Starts and firm pressure

Max was coxing and Emma was coaching for this 8am outing.

I had bought a stretch bandage and some zinc oxide tape at Katherine’s suggestion and wrapped up my hand against the pressure of the blade. It worked a treat. Lance the boatman wasn’t able to rustle up any new shoes, so I tried moving the footplate up two notches and stuffing socks between my feet and the tongues of the shoes. It wasn’t ideal but at least my feet didn’t move.

We warmed up, rowing with a bit of firm pressure up to the lock. Max didn’t have anything bad to say to me, and he almost immediately started picking Fran up on her early catch, berating her all through the outing. We stopped for a breather and some hints from Emma, and she told me I wasn’t leaning forward enough at the catch. I had already surmised that my arms weren’t stretched forward enough, but the lean as well makes sense – it explains why I was catching with Anne but finishing before her. I tried really hard to do it at low rating but the savage slide pulled me back every time. At high rating it was easy because the momentum was pushing me forward.

We did about 3 starts on the way back upstream with Emma calling the start. They were quite good – she was fairly happy. I was happy with what I did with the draws and the winds and lengthens. Then we did one start before the rail bridge and rowed all the way to the Pike and Eel. It absolutely buggered me – my feathering hand pumped up and became almost useless, I was out of breath and I couldn’t will myself to shift my weight forward properly. I just hope our start is good enough to catch the next boat so we don’t have to row any further. The whole boat was pretty messy – Fran was certainly flagging.

We rowed light pressure back to the boathouse, passing Ashley’s crew on the way. After pulling in we practised some real starts off the bank with a pole and ‘chain’. They were hard because bow and 2 have to keep adjusting and therefore are frantically straightening when the cannon goes. Emma counted off from a minute, and it was very good to actually do it so that on the night fear won’t set in and freeze me up. We went crooked a couple of times, and clashed blades on the bank once (which won’t happen because the chain is actually much longer than the strap Emma was using).