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

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!

Europeans, rest, a new season and new boat!

Europeans

Racing in Bulgaria was tough.  International competition is always stiff, but as a GB development crew against some other countries' top senior boats we knew the gold standard was high!

The European Championships happened this year in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, 16-18th of September.  We had six crews in our event, so we had a race for lanes on the Friday and the Final on the Sunday.  Our season as a crew had been very mixed, with the actual crew only coming together for the first time 10 days before we raced.  The race for lanes was therefore a great opportunity for us to race the full race distance together as a crew for the first time.  Crews all use the race for lanes for a different purpose.  Some go out to race as hard as they can, to try out their race plan.  Some race to a certain point and then settle onto a more relaxed pace.  Some hardly race it at all and want to save themselves for the final.  Some go out to win the race to ensure the best lane in the final.  The lake and conditions in Plovdiv were pretty fair so no advantage was found by having the 'better' lanes.  We used the race to cement the crew and run through our race plan.  It was a case of laying ourselves on the line and seeing what we could do, and then being able to make changes for the final.

The final was dictated by the Romanians who showed their dominance from the outset.  We fought hard to overturn the Russians who had beaten us in the race for lanes, but could do nothing to impact on the Ukranians and Belarussians.

It was a heartbreaking result, because we were aiming for the podium.  It had been a very long season with some dark times for the whole crew.  Large groups of women are never easy to manage, especially when they are physically and emotionally exhausted!  However, for me personally, it has been invaluable to get the opportunity to spend a whole season in a decent sweep boat, and this result gives us more drive and ambition to achieve greater things next year.


After this last race of the season we had a two week break.  As the only break in the year that we get from training, I tried to make the most of it!  I spent a few days after racing travelling in Bulgaria with my parents, then 5 days in Morocco with some rowing friends from the european team, a couple days at home in Guernsey and then a day or so back in Caversham before training started!

In Morocco we felt a million miles away from the pressure of training, it was an amazing holiday.  So relaxing and with such good company!

So at the beginning of October we started training for the new 2011-2012 season.  I have moved to Leander Club which is a really exciting new direction for me this season.  I am also completely over the moon about my new boat!!  I am extremely lucky to have been bought a brand new top of the range boat by J W Rihoy.  My old boat was 8 years old and really starting to show its age.  This new boat will take me through the next Olympiad and will give me the best possible chance in pursuing my Olympic dreams.

My start to the season has been disrupted by a cold, brought on by the sudden change in temperature I think.  It was the height of summer on the first day of training and mid winter by the third day!  I am still on a recovery programme and am trying to kick it so that I can put in a performance at GB October Trials next weekend.  Wish me luck!

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!

New bike and other stories

Bike!


Just as the weather is turning a bit nicer, I have had the good fortune of being bought a second hand road bike by the Guernsey Sports Commission for training.  I didn't have a bike before, and it is my first road bike so I am totally in love with it!

We do 2 hour cardio sessions on sundays, in our own time, and I am very keen to get out on my bike for these sessions.  I need to get used to the toe cover pedals, or just get some clip in ones and shoes, because this morning I had a little incident...  

I arrived at the lake, and slowed down to stop, forgetting I probably needed to take my feet out of the toe covers before I actually came to a stop.  I then waved hello to a friend and said, 'look at my lovely new bike!' or something like that, then in proper slow-mo style my feet tried to wriggle out of the toe covers, failed, and with a bit of a girly yelp I saw the ground rushing up at me.  I was on thick gravel so luckily only my pride was wounded!

In other news...

Training wise, the past week hasn't been great for me.  We have to be very aware of our bodies with the amount of training we put them through, and to keep on top of our health we do a fair bit of 'morning monitoring'.  This can be noting down all sorts of things from urine colour (hydration) to coping level.  The main ones I regularly note are resting and standing heart rates, weight and body temp.  These are all taken first thing in the morning so ensure consistency.  The morning monitoring helps us to pick up problems before they stop you training. Often, before you get sick your resting heart rate will increase as it tackles the bug, so if you spot this in your monitoring you can reign in the training slightly and let your body fight the infection more successfully, before it becomes an issue in full blown sickness.

We take resting and standing heart rates; resting is taken lying down in bed as soon as you wake up, and standing is when you stand up out of bed, stand still for a minute and then take it.  Resting heart rate generally tells you whether you are well or not, if your body is fighting something it will raise your resting heart rate.  Standing heart rate tells you how your body is reacting to 'work', a simple task like standing up.  If you are under recovered your body will find it harder to adjust to this simple task and so your standing heart rate will be higher than normal.

About a week ago my standing heart rate suddenly shot up, and backing off training has not seemed to have any effect on bringing it back down to a normal level.  Also, I know what heart rates are normal for me when exercising at different intensities and my HR has been going up much too fast at much too light an intensity when trying to train.  So, I've been on one light session a day which has been driving me a bit mad as I feel absolutely fine until I start to do anything like a real session.

As backing off training has not had the desired effect I am having to see doctors and specialists.  I've seen the GP, have an appointment with a GB rowing doctor next week and have heart scans and blood tests booked for next week.  I'm sure it will be fairly easy to sort out but is just very frustrating at the moment!  Rowing is an exhausting sport and as we only get the odd day off training once every three weeks or so it can feel like a huge effort to motivate yourself fully for every session.  Sometimes it's the last thing you feel like doing! Especially when the winter is intent on doing it's best to discourage you by being dark, rainy and freezing cold when you're meant to be getting up and going on the water. 

However, when you are not allowed to train for whatever reason, be it injury or illness, it is the most frustrating thing in the world.  All I want to do is to be able to go and train properly.  Training is constantly tough, exhausting and demanding but it is also invigorating, rewarding and satisfying. I miss it!

Pray for my speedy recovery please!

x

Longer (more boring) Trials Report!

For some background information; Matt Lihou wrote a brilliant article, pre Trials, for the Guernsey Press which can be seen here if you are interested.  Very accurate, well written and researched!



Post Trials:  for all you boatie geeks out there, here is my version of my weekend at trials!

We arrived at the lake at 8am Saturday for our pre paddle, with briefing at 09.45.  At the briefing we were informed that due to bad weather forecasts for the Sunday, all racing would take place of the Saturday, instead of being spread over the two days. 
First thought: "do I have enough kit to race in!?"
Second thought: "Yes!! That means racing in a tail wind"  (it was forecast to be a pretty nasty cross head wind on Sunday)
Third thought: "so will the post trials dinner I've been invited to on Sunday night be moved to tonight?!" (food is never far from my mind!)

So, my aim in the 1900m time trial was to go out and hit it hard from the beginning.  I felt like I did this well, but consequently 'died' a bit and had no sort of a finish to my race.  However, I completely emptied the tank and I felt I executed my race plan exactly.  After seeing the results, it was clear that I did go out very hard! It shows rankings at each 500m mark, and at the first mark I was in 3rd place, after Anna Watkins and Katherine Grainger - the top two British women! Pleasing to know the speed is there anyway :) Looking at the rest of the times; I faded to 9th place by the 1k mark, 13th by 1500m and finally finished 16th (out of 63).  In doing so, I beat 4 of the GB senior women's heavyweight team, and a few more of their lightweights.

My time trial result put me into the C/D semi finals and I had a tough line up of Debbie Flood, Annie Vernon, Jo Cook, Laura Greenhalgh and Kathryn Twyman.  Annie and Debbie qualified for the C final comfortably.  I was not expecting to get through but after trailing Laura for the first km I started to move through her in the third 500m.  Despite a mad dash for the line, I managed to hold her off to secure third place and my spot in the C final. The conditions had worsened from the time trial, and rather than the tailwind we had enjoyed, this was more of a cross wind with slight tail.

Racing again hardly seemed viable in the state I was after two flat out races, but after my post race warm down I was able to sit down for literally five minutes before I had to go and get boated again for the C final.  I had Debbie and Annie again in my final, and also Heather Stanning, Lou Reeve and Liv Whitlam.  A full GB squad line up and me!  By this time in the day the sun was almost setting and the wind had completely died down so conditions on the lake were great.  I had a good race, but it was hardly side by side racing! I was in lane 6, Heather was in lane 1 and the other four girls were in the middle of us. I hardly got a glimpse of the four in the middle, but Heather and I were more closely matched yet as she was the other side of the lake it was hard to race her! However, we got a good sprint to the line and I finished a respectable half second behind.

It was an exhausting day, filled with exciting and cut throat races.  I thoroughly enjoyed it and relished the opportunity to race on the London 2012 course.  At April Trials, final assessment, we get the opportunity to race either our singles or in pairs, and I will be deciding in the next couple of weeks what I will do for that.

Also coming up soon in March is our 2k ergo test for April trials and women's Eights Head on the Thames in London.

I'll try and keep you updated!

x

February Trials done!!

A very quick note to say that the GB trials this weekend were condensed all into one day because of tomorrow's weather forecast.  So, I'm all done!  It was an incredibly hectic and physically ruinous day, with my time trial at midday, semi final at about 3pm and final at 5pm. It was a brilliant day of racing and I am pleased with my performances.  It does hurt to breathe right now though, I'm sticking to small short breaths!

I finished 18th overall, and got the opportunity to race Annie Vernon and Debbie Flood - World Champions in the quadruple scull last November- in my semi and final!

Longer analysis to follow :)

Erica

Ergo and upcoming trials

Just a very quick note to say my ergo (rowing machine) test went well at the end of last month.  We don't do many 5k ergo tests and the two I have done previously didn't go as well as hoped, so I was just concerned about making the cut off time for this February Trials ergo test.  I had a bit of a radical race plan, rating 24 for the first 2km - very low for a free rate ergo test - but was almost 15 seconds inside the cut off time so it paid off :)

February Trials are at Dorney Lake, Windsor, this weekend. We will have a 1900m time trial on Saturday morning, semi finals on saturday afternoon and finals on Sunday afternoon.  This is where is gets a bit serious, with the Senior GB squad in attendance too.

Bring it on!

Training Camps and Birthday Cake

Post Camp update...

I am alive! And most importantly, live and kicking and well! :) I was the only athlete to complete every session of our 18 day training camp at Caversham lake and I am here to tell the tale.  It was a tough camp where we did lots of mileage and were given a lot of information. 

Highlights:

• learning how to do my 18k ergo's feet out of the straps and not feel or look like I'm going to fall off the back of the erg at the finish of each stroke
• the 100min bike where my wattage was high and my blood lactates levels low
• the Australian Institute of Sport cook book that Miles gave, and signed for, us! Good nutritional information and recipes
• The pair with Vicki Mayer-Laker. In particular, those 20 strokes within a 12k outing where we connected at the same time, really felt how the boat could move and I didn't want to call 'down' on the burst
• completing every session; 47 sessions in 18 days

Lowlights:

• the four.  Inexplicably bad.  I think everyone cried at some point in the few outings we had!
• feeling glycogen depleted in the last 40 mins of a two hour bike, which was at the end of a 5+hr day also including 100mins on the water and an 18k ergo

I was unbelievably tired throughout the camp, but mostly it was a good tiredness.  Pleasantly exhausted, I told myself.  Knowing it is from working hard and pushing yourself to your limits rather than from being ill or under recovered makes it manageable.  I still have a little moan when I reach the top of the stairs though, it really hits your legs about two steps after the top of the stairs!  The camp finished two days before my 23rd birthday and one week before our 5k ergo test, so I decided to have a quiet, food related, calorific party.





Lemon, plum polenta cupcakes and jam meringue cupcakes

 

How overboard do you think you can go when providing cake and pizza for 25 people? Even if you invite a whole house full of rowers it seems that you can always over do it!  I had a pizza and cake party for my birthday and subsequently my freezer is full of pizza, which I never eat, four litres of ice cream which I shouldn't eat and seven boxes of cake which had to be taken down to the (Reading Uni rowing) club to stop me eating all at once.  The photo below shows about a quarter of the food that we had!

I had the nicest evening with lots of my close friends, rowers and non rowers, with friends travelling in to Reading to spend the evening with me.  I opened some gifts from my housemates and friends and completely surprised myself by being totally overwhelmed.  I am usually a pretty level and even person, in temperament and nature.  I don't have massive highs and lows and don't react too emotionally to things.  However, I got a gorgeous photo calendar filled with photos of me, my friends and family.  Then a lovely hand-made card (I am a sucker for homemade things...) and the most thoughtful, gorgeous, 'me' present ever; it was a big wooden picture frame inlaid with cream card, and stuck on it was scrabble pieces that fit together like a scrabble game in words that all have a special meaning to me.  It was such a surprise and everything just got the better of me and I burst into tears in front of everyone!  That was definitely a first!

I had a lovely lovely birthday and was touched by all the thoughtful presents I received, all the people that took the effort and time to see me, and all the birthday messages I got.



I'm now stuck back into normal training at Reading Uni Boat Club and getting my diet back in order.  I think I have had enough cake for a long while. It's a blessing that my birthday is only once a year!  Rowing wise, I am doing a 5k ergo test for February Trials this Saturday 29th and the water side of February Trials is the second weekend of February, regatta style 2km racing on the lake at Dorney, Windsor.

Till next time!

Erica x

Happy New Year!

It seems that somehow, once again another year is past and 2011 is upon us.  With 2010 being such a successful year for me I can only hope for more of the same this coming year.  I am back in Caversham now, but had a lovely few days at home in Guernsey.  I made the most of the generosity of Colin Fallaize at the Fitness Factory gym by training hard, whilst still enjoying being at home, having my washing done and dinner cooked for me!

I recently found out that I have been nominated for the Sir John Loveridge trophy at the Guernsey Sports Commission awards later this month, which was a lovely suprise and honour.  Unfortunately I will still be on training camp on Caversham so my parents will have to represent me.  I am excited about my upcoming training camp though, it is at Caversham lake, the GB squad training centre and it is a select group of four girls; the top four women outside of the GB senior team.  AND Miles Forbes-Thomas, coach of the GB women's eight will be coaching us for the camp 4th - 22nd January.

Last but not least, we are very excited in our house at the moment because we are going to get a kitten!!

Photos to follow :)

Happy New Year everyone, and all the best for 2011

xx

Ergo pain

Yesterday the snow and frozen river granted me the pleasure of staying in Caversham for the weekend instead of driving to Lincolnshire and back.  I did however have to do a 5k rate capped ergo test in lieu of this.  Now, ergo's are nobody's friend but the 5k is surely not mine!  This was marginally better than the last 5k I did in January, but I'll have another couple of 5k's to do in January 2011 so am hoping to make further improvements.


On a separate note, the snow has finally hit us in Reading just in time for my day off today so my housemate and I were housebound all day.  We stayed in our PJ's, held a 4 hour marathon Monopoly session, watched a three hour film and sports personality of the year. 

Unfortunately the Monopoly game was not as enjoyable as I remembered it; nostalgia clouds the mind.  When you play with someone who is just as competitive as you it all gets a bit uncomfortable! After half an hour my housemate was winning by a mile and to keep me playing she bought me out of my properties and gave me money that I would shortly give right back to her. 

However, somehow after maintaining my hold on one set of properties and starting to build, the tables started to turn.  Four hours after starting the game she finally surrendered and I started to count my £60+m. Perseverance wins the day!


The playing of board games seems inextricably linked with Christmas and I can't wait to get home.  Having watched the travel disruptions of the past couple days I have my fingers firmly crossed that I get home safely and before the 25th! 

Merry Christmas all :)

Snow forecasts

Just a quick post...

Due to bad weather forcasts in Boston, Lincs later this week the 2nd 2010-2011 GB Trials have been cancelled, with a 5km ergo rate capped at 26 to be submitted instead.  This saves us the travelling and accomodation costs but I was looking forward to tearing it up on the water up in Boston! 

I'm hoping for a better ergo test on saturday than my 5k last year where I 'blew up', as we say, with 2.5km still to go! Then, a day off on Sunday, home on Wednesday for Christmas :) with land training for a week before I am back in Caversham.

Continuing forwards

So after saying just yesterday that the river was ok in this weather, this morning it had started to freeze! We were out in a quad for first session though so if one person's blades didn't get in the water because of a patch of ice usually the rest of us would be ok :D and it creeps out from the banks so we sat squarely in the middle of the river. Glad its a busy stretch of river, moves the water around a bit more!

Second session this morning I had a 30min ergo test (30mins at 20 strokes per minute) and took a massive 1.5seconds per 500m off my PB, so it's becoming quite respectable now it's in the 1m54's :)

Nine days till trials...

cold toes

I'm feeling pretty lucky at the moment; it seems like the snow has hit the whole of the United Kingdom apart from the Berkshire area. So, we had about a centimeter and a half that stuck around for maybe two days but apart from that, zilch!  That is not to say it's not been incredibly cold with temperatures of -4 celcius at 8am.  But at least we don't have to trudge through feet of snow and worry about crashing our cars on the way to and from the boat club.

We've been doing a few more ergos than usual, but the river is still flowing, whereas the lake at Caversham is frozen over so we have been lucky to be able to get on the water and I've had some freezing cold outings!  ...The kind where you wear two pairs of socks, plus ski socks and waterproof socks, two pairs of leggings, an all-in-one rowing unisuit, sports bra, short sleeved technical top, two long sleeved technical tops, a splash jacket, ear warmers, cap, pogies and a neck warmer. And you're still cold!  The river is beautiful in winter though, almost makes up for it ;)

Training is going well at the moment, really enjoying it and looking forward to trials in ten days time, up in Boston, Lincs.  Funny how they hold the Great Britain team trials up in Boston, obesity capital of the UK! 

We had our Reading University Boat Club Christmas dinner at the Crowne Plaza on Monday night.  Great fun but the food was a bit ridiculous; very small portions beautifully presented but did nobody tell them that this was a rowing dinner?! I was hungry when I went to bed and starving when I woke up in the morning! Eating is just about one of the best parts of being a rower. For me anyway, I have always loved to eat! Three sessions a day though makes sure that it doesnt all go to my hips.  Today we had 16km on the river in our singles, a UT2 session (aerobic) followed by 4 x's 500m on the ergo at your 2km pb split +4, +2, on pace and quicker than pace, and then weights and core circuit.  Oh and then work this afternoon! Keeps me busy :)

2k Ergo test

So, today was the day of reckoning...2km ergo tests all round. Lucky us!  We must submit a 2km ergo test to GB Rowing for the December trials so Reading University Boat Club hosted a BUCS ergo event at the University Sports Park.

Cut to the chase, my time came around and I got on the ergo and completed the 2km.  I didn't really feel settled, probably because I was a bit high on the rate (strokes per minute) but I suitably destroyed my legs and lungs to pull a personal best by 0.2 seconds, a time of 6m59.4s.  All going in the right direction!

Aside from ergo tests, it has been getting colder and colder recently.  It has been -3 degrees C some mornings, which makes it pretty chilly on the river. Lots of layers, hats, neck warmers, pogies make it slightly more bearable but I'm certainly not a fan of the cold. Does make for some pretty stunning scenes first thing in the morning though.  Looking forward to a solid three weeks of training now before the December trials in Boston, Lincs the week before Christmas.

Racing updates

So, Sunday 14th November was the annual Fuller's Head of the River Fours race, held between Chiswick bridge and Putney in London.  This was my first experience racing at Fours Head and I raced over the 7.5km course with a Reading University crew in a quad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quad_scull).  We had a good race but the results didn't reflect as good a result as we were hoping.  We were the fourth fastest women's crew, out of 500+ total crews, including mens boats, and different classes of boats, including coxless and coxed fours.   It is notoriously difficult to steer the Thames and stay in the fastest section of the stream and during the race we did get warned by a marshall for being out of the stream, so this will have had some effect on our time.

On a more positive note, I raced at Caversham lake today at the GB Rowing Trials Sculling Assessment.  It is held like a regatta, with a 1900m time trial, semi finals and then finals over the course of one day.  This is all done in singles, and is invitation only depending on results from October Trials.

I came third in the time trial, (four seconds off Emily Taylor in first place, 0.35 seconds off Vicky Meyer-Laker in second and 7 seconds ahead of Lindsay Marshall in fourth) but I didn't race it particularly well, so tried to learn lessons from that to take into the semi-final. Always helpful! 

There were only 18 women racing and six lanes, so they would usually hold two A/B semi-finals, two C/D semi finals etc and that would have meant that there would be two A/B semis and a straight C final.  However, GB Rowing wanted to give everyone three races so they ran three semi finals where the top two went into the A final, middle two into the B final and bottom two into the C final.

The top three women were split over the three semi-finals and I won my semi easily.  The final was looking to turn out to be a three horse race, but after the time trial and semi final Emily Taylor, winner of October Trials and the time trial this morning, withdrew from racing.  I was pretty frustrated as I was really looking forward to some side by side 2km lake racing against her.  Still, I had narrowly been beaten by Vicky Meyer-Laker in the time trial and it was time to fight back.  I flew out of the blocks and found a really strong rhythm which I had lacked in the time trial.  By 500m gone I had a solid lead on Vicky and by 750m gone I had clear water.  My lead was maintained throughout the final 1250m of the race, increasing to about two boat lengths at one stage and dipping back to about a length and a half at the finish. 

Thrilled to win, and was very pleased with the way I raced it but wish we could have had the full competitive line-up of athletes.  Half a day off tomorrow, only 90mins to do so I will go for a run for 45 mins and then on the bike for 45mins.  Looking ahead, my next event is our 2k ergo's on sat the 27th of Nov. The FEAR has already set in!

The beginning...

So I've been asked to start a blog, but where to begin?!  I will start with the background information;

I grew up in Guernsey, went to Cambridge University 2006-2009 and started rowing in 2008.  Pre rowing I was a high performance high jumper and heptathlete but retired in 2008 due to impact related injury.  Luckily for me I turned out to be more talented in the rowing department :) I left university in June 2009 and made the decision to give my life over to rowing and see where it might take me.  In the early days of my rowing I was very fortunate that several individuals recognised my talent and what I was trying to do, and provided me with the means to buy my own boat, a Filippi single scull, in April 2009.

In October 2009 I found corporate support from top FTSE 100 company Man Group plc in the form of a kit sponsorship deal, which they have continued into my 2011 season.  My first year out of university, training full time, was tough to find work that would fit around training but I saw immediate benefits in my rowing.  At the end of the first year of full time training I was selected to represent Great Britain in my single at the World University Rowing Championships in Szeged, Hungary.

I am now based in Reading and am absolutely thrilled to have just been named a Rising Star, as part of the Guernsey Sports Commission's new initiative to help Guernsey's sporting elite.  The funding and support that I benefit from as a result of the Rising Stars initiative will be instrumental in my future successes.  Rowing is an exhausting and intense sport which demands a full time training schedule.  Becoming a Rising Star will enable me to put my training first, cut down on my working hours and put my financial worries aside.  This is such an exciting, humbling and inspiring prospect!


So, I think that is about it for now.

Erica