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.