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.