On Saturday the 10th November
over 500 crews from around the country gathered on the Thames for the annual
Fullers Fours Head. The race is held
over 4.25 miles from Mortlake to Putney and is the reverse of the Oxford
Cambridge boat race course.
I raced in the same crew as the
Diamond Jubilee Rowing Championships with just a small change of the steering
foot to bow. Set of crew number 422 we
had a long wait for our race to begin. For
a change boating from the start had its advantage as we took the opportunity not
to warm up on the water but instead warm up on the ergo’s and boat in our division. This meant when the time came to race we were
still warm and had not been sat getting cold on the water for over an hour.
As we paddle towards the start
line crew started to get congested and we could not build into our start as
early as we would have liked but when the time came we did our start and got
the boat up to speed. Once we settled
onto our rate we started the hunt for the Thames RC crew ahead of us. We caught up with the congestion not long
after the start and Catherine made the decision to stay wide round the corner
as we made the move to overtake Thames RC, Vesta RC and the Men’s Elite
4+. We stayed out of trouble while
Thames RC collided with the men’s crew and we pushed ahead.
We then had a clear run on the
racing line and pushed away from the crews behind us taking Thames RC with us. They obviously had some rage after their
collision. We had a solid race by no
means did it feel our best rowing but as I’ve been told before it’s a good job
rowing’s not a dressage sport. Dez’
words to us when we came in for our recovery food at Putney hard were “you’ve just
won the Senior pennant and you all look suicidal”. Our reply was merely “yes but everything
hurts” all four of us raced as hard as we could we committed to each other from
the first stroke.
The downside to boating at the
start was the long paddle back after racing.
Silence was upon us tears were shed and relieve was found at Chiswick
bridge when we could finally see the club and dry land. The steps at the club felt like climbing Everest
but would we do it all over again quite simply yes. We did the job we went to do and more. We were successful in winning the Women’s
Senior 4- pennant in a time of 20:14.7 breaking the previous record of 21:46.6
set by Reading University BC. We were
also the quickest women’s 4- of the day and beat our Nottingham men’s 4- which
is always good for banter.
A good day was had and as a crew
we would just like to thank Dez for all his hard work and making this
possible. We have to attend a prize
giving evening to collect our medals and we also get our names on a blade which
will be displayed at the club. I think we’re
all slightly more excited by the blade.
Next stop GB trials on the 24-25th
November were we will race 2000m on the ergo on Saturday followed by 5000m in
1x on Sunday.