M1 Quickest Eight in 5:20
After a productive training camp in Norwich Queens’ M1 entered the traditional term opener of St Radegund’s Mile. This is a 1600m piece from outside the Plough to top finish and is a race Queens’ have traditionally done well in (but not so much in recent years). The crew was the same that had done the infamous 90 minute Norwich piece and confidence was high having trained hard over the break.
From the off the crew wound the rate up into the start hitting a comfortable r34 and striding into the rhythm from the last week. The motion was slightly scrappy with backs not quite coming through together as the boat started to rock as we came into Ditton. Onto the reach the crew called for a suspension and really firing the backs through leading to a lift in boat-speed backed up by the updated splits from the speed-coach.
As the crew started to get tired errors started to appear in the rowing as the catches started to wave about a bit and the bodies started to develop small discrepancies. Towards the P&E the crew started to lift for the finish before Bronwyn called an unexpected hold it up. It turned out a dog had decided to have a swim in the river and the crew had to completely stop the boat to avoid running it over. As soon as the dog had cleared the boat wound back and with a lot of aggression due to the unexpected stop powered past the finish line.
Although hardly any colleges entered the crew clocked a dog effected time of 5:20 seconds, 20 seconds clear of the next eight. This is a promising result for the term and shows that the fitness has been maintained over the Easter and hopefully bodes well for a good term. Stroke – James Edgley 7 – Matt Chipping 6 – Rob Emery 5 – Helge Dietert 4 – Peter Mildon 3 – Matt Edmondson-Jones 2 – Tom Bury Bow – Mark Varley (c) Cox – Bronwyn Jones