Monday 7 March 2011

One of those weekends...

...which leave you feeling more tired on Monday morning than you did on Friday night! But only because it was so much fun.

As always we spent Saturday morning rowing and coxing. I had two really good outings back to back, and I'm feeling pretty confident that our big race on the Thames on the 19th will go well. Everything just felt solid and committed, which was encouraging!

In the afternoon, I headed downriver to watch the Lent Bumps. For any non-rowers, these races are a type of rowing competition in which 20 boats line up along the bank, about 60 ft apart and then when a cannon does off, all begin frantically rowing in order to catch the boat in front before they are caught be the boat behind. If they do catch the boat they are chasing, they swap places the next day. This runs over 4 days, and its chaotic, a bit dangerous, terrifying, and great fun!

It looks something like this:
Photo: Ed Brambley
And produces charts which look like this:


James was already on the river watching the earlier divisions, but had unfortunately taken my bike key with him! So, I decided to run the 4km out to meet him. I only stopped once to chat when I saw Mark fixing his bike on the stern on Suzie Q, but apart from that made it all the way out there in less than half an hour. I really enjoyed it actually, although I was pretty tired after having already rowed twice that morning! But it felt good to push myself a bit! We watched all the divisions in a light drizzle with some of our own club members and some of James' old college friends. The top mens division saw the exciting event of Caius taking the Headship from Downing which was great fun to watch!

Saturday evening I had planned to do some baking but I was whacked, so I went to bed early while James went out and celebrated his old college's successes with the rest of the old boys he coxed back in the day. Sunday was also fun filled and we actually did some cruising, but I'll wait until tomorrow to post about it, and then bring you my next Off Grid baking results on Wednesday.

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