to stereotypes!  

Mid way through the week we had a surprise visit; nothing like the shock of opening the door to find Matthew Pinsent standing outside! As the umpire for our race, he came to chat with us but had turned up a day early, probably a good thing as he missed out on the previously mentioned half-baked lemon drizzle. Further encounters included Tom James after the race, who seemed somewhat bemused when the entirety of the slightly inebriated CUW piled onto him for a photo.  

CUW- always winning the party.

Hopefully that's given you an insight into the strange world of race week, right now we've enjoyed a chilled out Easter and now it's back to training for summer (if it ever comes) races and into the throes of exam term...