M2 Fairbairns 2011
Fairbairns' morn dawned bright and cold.The clocks had struck eight well before we put the noble Sir John (our eight) onto the cruel Cam. He still bore the scars from a recent assault by Caius II, who claimed not to have seen our resplendent and well lit crew, a lack of awareness probably unsurprising considering their declaration of having stormed to victory in their Autumn Head division, (a division that we won by two seconds). It would be a lie to claim that a certain lingering rancour towards them did not exist.
However, this lingering feeling was infinitely preferable to the lingering scent of Chris Stanton's lycra. This was a scent of a nature that the crew had previously only dreamed of, a scent that curled and furled into all corners of the boathouse. Chemical warfare was being waged. It made the mould culture that we had seen on Ellis's kit earlier that term seem like a glimpse of Eden. It made our intrepid strokeman Dearden stop and retch on a run when running downwind of him. In short, it had almost, Dementor like, devoured our souls. Even Nearly Headless Nick pressure wasn't helping any more. Yet on Fairbairn's morn, this stench was ameliorated by the sweet scent of soap. It felt as if a collective ball and chain had been lifted from around our necks (and lungs.)
The plan was simple- to race the distance. Only one of us had ever actually raced as far as this before, so we couldn't exactly picture the harsh, gritty truth of what faced us. Between the idea and the reality lay the shadow. However, this spectre seemed distant, and a brief game of baseball to warm up lifted any crew spirits that were still flagging. We even had a cox that our strokeman hadn't yet flirted with. When one has the second best posterior in college, and a devastating smoulder to go with it, Dearden often finds it difficult to fend the ladies off him. We strode resolutely to the water, hoping to woo it into being a kind mistress. Around this point, Chris made the confession that he spent each stroke reaching forward to try and touch John. After a mercifully brief period of sitting around on the water, it was our chance to shine.
We set off at a reasonable pace, striding to rate 32 and a half, which soon settled at rate 32. This was within our remit, and teeth were gritted to try and stop things flagging. However, as hard as I pushed, my legs seemed to be lacking a certain magic, and this seems to have been a feeling across the rest of the crew. Perhaps my toes hadn't yet become toes of the world, and were consequently unable to make meaningful decisions about whether or not they loved or hated the footrest. I fear they just didn't know what love was. If they had, I suspect the race would have panned out very differently.
Gutsy pushes at Grassy and First Post corners kept things ticking over smoothly, and the technical aspects of the race were fairly well polished, but we lacked a killer edge. Although we slowly pulled away from the Lady Margaret crew immediately behind us, things remained firmly at the solid rather than spectacular end of the spectrum. The stroke rate was maintained at 31-32 throughout, which wasn't sufficient to produce the result of top second boat that we craved. Nevertheless, our beating Caius II at Autumn Head had given us a false impression of their ability, as here they finished an mpressive 13th to our 29th (out of 65.) Even had we been able to row over a couple of pips higher, I doubt we would have been able to master them.
However, our final finishing position was still respectable, and if we had had the pungent aroma of unwashed lycra to make us row harder, who knows what might have happened?
-- Pete Wilkes
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