St Catharine's College Boat Club

Sunday, November 13th arrived. Every other college crew was tucked up in bed, enjoying a relaxing break from their undemanding training regimes. However, the Men of St Catharine's were not among them, as we arrived, decked out in the finest stash Powerhouse and Godfrey have to offer, at the University of London Boathouse, 6am sharp.

Jon, having been up since 3am the previous day stretching in readiness for this outing, mumbled something that sounded a bit like "where's my Pro Plus," then proceeded to jolt awake as a certain Chris Quarton wandered into the changing room. Despite not having rowed for a year, Chris played a crucial role in what was to follow (even if he was sitting at three). Thank you very much to Chris for subbing in last minute! Other Chris (Eddy), as self-appointed food, rest and warmth officer (my role is slowly dissolving into merely writing race reports) arrived wearing his normal 9234329012 layers and slightly indignant expression at being roped into another of my schemes. On this occasion, this may have proved to be wise as today we were sparring with UCL.

Wading out into the tideway with our borrowed Stampfli shell and wheel-less oars, we couldn't help but stare at the scale of the river, with virtually unlimited room for activities. Rowing up towards Richmond we were feeling remarkably at home as Sid had us rowing square blades with pauses. It took us a little while to realise we weren't stuck behind a novice crew on a river about 10cm wide, at which point Sid explained we kept catching up... a promising start.

As dawn broke, we spun and lined up along aside the Men from UCL. Over the next 45 minutes we battle-paddled with a crew that not all that long ago made the final day of HRR, and incredibly found ourselves taking down seat after seat. Yet it was never going to be that simple, as Sid's intuitive Cam coxing led to us taking a wonderful racing line round the corners. Unfortunately, as those readers who did GCSE geography will know, this is not the best option on a river that wide, and the rather smug UCL cox sailed past. After shouts of "isn't it a bit shallow here (#!?)" from the bows, something clicked and Sid began to bully the other crew out of the stream, allowing us to come back and claim victory for the day.

The true toll of a 20km+ battle paddle showed as we headed back to the boathouse, but that's a few extra miles on the clock and Fairbairns is fast approaching. Also we're all now back to full fitness thanks to super-sized malt loaves (what a time to be alive).