2nd Men's IV - Fairbairns 2009

We knew going into Fairbairns that if we rowed well we could pull off a good result. The target was to be within 30 seconds of the first boat. We got off to a good start and settled nicely into our cruising rhythm of round about rate 33. We knew that we needed to be very focussed going along the Wall and we managed to keep the boat speed up and were soon coming into Chesterton, cheered on by a sizeable bank party, despite the obvious attraction of watching the first boat so thank you to all those who stayed with us – it was greatly appreciated. Coming out of Chesterton Bridge, we were moving up to overtake an LMBC crew, which gave us a lift as we new we were moving faster than some crews at least! It was about this point that the cox box broke so we had to do without Emma driving us on. I could still hear her in the bow but the rest claim that they could not! Once we’d squeezed past Maggie, we were on the reach and knew there wasn’t long to go. We all dug in and gave it everything we had – the expressions on our faces not hiding anything, as we were perfect visions of pain in those final strokes. We weren’t happy to find that Jesus had helpfully mad the course 150m further this year thanks to a spectacular cock-up with the marshals. Our time was still respectable – putting us 9th amongst the college crews – ahead of several first 4s and very close to others. Finishing 38s behind the first boat was slightly off target but then that boat was the fastest on the river so there can’t be too many complaints! We did what we set out to do, gave it everything we had and all can be proud of a good term’s work!