The Great River Race
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| From GRR |
The second half of August was spent in a blur of activity preparing for Ben and Steph’s wedding , and the possibly more difficult task of getting fit for our next attempt on the Great River Race. Attempts one and two had got us places in the top ten , and we now knew what speeds we needed to achieve to win! There was just the small problem of persuading my 60 year old body that rowing at that sort of rate for 3 hours was fun , or even possible.
We consoled ourselves that our handicap would probably be increased so much that we might as well just take it easy , but in the event the organisers had just increased our start time by 2 minutes , so a win was still possible.
As we leant back into the oars on the start gun there was a sharp crack : a scarf joint on the first 8 inches of one of Bens sculls had given way and it looked like our race was over before it had started! Whilst I rowed on alone , Ben called over a rescue boat and cadged a roll of tape – taped the scarf up and pulled on a short loom , and unbelievably we still seemed able to get the correct speeds – indeed were several minutes up on our schedule by Tower bridge.
As last year, we were past all the early starters by the Millennium bridge and thereafter it was a long lonely pull against the clock. Richmond lock came and went – thankfully open this year – and we were just beginning to believe we could win it when we caught a glimpse of something behind us round the last bend . We flashed past Richmond with the crowds lining the bank cheering us on , sprinting for all we were worth and desperately enquiring of our Cox and Passenger if they could see the finish. I swear that we nearly had Kingfisher planning for a bit, but a Dragon boat swept past at over 7 knots , all 16 paddlers keeping up a truly ferocious rate .
That sprint had nearly finished me, and now we could see the next boat, a 4 oared Scarborough gig , worryingly close. With half a mile still to go we dropped the work rate a fraction to allow me to recover and managed to hold on for second place .
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| From GRR |
Disappointment at losing it in the last minutes of the race , relief at finishing , significant pride at being applauded by the Olympians on Gloriana , awe that Ben had managed to row with his shortened oar- all these emotions washed over me to be slowly replaced by the realisation that I would have to get even fitter for next year.
Which all things considered is probably a good problem to have!