On Saturday, we entered Newnham Short Course which is a 2km race from the Motorway Bridge to the Railway Bridge (the same as the Bumps course). After our success last week, we knew that we could perform well, and that doing two 2k, let alone 1 was something that we could blast through. Unfortunately, the wind too was a little blasty, with speeds up to 20km/h and with the weekly rainfall, the stream was very strong. The row down was lovely,and we were sailing through the bends…of course, when we would actually be racing we would be rowing against it all! Marshalling was even more interesting than it normally is, with boats here, there and everywhere, with the odd near decapitation and bow pair rowing just to keep us stationary!

Although this was only a time trial, there were still boats in front and behind – Jesus W1 were behind us and Caius W1 in front (so some tough competition). But we were equal to the task! Michelle, our cox, coped amazingly well in the difficult conditions, as the stream made steering very difficult. Against wind and stream we powered through, knowing that on the Reach, with no cover, the wind would be even worse…to such an extent in fact that there were definite waves! We knew what was coming, and with Jesus gaining on us at Ditton corner, the race was on to push ourselves away (all good Bumps practice)! The whole way up the Reach they kept gaining and gaining but we weren’t ready to give up so with more calls for ‘Power on the legs’ from Michelle and encouraging ‘You’ve got this’ from Hannah on the bank, we managed to put in a last surge and hold off Jesus, as well as making up 3 lengths on Caius.

Out of all the W1 boats we came 8th out of 20, beating Caius, Catz, Wolfson and Girton, with a time of 10.32. The winners were First and Third with a time of 9.53, and the subsequent boats were all with 15 secs of our time so another really good result to take us into Robinson Head on Friday.