November GB Trials

Well I think you're familiar with the weather we have been having recently? Very wet and windy! Henley should be renamed 'Henley in Thames'



A house near the river in Henley has gained a lake

Due to the adverse weather conditions the water aspect of GB's November trials was cancelled, but the ergo still went ahead. Details here

However, we still had to make the 7hr round trip from Henley to Boston, Lincs, to do the ergo as per normal.  I will try not to complain BUT...this is ridiculous! Sometimes we have 'assessed ergos' where the athletes/coaches have to submit the scores so it was not inconceivable for GB Rowing to suggest athletes do the ergo at their home clubs. A long drive is never good preparation for an ergo test but when we have to go up to Boston to do a water trial, it makes sense that we do them together. However, with no water trial and many perfectly good ergos at home, I rather resent the hour I spent in the car for each minute that I raced on the ergo! On top of that, the cost of driving, the hotel the night before, dinner out in Boston and the £10 trials fee...costs that many struggling athletes could do without.

Despite the rant, once you have been given some information like this there is nothing left but to get on with it.  I won't change the minds of the decision makers so there was nothing to do but try and relax, and enjoy as much of the experience as possible! I carpooled with friends so the journey was as good as can be, and we had dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant.  I had felt more prepared for the water trial than the ergo, but once I heard the news I had to switch into full ergo mode.  I wasn't feeling very confident after our ergo prep, but I put myself on the line and suprised myself, and my coaches I think(!) by just sneaking under the 7min mark.

I was really pleased with my result, and though I was 4 seconds away from my personal best, that is pretty normal for this time in the season.  I also beat a few of the GB squad girls, so it's a step in the right direction.  Now, back to some solid land training whilst we wait for the water to recede!

ALSO VOTE

KATHERINE GRAINGER FOR SPOTY

on Dec 16th we vote by phone

 

Ana Watkins has been heading up the #katherineforspoty campaign on twitter and some of her tweets have made me get emotional already...

 

Anna Watkins‏@watkinsteamgb

KG facts: The nicest thing she's ever done for me is promise she would wait for me to recover when I hurt my back #katherineforspoty

 

and in awe...

 

Anna Watkins‏@watkinsteamgb

KG has won a world championship medal in EVERY OLYMPIC BOAT CLASS that's 5 different events, scull and sweep #katherineforspoty

 

 

 

Fours Head winners 2012!

Well, Leander had a cracking weekend at the Fullers Head of the River Fours race.

Out of near 500 boats racing, Leander had four boats in the top five and five boats in the top ten overall.  We had ten boats racing, with sometimes two or three Leander boats in the same category and so out of a possible six category wins, Leander won five! I think chief coach Mark Banks was pretty happy with that.

Our quad raced in the Elite women's category and we had a solid race.  We were started behind the men's elite coxed fours, so we gave them as big a gap as we could.  It was a good job we did because you don't want to have to start steering around crews straight off the start and we caught up with the crew ahead of us relatively quickly. In fact, our finish time was over a minute quicker than the men's coxed four who started directly ahead of us, and in the end we overtook three men's coxed fours during the race which was a great mid race morale boost! We were the fastest women's boat on the river, winners of Elite W4x pennant and placed 60th overall.

Elite W4x mid race, courtesy of Leander's press officer Robert Treharne Jones
From stroke to bow (left to right) Victoria Thornley, Katie Greves, Erica Bodman, Ro Bradbury

We were pleased to put a good distance between us and the next female crew down the river, who were 27 seconds slower, the winners of the IM1 pennant, Molesey Boat Club. Incidentally they had a brilliant race I think, beating the second place Elite women's 4x, Imperial Boat Club.

I personally had a great time training and racing with this crew. Such a wealth of experience in the boat, they are great girls to learn from.

Now the mild panic sets in as it is less than two weeks till GB Trials in Boston where we do a 2k ergo test on the Saturday (24th) and 5k water time trial on the Sunday (25th). I don't feel ready yet!

Fullers Head of the River Fours

So, it is that time of year again for Fours Head, a brilliant head race in London.  Race day is Sat 10th November, start time of the event: 12.15pm. 

The race starts at Chiswick and finish at Putney (reverse Boat Race course). All boats have four rowers in, so we have quadruple sculls, coxless fours and coxed fours. There are 480 boats due to race so the river will be very busy! Best viewing spots are on Hammersmith Bridge and Putney embankment.  My boat is going off number 43.

I am racing women's elite quads for Leander with (from stroke to bow) Victoria Thornley, Katie Greves, myself and Ro Bradbury.  All these girls have experience racing the quad for Great Britain, at senior World Cup or World Championship level, so I am in the best possible company and looking forward to a great race on Saturday!

Crews rowing up to marshall at a past Fours Head

Diamond Jubilee Rowing Championships 2012

It was certainly a baptism of fire experience this weekend.

Racing 2k at this time of year, are you crazy?! Apparently the Diamond Jubilee Rowing Championships organisers thought not, but my body only three weeks into the new 2012-2013 season had a bit of a shock!

I raced for my club, Leander, on Sunday 21st October in a women's quadruple scull.  I was joined by Olympian Katie Greves (2008,2012), and Monica Relph and Victoria Meyer-Laker.  Conditions on Sunday morning for the time trials were beautiful; flat and almost completely still.  The calm conditions from Saturday night had clearly stuck around for awhile...

Saturday evening 20.10.12 looking over Dorney Lake
copyright Rich Stock @richstockrowing

As a boat, having only just come back to training from our end of season break and the other girls having other work/boat commitments, we only managed 4 or 5 outings before racing. Katie hadn't raced since her Olympic Final and this was going to be a very different experience for her at Dorney!  We put in a slightly safe but solid performance in the time trial, and I was surprised to later see that we had won the time trial by so much, putting six seconds between us and the second placed crew.

What seemed like a very short time later, we were back on the water for the semi final.  We made a good start on the race and put ourselves into a comfortable lead by 500m.  Just before the halfway mark Katie our stroke girl gave a call to take it down on the rate, so we gave the boat a bit more time to run, concentrated on our technique and rowed as light as we could to stay a length ahead of the next crew.  We crossed the line comfortable with our win and safely into the A final.

Again, a short break and then out onto the lake for the A final of the women's quadruple sculls.  Legs heavy, we didn't have the best start and found ourselves adrift of our two biggest threats, the Wallingford Lightweight quad and the Isle of Ely composite lightweight quad. Lightweights are typically fast starters, having less weight to get moving so we found confidence in our mid race pace and set a rhythm that would carry us through. By the 500m mark we were just ahead of the field and we continued to slowly draw away.  We knew that we would have to fight for the win, and we did, finally coming home with a hint of clear water, 2 seconds in front of Wallingford RC.

Semi-Final and Finals results can be found here

Winners of Women's 4x at the Diamond Jubilee Rowing Championships 2012

L-R Katie Greves, Monica Relph, Erica Bodman, Victoria Meyer-Laker

Now I look forward to the Fullers Head of the River Fours race in just under three weeks time.  I will be racing a quad, line up to be confirmed.

Down time and Racing

For my end of season break this year I spent two weeks in Italy and two weeks at home in Guernsey.
Our holiday in Italy was a lot of fun and we mixed downtime with activities, including climbing a mountain and being joined for a little while by a few mountain goats!

It is rare that I get to spend such a long time at home and although not completely relaxing because I had to train whilst I was there, it was such a worthwhile visit.

I am always struck by how professional, helpful and genuinely concerned everybody from the Guernsey Sports Commission and Rising Stars set-up is with me.  It is such a pleasure to come home to Guernsey and have such an interest taken in my career.  I am constantly asked if there is anything else that can be done to help me; any other support or expertise that I require.  The nature of our island community comes through in the concern and guidance that is shown to me.

This visit to Guernsey was most productive because it allowed me to become inducted at the new Spearpoint High Performance centre down at Footes Lane.  This is an brilliant new facility for Guernsey which I saw being used by lots of young athletes with a fantastic support network of coaches.  I was also introduced to Tim Newenham and Denis Mulkerrin by GSC's performance director Jeremy Frith.  Jeremy is always looking for the best way to support and enhance performance, and I was so grateful for these introductions because I felt that this was one of  the most productive meetings ever.  Tim and Denis are both hugely respected and experienced in a range of sports and helped me with my weightlifting technique and things as basic but vital as posture, down at the Spearpoint facility.

In addition to working with the Guernsey Sports Commission, Tim has an extensive CV including current Performance Director for British Shooting and National Coach mentor for Javelin.  An incredibly inspiring and motivating individual, aside from his practical suggestions I felt I gained a great deal emotionally and motivationally from meeting him.  Denis was also very helpful and as a former British Weightlifting coach he was especially insightful when it came to my lifting techniques!

Now, back in the UK we have a rather different start to our typical rowing season. Usually winter is time for long head races (think 5km on a cold and bleak river), but this year British Rowing are changing the format somewhat.  For a range of reasons this year we have the 'Jubilee Regatta' at Dorney this weekend.  The racing is regatta style (2km on the lake) and  done in doubles and fours (Saturday) and quads and eights (Sunday).  This is a first step towards a new format for the Senior British Rowing Championships, but it will slightly differ from traditional multi-lane regattas, with heats consisting of time trials over 1900m.  The idea is to make the National Championships more of a National Championships! Up until now, the Nat Champs are scheduled in the summer racing season and they do not fit into the National Squad's racing programme. This new format means that some of the Olympic team will be racing this weekend, and they will be racing in their home club colours.  This is an exciting prospect for up and coming rowers because it means they will get the opportunity to race with and/or against some of our Olympians!

I am racing a quad on Sunday with Katie Greves (British Olympic 8+ 2008,2012) Vicki Meyer-Laker and Monica Relph (both Medallists at 2012 European Championships).  This is a very good line up and I am looking forward to the racing!



Post Jubilee Regatta I will be racing at The Fours Head of the River three weeks later in London, and then two weeks after that we have GB Trials up in Boston, Lincolnshire.

Life is a rollercoaster

It's funny how things turn out sometimes. I've been reminded that nothing in sport, or life, is ever guaranteed no matter how sure you think it is.

Pistorius is run out by Oliveira in the T44 200m in the 2012 Paralympics

In rowing terms, think about the Oxford Cambridge boat race this year. Leander Club had raced both crews and found Oxford to be the much faster crew, so lots of the athletes and coaches put early bets on for Oxford to win, before the bookies realised just how hot the Oxford crew were for favourite.  Even I, who has never gambled or been tempted, seriously contemplated putting a bet on for Oxford to win.  The only reason I didn't was that I was a bit confused about the whole online betting system, having never looked at it before.  By the time I figured it out the odds were far less favourable than before and I felt cheated already!  We all know what happened in the Boat Race this year and it taught me a few things.
1. Never swim into the Thames during the Boat Race. You will be forever universally hated.
2. Never gamble, the bookies are in business for a reason.
3. Sport is always unpredictable!

Throughout this season I have had many of the other European rowers comment to me that I am 'so lucky', for I have been in my boat since December. Tina and I did our first bit of racing in the double in December and we have been set as this crew since then. No threat of other athletes being introduced to challenge our seats, we stood out as a pair from the GB trialling system in our singles this year and so an early combination was made.  The women's eight that wanted European selection had numerous problems, namely lacking sufficient high quality athletes to fill the boat, meaning they were not worried about their seats, but about being able to fill the boat. They did not get into the eight until late in the season, but now the boat has been set they are posting some very encouraging times.

On the other hand, my season has gone the other way. Tina and I had a brilliant Holland Beker Regatta in Amsterdam, we had a clean sweep at women's Henley and narrowly lost out to a top crew at Henley Royal Regatta. We were going really well until a month ago when, five weeks away from Europeans, Tina's back started giving her problems.  Tina is an extremely talented athlete but her back is her Achilles heel, having put her out of the sport in 2009 for 18months. The medical team expected that she would never row again. It is a testament to her love of the sport, dedication and iron will that she has made a comeback. Tina has been back in the sport for 18months.

Now, a slightly sore back is common in any rower due to the heavy and repetitive loading we constantly put our backs through.  However, a month ago Tina started getting some more serious back pain in the area of her old injury. She was pulled out of the double for a few sessions to rest her back and get it treated, and a few days later having been in a new combination with a sub I  developed a mild stress reaction on my rib. This put me out of the boat for ten days, but happily it coincided with Tina's time out of the boat so we weren't affecting each other. My rib worries cleared up pretty quickly and I started to get back into the boat. The next couple weeks were taken slowly with Tina as she had an injection in her back to try and settle it down.  We gradually built up to time back in the double but it was a race against time. All boats were meant to do a 2km race to be considered for selection, but the timing of this race was too early for Tina.  So, our selection pieces were set to be less than a week before we were due to fly out to Varese for the Championships.

Two days before our selection pieces, we were still finding our feet in the boat and figuring out what Tina's back was happy with, we had to try some bursts up to race pace.  I remember coming off the water feeling that it was not Tina that I'd been in the boat with. She wasn't feeling racy, tough, fast.  With a serious back injury history and a new injury in recovery it was impossible for her to put down the power in the boat that was required.  Later that day, Ann Redgrave, GB team doctor withdrew Tina from racing the double at Europeans.  I fully agreed with the decision, as we would not have been able to race to our full potential and the championships would have certainly have aggravated her injury.  It is never easy news to take though, and I was told that I would paddle in my single the following day and do the selection pieces in my single the day after.

Despite having a good run in my single on the selection pieces, and being on track for my personal best time in less favourable conditions, the decision was taken not to race me in my single.  The single is an incredibly tough event and the entry list this year at Europeans is, as always, intimidating. Fourteen athletes who have raced at a host of World Cup and World Championships including three London Olympians and six athletes attending the Olympic Qualifying Regatta. In the circumstances it was not a wholly surprising decision not to send me, but incredibly disappointing nonetheless.

Apologies to all of our supporters over this season, you have been fantastic.  I desperately wish we could have raced the double, I think it would have been a really exciting championships.

I am looking forward to my end of season break which will start now, although it feels like I haven't really earned it because I didn't get the chance to race. It is days like today that makes me wonder why I do this. Being an athlete is both brilliant and awful, depending on when you ask.


Thank Yous

Special thanks this year to Rihoy and Sons, for my beautiful new boat. It is my baby, I still treat it like gold dust.

The Guernsey Sports Commission and the Rising Stars, I could not do this without your support. Thank you for making me a Rising Star, it is a privilege and I wish everything could go right for me all the time. I only want to give you good news!

Our European Double sponsors: (in no particular order)

Hunter Boots

Buff

110% Play Harder

Sun Sense

Headsweats

Faith in Nature

We have been very lucky to recieve so much support this year, it makes our jobs so much easier. We will come back fighting next season, after recharging our batteries and rediscovering the desire.  I look forward to giving you better news next time!

HRR and onwards

So, I was disappointed that we got knocked out in our first round at Henley Royal Regatta a couple weeks ago. My reluctance to write this post stems from that disappointment. So, I will not dwell on the result, only to say I thought we could have had our racing heads on a little more securely but ultimately we did row technically well. We had a close race with the New Zealand crew, who were then beaten by Australia by 1/3 of a length who went on to win overall. The draw really is luck of the draw, and unfortunately we had some tough competition in the first round, but that is how it goes at Henley!

Now we are back into winter style training whilst we prepare for Europeans in 2+ months.  No regatta racing between now and then, just internal racing against other GB European bound boats of different boat types.

Time to get the head down!

Henley Royal Regatta

Racing begins for us tomorrow at 12.15! Racing for the Princess Grace challenge cup. Our first round:

Leander v. Waiariki, Zew Zealand.

Bring it on!!

Henley Women's Regatta 2012

This weekend held the final Rowing World Cup of 2012, in Munich.  The A finals were shown on the BBC on Sunday and once again the GB team put in a solid performance at the regatta. The last big show down before the Olympics!  I was so chuffed for the women's pair who put in a stellar performance and comfortably beat New Zealand, last years World Champions. Also the women's eight had a fab last 500m to clinch the bronze medal.




















The team have all been collecting their Olympic kit up in Loughborough over the past couple days. Rumour is they have around 70kgs of kit!

Ex housemate, friend and stroke of the GB women's 8+ Victoria Thornley (above right) has been very organised and despite only collecting it today; already unpacked and named all her kit (above left)!

Henley Women's Regatta 2012

So whilst the big shots were racing the world's best in Munich, back at home the remainder of the Leander girls were racing on home turf at Henley Women's Regatta.  Hats off to the regatta organisers for keeping the regatta running so smoothly.  Conditions were tricky due to the heavy rain in the run up to the regatta which caused a very fast stream.  The race course runs against the stream, and with a very strong headwind to contend with as well there was no chance for record times this year!

Despite this everybody battled through the conditions as best they could and it was a successful weekend, cementing the regatta's 25th anniversary.

I raced the elite quad and elite double.  The double was the last chance we had to race another double side by side before the European Championships in September (pending selection) and the quad was the first run out for a combination we will row in for Henley Royal Regatta next week.  Our quad line up is Tina and me, and Rachel Gamble-Flint and Sarah Cowburn who raced a double at the U23 World Rowing Championships last year. 



This is a shot early on in the race of our Leander quad, on the right in the white boat, racing Vesper USA

Because of how the draw worked out, Tina and I had four races on Sunday! Henley Women's Regatta (HWR) is only a 1500m course, considerably shorter than our usual 2km race length.  However, rowing against a very fast stream and strong headwind meant that the times were closer to times we would expect from racing 2k, and on Saturday when the wind was at its strongest, much slower than normal 2k times! Our legs were very tired by the time we got to the last race, the doubles final.

Our semi finals were not too taxing in either boat, although we had poor starts in both of them and had a little ground to make up.  Our finals were both harder races although we still won by healthy margins; 1 1/3 lengths in the 4x and 3 2/3 of a length in the 2x.  It was great to assert our dominance in this regatta, and racing in the Elite category we met international crews in both events.

The women's four, made up of half Leander, half Imperial also won their event, Elite coxless fours.




Leander Ladies having fun with the silverware.  Leander's Henley Women's Regatta winners in the Elite categories From L-R: Rachel Gamble-Flint (4x), Monica Relph (4-), Tina Stiller (2x,4x) Erica Bodman (2x,4x), Sarah Cowburn (4x), Victoria Meyer-Laker (4-)

Sir Steve Redgrave was there for the prizegiving...

And this is a shot of our double winning the final against Rowing Ireland.  We are on the left. Photo taken from the umpires launch...

Now we will be concentrating on the quad for the next 10 days to get us up to speed for the big event: Henley Royal Regatta!  This is a massive event in the social and rowing calendar, and a great opportunity for us in Olympic year to have a shot at winning whilst the Olympic crews are away preparing for the 2012 Games.



Follow me on twitter at twitter.com/ericabodman to get more up to date, by the minute, snippets!

Some more photos from the regatta:

Waiting to be checked by a marshall before the semi final of 4x

Racing the final of the 4x



Paddling to the start of the semi final, thank you to Buff and Headsweats!

Off the start of the 2x Final



Happy winners of Elite quad. L-R Tina Stiller, Erica Bodman, Rachel Gamble-Flint, Sarah Cowburn

Holland Beker 2012

Tina and I started off our racing season this weekend on the Bosbaan in Amsterdam, at the Holland Beker regatta. We had a day and a half of training on the lake before racing began, navigating the sea-like conditions; strong winds and rain. I began to wonder if we had signed up for coastal rowing by mistake! By the time racing began the wind had calmed a little, and although still strong it was a tail wind which I certainly feel is preferable. Faster time = less pain!

On the first day we hired yellow tourist bikes to get down to the lake for training.  We struggled to get to grips with riding on the right hand side, back pedalling to brake and simultaneously read the map the right way up but despite a few hairy moments, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The Dutch were very considerate of us on the whole, I think the tourist bikes are painted yellow as a warning!

On Friday we went for two paddles in the morning and then had the afternoon off to relax. I found a lovely park near our hotel which I went for a walk through, giving me a chance to clear my head and go through the race calls. We had predominantly spent the season up till now with the order of the boat being me at stroke and Tina at bow. This meant that Tina was making the race calls, but to check that this was the correct order for us, long term, we decided to race the Holland Beker in one order Saturday, and reversed on Sunday.  I was put at bow for the Saturday race, and being unused to making the calls I was a little worried about my ability to remember them in the heat of the race! The peace in the park provided the perfect opportunity to visualise the race in my head.

We had a straight final both days, Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday we had a five boat final, with The Czech Olympic double, the Antosova sisters (they are a long established boat who got bronze at the first world cup this year), a Swedish club double, a Swiss club double, and a Japanese club double.  We found ourselves in a bit of a void during the race, way behind the Antosova sisters but a way ahead of the club boats too. We finished 16 secs behind the Czech and almost 10 seconds ahead of the Swiss. Results can be seen here.

Bridge at 500m

On the Sunday we had mostly the same line up, but with the Dutch national double and instead of the Japanese club double we had an Indonesian club double. The Dutch double was newly qualified for the London 2012 Olympics only two and a half weeks earlier at the Olympic Qualifiying Regatta in Lucerne. We were hoping to provide the Dutch with some competition, as they are not as fast as the Czech girls.  We had switched back to our preferred order in the boat for the Sunday race and were feeling confident. 

The first couple strokes got us away nicely, and then out of the blue my right blade flew out of my hand! It must have clipped some water, and in my attempt to be loose on the handles I lost my grip on it. I kept moving, all the while fumbling for my right blade and hoping it wouldn't catch the water again and cause a boat stopping crab!  Luckily I managed to get a hold of it again, I had missed two strokes but by keeping moving I was able to slot straight back into our rhythm. Tina was fantastic, kept completely silent and stress free, and let me gather myself again before slipping seamlessly back into our race plan.  We lost half a length for this error but still made it to the 500m only 0.7seconds behind the Dutch.

We were four lanes away from the Dutch which made the battle a little more diluted than had we been in neighbouring lanes, but Tina kept an eye on their boat and we fought our way down the course, settling onto a good rhythm. At the 1km, half way mark, we were 0.9 seconds behind the Dutch and by 1500m (500m to go) we had reduced the gap to 0.65seconds. In our push for the line we drew them in to within half a length of us, but their sprint finish was much more impressive than ours, putting them 3.4 seconds ahead of us overall. We were thrilled with our performance, it was a personal best time for us in the double and the first bit of side by side racing we have done with a women's double! Our finish is one area which we have not really worked on yet and feel that a lot more speed can come from here. Results here

Happy double post racing!

It was really exciting to be pushing a double who have just qualified for the Olympics so close to the line, and we did not even have our perfect race! We were also 4 seconds closer to the Czech on Sunday.

Here is a video of our race, courtesy of Tina's parents. Great footage from the moving grandstand. We are the yellow boat closest to the camera. If you can't see it here, follow the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2i0My6u4i0

We are now concentrating on a quad for the next three weeks, as we race the double and quad at Women's Henley this weekend, and the quad at Henley Royal Regatta two weeks later.


Support:

Finally the sun came out in Amsterdam, giving us a chance to use our Sun Sense products.  Leander Club helped us towards the cost of the weekend and we both wore our 110% play harder compression leggings to help us recover better from the Saturday race, for Sunday.  We raced in our Headsweats caps and warmed up in our Buff kit.  Our Hunter wellies were not taken for fear they might walk off the landing stage of their own accord! However we used our Faith in Nature products all weekend.

Upcoming Racing

Tomorrow I fly to Amsterdam! I kick off the summer racing season with the Holland Beker regatta in Amsterdam racing the double with Tina Stiller. 

The Bosbaan in Amsterdam

We are racing both Saturday and Sunday, currently set to be straight finals both days with  three entries on Saturday and six on Sunday.  This is our first multi lane racing of the season, something which will only be repeated if we get selected for the European Championships in September. 

Next week Tina and I will be joined in a quad by Sarah Cowburn and Rachel Gamble-Flint (the GB U23 double from 2011) and we will be racing at Henley Women's Regatta, and then two weeks later Henley Royal regatta. Tina and I will be doubling up with the quad and the double at Henley Women's, but only racing the quad at Henley Royal because there is no women's doubles event at Henley Royal.

This weekend in Amsterdam we will be facing some stiff international competition, rumoured to be the Czech national heavy and lightweight doubles and potentially a Swedish double.  We will be trying out the two different combinations of racing, on Saturday I will be at bow in the boat and on Sunday I will be at stroke in the boat. I am really excited for the weekend, looking forward to getting side by side with some fast crews and testing ourselves against them.

I will let you know how it goes!

The Pink Double

Our new blog is live - for our doubles project this summer. See www.thepinkdouble.blogspot.com for more details on what we are doing and who is helping us.

We are doing some internal racing this weekend at the GB base Caversham lake. We have what is called a speed order, where lots of different boat types race over 2k and then they compare our times by converting them to a percentage of gmt, although in rowing this stands for 'gold medal time' rather than Greenwich mean time. At the end of the weekend we will have an order of speed for all the boats that raced, ranked by percentage of gmt rather than time. Hence a single can come out top in the speed order, with the highest percentage despite being the slowest boat. We are racing Friday 18th, and Sunday 20th, a flat out 2k race both days, it is a great opportunity to practice our race plan and prepare for regatta racing.

Lets hope for good rowing weather!

View towards Europeans

Looking forwards...

So, after a solid performance at the March Olympic trials I was looking forward to getting some good training done, however just two weeks later we were informed that a selection of the lower ranked athletes who went to Olympic trials had to also do April trials.  The April trials this year have been for European, World Universities and U23 World selection and we had been led to believe that if you did Olympic trials then you would be exempt from April.  Two weeks before April trials we were told this was no longer the case, so we started doing some prep to get ready to race again. 

My Leander teammate, Kristina Stiller, and I were ranked at the top of the female scullers that were entered to race and we knew it would be really competitive between the two of us but we also wanted to put as large a margin between us and the rest of the field as possible. Unfortunately a week before the trials I started coming down with a chest infection that kept me off training for 10 days and another week until I was back to full training.  Although I was really disappointed not to be able to race, I knew that Tina would fly the pink (Leander Club) flag for both of us and she did, winning the trials by a healthy seven seconds in tough, slow conditions.

Based on our strong performances at Olympic trials, and Tina at April, we have been asked to train and race this summer in a double with, if we progress as expected, a view to racing at the European Championships in Varese, Italy in September of this year.  This is great news for both of us because it gives us so much time to spend in the boat together and we have a real plan for the summer racing season. With such a long season ahead and being set in a boat early on it helps that we both get on well!

Now that I am over my illness training has been going well and Tina and I are enjoying having the luxury of time in the boat together so we can sort out our blade angles, technical focuses and play about with the order of where we sit in the boat. Although I love my Rihoy empacher single scull, it is nice to have some company in the boat after a long winter in my single!


The London Marathon

So last weekend I went to London to support friend and fellow Guernsey athlete Lee Merrien in his bid to run the Olympic 'A' qualification time for the marathon. Lee had a brilliant run, and in windy conditions managed to run a personal best time and finish as the top British man. Despite this he was a little over 90 seconds away from the qualification time and so missed out on Olympic selection. I am devastated for Lee, as he deserved a spot, he has worked his arse off (and every other little bit of fat!) and Olympic selection means the world to any athlete. A rower and photographer friend of mine, Nick Middleton was supporting his brother and managed to get some good photos of Lee which I will share when I manage to get my paws on them.


Support

We have had some brilliant support from various companies who are keen to help us on our route to the European Championships.
 
HUNTER BOOTS
Hunter Boots have given us both a pair of GORGEOUS Navy Brit wellies which we have been wearing with love and pride! Aren't they amazing?! We have always been very impressed with the Hunter wellies, and this British inspired pair seemed made for us! I am living in mine at the moment with all the showers we have been having.

HEADSWEATS
We have gotten some great hats and a visor from Headsweats, which we look forward to racing in. Tina has already raced in her visor and it was a great success by all accounts! My cat loves getting inside things, so my new visor was an obvious target for him :)

I can't work out how to rotate this photo on here, so please excuse the head turning.


BUFFWEAR
We also got in contact with Buff, looking for a buff each to protect our necks/heads from the wind chill; I had been coveting one for a while.  The team at Buff have been unbelievable and replied to us very quickly, stating that they would like to provide us with not just one buff each but many!  Offering that we become brand ambassadors for them! This is very exciting, and we are testing out their new range of (brand new, unlaunched) technical kit for 2012, which I can reveal is AMAZING. The range of buffs on offer is beyond extensive and we are very lucky to have been given almost one of every kind so you will be seeing a lot of these :)

FAITH IN NATURE
Tina and I were thinking about the season and it looks like we will be very busy racing, both home and internationally so being girls, we wanted to make sure that we didn't look all raced out by the end of the season!  We place a lot of faith in nature as we push our body to the limit time and time again. We rely on it to recover, repair and grow so we felt that the Faith in Nature brand with naturally sourced ingredients and no artificial colours or perfumes in it would best reflect our attitude to training our bodies.  We are looking forward to using their deodorants, moisturiser and face wipes over the coming racing season.

Thank you so much to everyone who is contributing to our season, we are excited about racing and will keep you updated.

As always, Man Group, Guernsey Sports Commission's Rising Stars programme and Jeremy Rihoy at Rihoy and Sons are my main supporters, along with my parents of course!

New blog for the double is to be launched soon. I will let you know when it goes live so you can follow our progress directly there!

Olympic Rowing Trials

Dorney Lake, site for the rowing at the 2012 London Olympic Games, was abuzz this weekend with the invitation only GB Rowing Team's Senior Final Trials.  The full race reports can be read here.

The original line up for the women's singles, which I was competing in, had 14 competitors.  However, on the morning of the first race one of the girls, Ro Bradbury was pulled out due to injury, leaving 13 starting.  The conditions were kind to us; earlier in the week with gusts of up to 44mph and the lake unrowable I think everyone had been praying for calmer conditions.  A moderate tailwind on Saturday morning helped us down the course for the 1900m time trial.  I was 9th in the time trial, but with one more athlete dropping out after the time trial there were the requisite 12 athletes for the A/B semi finals, no cuts needing to be made.  The races were drawn and I was in the first of the two semi finals late Saturday afternoon. 

Arguably, I was in the harder of the two semi finals, my semi having four current GB senior squad members, and the other semi only having two.  Unsurprisingly the four highly experienced senior girls, three of them world champions, dropped me off the start and I felt like I was in another time trial. There was no side by side racing for me, having myself dropped the sixth athlete, Sanjana, off the start.  Nevertheless it was another good opportunity to run a 2k race, working through my process goals and executing my race plan.

I finished fifth, putting me into the B final for the following morning.  The finals always step up another level, and everybody raises their game.  I knew it was going to be a tough race, all the way to the line. 

For interested parties, here is the view of the women's singles B final as seen from my boat:

I got a good start, in third place by the 500m mark, but although just in touch, Vicky Thornley was a clear leader and Tina Stiller close behind. Next to me, Georgie Hazell got a good start and I was glad to have someone close to me to push off. I worked through my race plan, and could feel myself drawing Tina back in, the gap between second and third place was at the 1km mark, over two seconds, but by 500m there was less than a second between us. I pushed into 2nd place with 400m to go and kept fighting, to stave off the attack from Vicki Meyer-Laker who surged through to claim third place.  Vicky Thornley was the well deserved winner of the B final, 8 seconds ahead of me.

I was met off the landing stage by some of my Guernsey supporters, Dave Warr of the Guernsey Sports Commission, Jeremy Rihoy who was meeting the boat he bought me for the first time, and my Dad! :)

A relaxed pub roast lunch, followed by a decadent eton mess finished off a brilliant morning.  Now, two days off before it's back to the hard grind.  Rowing has a habit of continually getting in the way of everything though...even ruining my lie in this morning. With no alarm set and a peaceful house I still woke at 06.15, bright as a button and ready for the day! Aching legs and chesty racing cough aside I am determined to enjoy the 48 hours respite. Once I've finished this blog that is! :)

Trials Preparation camp

Last month, February, my rowing club, Leander Club, took their select group of lightweight men and heavyweight women GB triallists to Banyoles, in Spain, for a 12 day training camp. 

My housemate Rhiannon had three days earlier returned from a training camp there, and coinciding with the cold snap in the UK, reported sub zero temperatures, gale like winds so strong that they were kept off the lake some days and general cold dreariness. In preparation for our camp there I packed lots of warm kit, woolly socks, winter coats and, in case of a swimming pool/hot tub/ice bath, a bikini! 

Lucky I did pack that bikini for as soon as we arrived we realised that the weather was on our side. 18 degrees Celsius the first afternoon, and it continued to be cloudless, bright blue skies with very little wind the entire time. Notwithstanding my rowing kit, my most worn item of clothing was certainly my bikini. Any time we had off was spent on the upstairs roof, reading and basking in the sun. We were intent on boosting our vitamin D stores!

Tina Stiller, Rachel Gamble-Flint, Me

This camp was in preparation for all of our upcoming Olympic Trials, 10-11th March. The training was tough, as expected, but the great weather made it so much more enjoyable!  We work on a three day cycle when we are on training camp.  This means we have two consecutive days of three sessions a day, and the following day is a two session day with the afternoon off.  That afternoon off is always a source of great excitement, and much looked forward to.  We usually plan the afternoon around food and sunbathing. Telling ourselves that, after two heavy training days and a half day, we really need some help to recover in the form of a coffee shop crawl to try out all the different hot chocolates and pastries that the area has to offer!

Despite being out of the boat for a few days due to a recurrent neck injury, I returned from the camp much fitter than when I had gone out and ready to do the last stretch of preparations for the trials on home water.

Trials Invitation and a fat cat

The 2012 season has gone well for me so far.  Incredibly I seem to have cocooned myself from the usual sniffly January colds that make the rounds and have gotten through this first month injury free with some good training under my belt.  We did a 5k ergo on Saturday as part of the trials process, and although it was a personal best it is still a way off the senior girls.

I also got an email through last week to say that my performances this season have exempted me from the GB February Trials and given me a direct invitation to the Invitation-Only GB Rowing Team Trials in March, more commonly known within the rowing circles as the Olympic Trials!  This is pretty exciting and I am looking forward to getting out and racing in my lovely new JW Rihoy sponsored single.

Almost two weeks ago now I came home for a couple days to attend the Guernsey Sports Commission's annual awards evening.  It was a brilliant evening, congratulations to all involved and of course the award winners!  As one of the Rising Stars athletes I was asked to take part in a question and answer section on stage, midway through the award presentations.  Despite being fairly used to being interviewed I was really nervous about it.  I usually don't have an audience of a few hundred people!  Luckily the crowd was friendly and Dave Warr who questioned me was very good at putting me at ease.  Still, I'm positive I will not take up a career in public speaking.  Video can be seen here www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tSmgv_I0fw Dan, Sky Cycling Physio, on first, then I come in half way through.

At home my cat Simba continues to be a terror around the house.  He had been stealing food from the neighbours cats by getting into their houses by any means possible; cat flaps, windows, doors.  A neighbour brought him back to us one day, very upset because he had gotten in and eaten 3/4 of her freshly baked victoria sponge cake! He is a big cat anyway but with all the food stealing he had grown very fat.

So, he has now been house bound for a month in an attempt to slim him down.  Yesterday morning I awoke to find this in the kitchen:

In case you can't quite tell, that IS his diet cat food scattered all over the kitchen, not just some funky decorative tiles we have recently laid. Nightmare!

Happy New Year 2012

Happy New Year all!

Rowing news is sparse at the moment and training continues to be gruelling, although I did have a lovely Christmas with a couple fewer sessions than normal.

Because normal people don't frequent the gym over the Christmas period the gyms typically shut for a few days. I am very fortunate to be able to use the Fitness Factory whilst I am at home, and they do wonderful things for me like allow me to take the ergo (rowing machine) outside where it is cooler. Therefore I did a couple good ergo sessions in the car park hoping that nobody would swing round the corner too quickly and take me out!  I was also able to borrow a weights bar from Christmas eve until the 27th, when the gym re opened. Here Suki is just checking out the space that I swept up on the pergola for my weights circuit!

Despite being unable to go out on the river whilst I am at home in Guernsey, I am able to go for some incredibly picturesque runs.  It's one of my favourite ways to see the island as you can see so much of it in a short space of time. Much more than if you were walking anyway.  On Boxing Day I did my usual run, a 10k loop taking 40mins along the cliffs and then back along the lanes.  City runners, you must be jealous of this!!...

Christmas was a lovely relaxed family affair this year.  We had the obligatory Christmas Day walk and when we arrived at the top of Petit Port I somehow managed to convince the family that it would be a good idea to walk down to the beach and back. For those who don't know, there are 294 steps (I counted) down to the beach from the cliff path :) shaky legs when we reached the bottom!

As usual I got lots of thoughtful Christmas presents, but probably most useful was the amazon kindle. I know, I know it is much nicer to hold a real book, sniff the pages and bend the cover but at the speed I read and the amount of clothes I pack when I go away I just don't have space for lots of books! The kindle will be most useful when away on training camps or holidays but I am enjoying getting through a few books on it already.

I spent my New Years and a couple days before and after in the Lake District.  I've never been to that part of England before and although it rained straight through for four days we had an amazing time. Lots of walking in the rain and board games by the fire. Perfect!

Since I have been back at training in Henley the wind has been abominable so we have been on the ergos quite a lot, which is actually good preparation for our 5km ergo trial at the end of the month.  I'd forgotten how mind numbingly boring long ergos are. 12km yesterday, 16km today and 18km tomorrow. Better update the music on my ipod!