Following on from 2024, which I carefully won't re-read until I finish writing this. How do I feel, how do we feel, how is it going?I feel... moderate. Average. Could do well, could do badly, could be meh; it is hard to tell. We only came together as a crew a month or so ago, and on our best weeks have managed three outings. But on the other hand we have a reasonable crew, and have had good coaching from Alex Toucher that has noticeably sharpened us up. We haven't entered any races as a crew so I have no measure at all of us against anyone else. Our paddling is quite good; I fear we're let down somewhat by endurance over the longer pieces; we struggle to rate up, but then again we're probably getting more out of the rate we can do.
Personally, I know my 2k is up to 7:39 from last year's already rather disappointing 7:31; but I did get my 10k below 40 minutes this year, so all is not lost. And we have Ali back. Indeed we are: Harry Bulstrode, Sam, Alistair Goodman, Ralph Hancock, Conor Burgess, Chris Wood, me, Jon Hatchett (but Ralph can't make Thurs+Fri so David O'Loughlin comes in; and Ali can't make Fri so Lachlan comes in. JP is slumming it in the City Prez's crew). So, all competent, Sam holding the flag for the new young folk, Chris and I of the antients. And we've been routinely below 1:30 on starts, again.
Overall, I'm going to guess down one.
Oh, and a note on boats. We're borrowing Christ's M1 shell again, and it is still a quality boat. Alas their silly willow lost a branch, or at least has a hanging branch, and their silly H+S people panicked and put the hard out of reach, and worst still the silly council requires a week for tree works, so we're currently in a King's shell that Conor / Ali got out of King's good graces. Happily it is an identical Filippi, and happily also bow rigged; though it is a little older; nominally their second boat but I think just-right-now displaced to third by the arrival of a new first boat.
Day one: up. Yay! A great row. We ground Press down, getting whistles in time, finally getting overlap and then the bump mid-Reach, with Nines three breathing down our neck. And we responded well to that, keeping the pressure up. I think we got slightly lucky with Press in front of us, but would probably have escaped Nines even if Press hadn't folded.
Day two: row-over: meh :-). Not nearly as exciting. Press I think pushed off the start, having no choice, but made no ground, and were caught by Nines on or just after grassy. We were on station with Tabs two as far as there, then they pulled away; their wash was noticeably washier than Press's. The hypothetical challenge from City four overbump didn't happen; either they aren't actually that fast, or they decided to save their efforts. We kinda pushed on down the Reach, but not seriously, as you can tell for me at least by my heart-rate. Tomorrow is the charm.
Day three: down: ah well. While we did have a chance, I wasn't too surprised. Had the positions been the same as Tuesday we might have got away with it, but perhaps the difference was that Nines knew they could get close, and perhaps also were tuning up as the days went by. And (whisper it) it might be that David isn't as fast as Ralph. But the result is that they got us at the top of the Reach. I, and all of us, wasn't too sad: we knew it was 50-50. Day one A14-to-Plough: 3:31; day two 3:36; today, 3:34. So, three seconds down on day one. My PR is 3:25. Meanwhile, my HR max was 158. So, while I think I feel a little uneasy that I could have stepped up at the Plough, I can largely acquit myself overall.
Day four: down: disappointing. Lachlan came in for Ali, who was otherwise engaged, but as 5; David swapped to bowside at 4, and Conor moves up to Ali's seat at 6. This much change wasn't great, we were definitely less settled on the row down; but, well, we needed to do something. This was Lachlan's second outing - along with last Sunday's practice - in a year or so, so difficult for him. Here's a graph of my A14 to Grassy efforts - we got caught just onto Plough Reach by Tabs.
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