Christmas Head

We won (jointly with Cantabs) the Mens IM3 VIII category in a time of 7:02; see results.

We also entered a Womens VIII, two mixed VIII's, and two pairs, all of which performed creditably:

104 Chesterton Rage Against the Machine cra m  IM3 8+ 1 7:02
103 Champion of the Thames campbell     cra m  IM3 8+ 1 7:02
225 Chesterton Band Aid                 cra mx Nv  8+ 2 8:08
218 Chesterton Westlife        Invitational m  IM3 2- 2 8:10
224 Chesterton Slade                    cra mx Nv  8+ 2 8:29
133 Chesterton Girls Aloud              cra w  Nv  8+ 1 8:35
245 Chesterton East 17         Invitational m  Nv  2- 2 8:37

Refs

* William's blog

Video of outing, 13th November 2010

2010/2011 Club Committee

At the AGM, the following people were voted into club positions:

Club Captain:
Chris Wood

Men's Captain:
James Tidy

Women's Captain:
Freya Morrissey/Amy Tillson

Secretary:
Amy Tillson

Treasurer:
Sarah Coates

Equipment Officer:
Andy Southgate

Webmaster:
Andy Southgate

Kit Officer:
Beverley England

Water Safety Advisor:
Paul Holland

Social Secretary:
Becca Scourse

Winter ergo league

Fired by excess beer at last nights AGM (doubtless to be blogged soon) Gary finally completed the last phase of the much-heraled Winter Ergo League: actually organising the first session. And so this lunchtime Paul, Gary and I went down to Queens, found out how to work the new safe, sat around for a bit, then finally confessed that we would actually have to do an erg. It was raining.

Out mighty awe-inspiring distances (for 30 minutes, of course) were:

William C   7,582 
Gary D      7,307 
Paul H      7,240

all of us are about 100 m off our years best. The rules of the competition aren't quite clear: the aim is that we all put in £10 and the winner - he (or she) who improves the most by Christmas - wins all. Improves meaning fraction, or distance, or sheer good looks - this has yet to be decided.

The rest of you are invited to join in.

Boston Marathon 2010

Lincoln Stamp End Lock - Boston Rowing Club

River Witham

31 miles (50km). 4 hours, 42 minutes

At 5:30am, I departed for Lincoln rowing club in the company of 9 other crazy rowers. For the second time, I was to row the Boston Rowing Marathon in an VIII. Two other rowers from our club were to row the same distance in a pair.

We arrived at the rowing club, and unloaded the boat while one of the other rowers took the trailer to the other end of the course at Boston, before getting a lift back to Lincoln. This is a logistical nightmare for organisers, as the start and finish of the race are so far apart! As one of the organisers, I had to draw a diagram in the end so that I could get my head round where all the cars and rowers should be at any one time!

The weather did not look good. It was tipping it down as we put the boat together, and showed no signs of letting up. But as we pushed off at 10:56, the rain began to let up. By the time we reached Bardney's Lock, 13.5km further on, it had let up completely! The lock is the most stressful part of the race, with crews competing to get out and back in again as fast as possible. Once back on the river we settled into a good pace, averaging about a 2:30-2:40 split, so we were getting through roughly a kilometer every 5 minutes or so. The km markers are really the only way to know how far you've gone as there are few landmarks on the Witham! James is a great job of keeping us focused and rowing well. He also provided musical interludes by playing rousing tunes via an adaptor down the cox box speakers. We rowed to Smoke on the Water, Don't Stop Me Now and the Ride of the Valkyries! Every 10km or so we had a break to take on water and food, but otherwise we just kept rowing.

I enjoyed this year's row more than last year. The actual rowing was better, the cox box lasted the whole length of the race, James's coxing was really very motivational and kept us better focused, and best of all we finished the race 20 minutes faster than last year!

Picture taken by Mel's brother on Will's camera. Taken form Will's flikr album

The crew from left to right and top to bottom: Mel, William D, Freya, William C, Jo, Anne, Joss, me, James. Six of us (Mel, William C, Anne, Joss and me) did it last year as well! Tom and Andy rowed the pair.

I survived without any blisters, and most people manged to avoid getting too many. Today, I just ache all over - especially in my legs!

Also see Will C's blog, with even a graph of our splits: http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2010/09/boston_marathon.php

Bumps, day 3: ladies day

A day for the ladies: W1 and W2 both bumped up, so W2 are now on for blades tomorrow. Great stuff.

The men fared less well: M3 rowed over (twice) being sandwich boat. Still, the exercise is good for them. M2 rowed over, after closing to within a length of Cantabs 7 but losing it on Grassy. M1 went down about at the White House, painful.

Blogs:

* William (M2)
* Amy (W2)
* Paul Holland for the Cmabridge News.

Also, there are loads of pix on various facebook pages (the pix here is ripped from Jo Crisall's album. It is actually a pic from yesterday, but I haven't seen any from today yet). We should make some kind of collection thingy.



[Extra pic added, one of Ivan's says Amy, W2 from Wednesday (day 2)]

Bumps, day 2

[M1 coming into the gut, chasing City 3 and being chased by Cantabs 2. Not a great pic (sorry) but you get an idea of the distances]

Results:

M1 - down 1
M2 - up 1
M3 - up 1, then row-over as sandwich boat of division 3

W1 - up 1
W2 - up 2

Bumps blogging so far:

* William (M2)
* Amy (W2)

Pix from...

Jo C: Video of W1's bump

Me: mostly M2 posing, and Men's first division.

Chris Woods: M2 and M3, conveniently uploaded to the clubs website; I can never work out how to do that :-)

JET:

* M1
* M3
* W2
* W2 bows