Jumping ship

I made the decision today to row with Danielle’s ladies’ crew for the bumps. It was a bit hard but I think it’s for the best. So I met them at 6.15 for ergs and went down to Trinity Hall boathouse where they have lots of ergs. There were three of us, with Emma coaching. We had the ergs side-by-side and did our warm up with arms, arms/bodies, then sliding. We then worked together with Emma providing feedback. She had nothing to say to me. We started with the rate at 20 then took it up gradually to 26. It’s an amazing feeling rowing that fast. It also exhausts you very quickly. It felt good though.

I went back to the boathouse because I was rowing with my crew for this and Sunday’s outings as they were short. Lo and behold, I had to turn around and get straight back on the same ergs I had just got off. The bow four had a go and got quite well together, lifting our rate to about 26 again. The stern four just couldn’t keep together. Boo!

We got the boat out, with Kat coxing and Maggie coaching. I was back in 2, and Zak was in stroke and Sikander was in 6, which made me happy. We did quite a long warm up, and then some eight rowing up to the lock. Maggie spoke to us up at the lock after we spun and only had feedback for Fran, Ashley (back caving in at backstops) and Sikander (squaring late and blade not out in gate properly).  We took off again with all 8, then did some firm pressure work in sixes which was very useful. Kat tried to bring the eight back in but it fell apart.

We then did some square blade work in rolling sixes which was designed to get us tapping down properly. It was quite good. Then we did all eight back to the boathouse and kicked arse rowing at firm pressure. It was great and the balance was fantastic. We pulled into the boathouse rowing well and Brian told me later that we had looked great and he offered to cox for us (this is because Simon had tried to get Kat to cox for them). Ashley announced that I was leaving the crew, Kat said the session was great, and we went up to have a beer. Kat told me mid-beer that I’m rowing very well, and have improved a lot just over the last two sessions. I explained that my confidence improves with the balance. It will be just my luck that that crew wins blades at the bumps and the ladies’ crew bombs out.