St Catharine's College Boat Club

It had been a tumultuous morning, with one of our rowers stricken down with the dreadful flu that has been on the news of late. The search for a sub ensued. Fortunately, Rosie came to our rescue! It was a bleak mid-winters Saturday afternoon and W2 plus Rosie assembled at the boat house, ready to conquer their first challenge of the term – Newnham Short Course. After a quick pep talk, we started off with a front stops and back stops build. It was in this early stage of our race preparation that we faced our second major obstacle. Unfortunately, Newnham had failed to invest in sturdy card for their race numbers, opting instead for mere flimsy paper. The result being, a soggy, mangled number, unreadable by those on the bank. We had barely made it to the P+E when a disgruntled marshal asked us to fix the number on our bow. It was at this moment that we had to inform them of the flaws in their numbering system. All things considered, the criticism was noted, and hopefully next year we’ll be seeing numbers made of card!

We eventually made it to the start line, after a short but freezing wait, we were off! We did a rolling start, Matt Temple style, consisting simply of “five builds”. We settled into a steady rhythm and managed to sustain this for the first half of the race. As we approached the reach, Fiona screamed “Medwards we’re coming through!” And from here on, our rate rapidly increased as we saw an opening in our peripheral vision. With some motivational pressure calls from our cox, we quickly found ourselves lining up with the crew and eventually overtaking them. We were now in the last 500m of the race, and as our energy waned Newnham Short course was no longer feeling quite so short! But we made it, and in a time of 8:26, enough to win us the W2 division and earn ourselves some gorgeous medals in the process.

St Catharine's W2 - 1st Place - Newnham Short Course 2018