Today was the day of the Nemphis regatta. Its not as big as Christ Church, which is this weekend, but still important all the same. I met the rest of the crew at the boat house and we had a brief meeting with our coach. He wasn't too happy to hear that we hadn't rowed as an all eight before, had never done racing starts or feathered our blades and had never rowed together either. Hm. It was very encouraging to see him rush off to phone Sarah and ask why the hell we'd been entered. However, in the end, they decided to just see what happened. We had a quick 10 mind warm-up on the ergs and it was then out onto the river. As we rowed past the gut Joe, our Cox, tried to get us to practice rowing all eight. It wasn't too bad, a bit splashy, but all the same pretty good considering the circumstances.
Our first race was against St.John's B novice crew - we were all pretty nervous but as soon as the race started just concentrated on doing our best. About half way through I could feel myself getting sick. My stomach was all knotted as if I was about to throw up. However, we gave it our all and it was a brilliant feeling to just be concentrating on those crucial milliseconds as your blade reaches and pushes through the water. From the corner of my eye I was aware that we were neck-and-neck with the other crew and somewhere up ahead was the finish line. We made it and everyone assumed that we'd lost. However, it turns out that we'd won by a bow-ball - amazing! It was such a close race but we were all over the moon to have won it - our very first outing as a team was a success!
However, we didn't get to celebrate too long as it meant that we had to go through to the next round - against Trinity A team. Arg! We all ate some malt bread (they were sponsoring the race) and got back into the boat. By this time it was getting cold, windy and a bit rainy so this only added to the creeping exhaustion. My hands hurt and I could already see blisters forming. This race was not as dramatic - Trinity won by a whole boat but we still powered through. To be honest, we're all just delighted to have won our first ever race against a better team. I guess it shows all the potential we have and, if all goes to plan, Christ Church will certainly be as exciting if not more as today!
