Henley Women's Regatta

Last weekend was Henley Women's Regatta, and I competed in Elite Eights, rowing for Reading University Boat Club in a composite 'European Eight' boat.  This eight I've been rowing in has been put together by GB Rowing, it includes a group of about twelve women and is aiming for selection for the European Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, 16-18th September.  Different combinations of women have rowed in the eight at the Met regatta, Henley Women's and are planned for the Holland-Bekker regatta in Amsterdam and Henley Royal Regatta.

We first raced on the Sunday morning of Henley Women's Regatta, drawn against the Princeton University Varsity crew.  They had been unbeaten this season and had posted times in racing that matched ours.  The University paid for the Princeton crews to come over to the UK and race, so they had a lot riding on their performances.  We were pretty psyched for our first race and thought that it could be anyone's call as to who won.  We got off to a poor start, and the Princeton Crew had maybe half a length on us by the end of Temple Island; about 200m into the race.  Shortly after this one of the girls in our crew caught a massive crab (Crab, or Catch a Crab

A rowing error where the rower is unable to timely remove or release the oar blade from the water and the oar blade acts as a brake on the boat until it is removed from the water. This results in slowing the boat down. A severe crab can even eject a rower out of the shell or make the boat capsize (unlikely except in small boats). Occasionally, in a severe crab, the oar handle will knock the rower flat and end up behind him/her, in which case it is referred to as an 'over-the-head crab.') 

and we almost saw the race run away from us.  I must admit, I thought that was it!  Yet we recovered as quickly as we could, the offending blade was finally extracted and we fought our way back into the race.  We found a great rhythm and somehow clawed back the distance between us and the Princeton crew.  Every stroke we got ourselves closer to them, but they also got themselves closer to the finish line!  At only 1500m long the Henley Women's course is shorter than the normal summer regatta length of 2km, and we were only too aware of how little time we had to make up the distance.  Our cox Zoe De Toledo was telling us we were moving on them, but I didn't believe it until I saw the stern of their boat in my peripheral vision.  Then it seemed as if we suddenly broke them, we had one seat, and then another, we were level and then we were trying to put as much distance between us before the finish line! The verdict at the finish was a win by 3/4 of a length.

In our final we raced the U23 GB eight, who we have raced a few times this season and have always beaten them.  Due to illness and injury though we had a couple of subs in our boat, and the U23 boat had strengthened their boat with a couple of girls who had been away at american universities.  We got a good race, both crews rowed strongly and we won by one and a third lengths.  This was my first win at Women's Henley and it was very exciting!

Next on the agenda is Amsterdam, the Holland Bekker Regatta.  I leave first thing tomorrow and will update this when I have a moment when I get back!

Battlecat arrives

Huge apologies for the long delay between my last post and this one. 

It has been a busy month with training, injuries and new additions to the house.  I started the month training in Wallingford with the group of women they are trialling for the European championships.  We were doing long 20+km outings, paddling with the senior women's eight.  Hence some very competitive paddling!  We did a good 2km speed order test at Dorney two weeks ago, which both the athletes and coaches were pleased with.  I then came unstuck, and had some problems with my neck which kept me out of the boat for ten days.  I managed to see Mike Chisholm, a genius physio, who sorted me out very quickly.  Funnily enough the problem is never where it appears...my neck was merely highlighting some imbalances in my pelvis and spine which when sorted out, allowed my neck to support my head happily again!

I also have some very exciting news, in that we have got a kitten in the house!  Everybody, meet Simba...

He is almost eight weeks old, and the most affectionate, inquisitive and playful cat I have ever known!   He is called Simba, but has also been nicknamed Battlecat which I think he has taken to heart a bit too much.  He is under the assumption that he rules the house and loves to run up our jeans to say hello, a habit which we are trying to break him of!

Rowing wise, I've got the Metropolitan Regatta at Dorney Lake next weekend.  This is always a top class event, and I am looking forward to racing an eight on the Saturday and the Sunday, and a four on the Saturday.  Having been ill for final trials last month it feels like it is so long since I raced properly, so I am raring to go!

Rhiannon Jones, one of my housemates deserves a mention as she is racing in Munich at the World Cup this weekend, coxing the B crew of the adaptive four.  They have the final tomorrow night, subject to any changes, so huge GOOD LUCK wishes to them!

Changes to the plan

So testing didn't happen this week for the four I was in, none of us have done much rowing so it was decided that we should just start training in some sweep rowing boats and not worry about doing any testing at the moment.  So, I spent a couple days in a four at Caversham lake, and then a day in a pair at Reading Uni Boat Club.  The plan going forward now is a bit vague, we are doing as much sweep as possible and there is talk of running a women's senior development eight for some speed order testing in mid May.  Who will be in that eight though is completely unconfirmed! 

In other news, the Royal Wedding! Sadly we don't get any special time off for bank holidays etc so I will be training through the wedding this morning and watching the highlights later.  I'm only really bothered about seeing Kate's dress though!

As always, I will update when I have any news. Otherwise, life is one big training, eating, sleeping cycle :)

x

Ergo and sunshine update

I realise I've not updated in awhile, everything has been hectic for me!  The week after our success at Eights Head we did our 2k ergo tests.  In my September and December 2k ergo tests I had just managed to dip under 7mins, with times of 6m59.6 and 6m59.4.  However, in January I made my ergo goal of the season to get a time of 6m56.0.  Ambitious, but I felt it was within me.  However, after missing a large chunk of training in Feb/Mar I was not feeling quite so confident. I did in the end have a very good test, going off relatively conservatively and then being able to really bring it down at the end in a new personal best time of 6m55.9!  I was very pleased with this, especially considering my disrupted preparation in the run up.

Since that ergo test we have been really getting ready for Final Trials, next weekend at Dorney Lake, the 2012 venue.  The weather has been amazing for the past week, wall to wall sunshine.  We have been on a home training camp at Caversham lake where they recently put blue dye in the water to kill/stunt the weeds, so the water looks gorgeous!

We've got three more days training at Caversham before we go to Dorney, a couple days before trials start.  I am excited to be invited to race my single at Final Trials, against some of the top scullers in the world, let alone this country!

RUBC smash it!

Huge congratulations to all the RUBC crews; A, B and C who raced at yesterday's Women's Head of the River Race on the tideway.  We raced from Chiswick to Putney (the reverse boat race course) which is about 7.5km. I was in the Reading University A crew:

L - R: Lottie Burgess, Rachel Willis, Nikki Bartlett, Georgie Hazell, Erica Bodman, Lucinda Gooderham, Helen Wood, Monica Relph, Rhiannon Jones

We started off as the second boat, of 300 crews.  The boat that went off first was Leander, a full current GB senior squad, so we knew they would pull away from us from the start.  The boats starting third and fourth we thought we would pull away from, and duly did so, leaving us in a bit of a vacuum.  With some incredible coxing from Rhiannon, we executed our race plan as intended, pushed hard throughout the race and had some great motivation within the boat the whole way down the course.

My personal favourite was a call for Nikki, to 'be the ironman'.  Nikki is an outstanding athlete and lightweight rower and she won't mind me saying that she is completely mad!  Alongside our intensive rowing training Nikki also finds the time to do ironman competitions, marathons and half marathons!  Yesterday we did the eights head, and today on our day off Nikki ran the Reading half marathon.  And not just jogged round the thirteen miles, she raced it to a finish time of 1hr24! This was Nikki's first official half marathon, and she finished 19th woman, 298th overall out of 18,000+,  YES eighteen thousand, entrants! Oh yes, and she runs about once a week! This girl is incredible and certainly one to watch out for.

So, back to the rowing race!  A little background information; the starting order is determined by last year's results.  We came third last year, with Anna Watkins, Helen Glover and Heather stanning in the boat.  These three girls would go on to win gold and two silver medals respectively at the World Rowing Championships in New Zealand in November 2010.  Composite boats typically start near the back of the list, in the 200's because they are classified as a new entry unless they have exactly the same clubs in the boat as the year before.  Therefore, the GB composite boat started 214th.  Then, boats enter a category depending on the number of 'points' they have in the boat.  If you win a regatta race, or represent your country internationally, you get a point/s on your rowing racing licence.  We entered the Intermediate 1 category (IM1), which is preceded by Elite and Senior, and followed by IM2, IM3 and Novice.  There are a few other categories for masters and juniors.

Head races must be the most frustrating things in the world.  We raced at 15.30, time trial style so we had no idea of how well, or badly, we had gotten on.  Finally at about 20.30 the provisional results are posted online.  We came third, out of 300 odd boats, and won our category, IM1, in a new course record time! We were beaten by the Leander crew, who won by a large margin, and in second place was the GB composite crew with current and ex GB senior squad members.  Both boats had brilliant coxes and athletes, including Olympians.  We were only 13 seconds behind the composite crew, a huge achievement for a club crew with three lightweight rowers and not a huge amount of sweep experience in the boat!  There were only three boats on the river that posted times under 19minutes, and we came through in 18m53.  To get a new record too was the icing on the cake.  A brilliant day's racing :)  Results HERE

I must also make mention of our coach, Eira Parry, as she gave our crew the most inspiring and electrifying pre race chat imagineable!  We are so glad to have done her proud!

The other Reading University crews were very successful too.  RUBC B were 24th, after finishing 48th last year and RUBC C were 66th as a new entry!

In other news: next Saturday is my 2k ergo test for April trials, and on the Sunday I am racing my single at Caversham lake over 2 x 1500m's.

That's all for now folks :)