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M1 - Marlow International Regatta

Posted: Thursday 26 June 2008, 10:30AM by Mike Marsh

M1 rounded off their term with a trip to Eton’s multi-lane rowing lake at Dorney (venue for the 2012 Olympic rowing) racing at Marlow International Regatta. This meant training through May Week: We started with a win in our division at Xpress Head in a bit of a composite crew (after some negotiations about our time between Martin and the organisers) and a couple of tired outings at the end of the week following the May Ball.

After an eventful journey down: train failures, teaching Veronica some new snazzy phrases in English, legendary faff from O’Boy at Paddington and a mix up thanks to the foreign phone operator at the taxi company over whether I or a similarly named glamour model had in fact booked our taxi, we finally made it to Dorney. The facility was an awesome sight, eight lanes wide, over two kilometres long; from one end of the course the other was just a haze in the distance.

On the row up everyone seemed excited; May week was behind us now and there was the same focus in the boat that we’d had through the Bumps. After a bit of a wait we lined up at the stake boats at the start and after what seemed an eternity the umpire called “attention, GO!”. We had one of our best starts, but lost a bit of ground to the more powerful crews around us. We settled well and pushed our way down the course. Everyone was concentrating and giving everything they had; the boat sat up well and the distance markers seemed to just fly by. Before we knew it we were at the 500m mark and did a big jump and push into the finish, picking the boat up and bringing us back slightly on the crews who’d slipped ahead of us. We crossed the line exhausted, but very pleased with our row, which was certainly one of the best we’d done all term.

In the end it wasn’t enough, however. We crossed the line in 6:56.59, coming 5th in our heat, thus failing to qualify. When all the results were published, it transpired we were the 22nd fastest of the 30 crews entered in our Division, so we weren’t t all disappointed. We’d entered the S4 category, in the absence of a Novice category, so knew it was going to be tough, but despite not qualifying, everyone had a great experience and lots of fun. Hopefully we can come back next year and make a bit more of an impression!