St Catharine's College Boat Club

M1 awoke to a rose-coloured sky for our morning pre-paddle, the wind having dropped to almost nothing, with only a slight whisper of "SCCBC, SCCBC, SCCBC" in the air. As Basile and Jack rumbled through the door an average of 10 minutes late between them, and Jon began his obscenely long stretching and contact lens ritual, the rest of us felt a strange sense of calmness. Everything was as it should be. Everything was ready.

The morning row reflected our new mindset, the turns felt sharp and the pause felt long (this is a good thing). I was still sending backsplash reminiscent of the tsunamis that followed the eruption of Krakatau backwards over bow six but anyway, that's missing the point, we all (well stern pair at least) felt good and more importantly, we were having fun.

After a hearty breakfast in the bar (attended by stern pair) we all parted agreeing to meet (ON TIME) at 1500 to kick off our Lents campaign. At this point I realised I had completely forgotten to rearrange my chemistry practical, so swiftly commenced a rescue mission to save as many tripos marks as I could before this time. Having saved basically none at all, I arrived at the boathouse at 1500, to find the crew already there (apart from Chris, Chris was late, shame on Chris). Following some questionable music choices (e.g. "Waka-Waka" by Shakira, (metal version), and "Give it Up" by KC & The Sunshine Band) we headed downstairs and, cheered on by a W2 that have now got the same number of bumps in the last two days as I have in my entire life, rowed off down the river. (Well done W2)

bla bla bla... marshalling.... bla bla bla (you get the idea)

And we were off, scything through the water like Stuart through the heart of seemingly every girl on the Spotted: River Cam Facebook page. We hit a strong rhythm at rate 38 and drew within station on Christs, holding Churchill on station. Hitting the wave-tank that is the gut, we lost some send and then slipped further back after following the wide-line around Grassy as instructed by our marshall (Churchill obviously not getting this memo). End result: we had a crew only three-quarters off our stern and Basile was starting to squeak. I've been in crews where that would have been the end of that, but not today. We found our tempo past the Plough and locked it in round Ditton, hardly feeling the gust and sending the boat effortlessly.

At the end of the day we were three lengths up on Churchill, still feeling fresh and ready to have a go at 'Binson tomorrow. Watch this space.