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Georgie Baines recounts a day out in Birmingham:
On 26th October 2008, OUWLRC journeyed to Birmingham to take part in the much feared ‘Indoor Rowing Championships’. As it was the first 2km test of the season all the rowers (and two of the coxes) were anxious on the journey to the Midlands. We arrived at the National Indoor Arena (home to Torvill and Dean’s ‘Dancing on Ice, The Tour’) and stripped off immediately for the weigh in. Everyone entered in the lightweight student event was under the 61.5kg weight limit and following that, much high GI carbohydrate and salted squash was consumed. Following a lengthy warm up (where 10 strokes felt like the toughest thing ever) we huddled in the ‘holding pen’ eyeing up the competition.
We entered the area where a horrendous sight greeted us; a hundred ergs lined up in front of a big screen. We all found our allocated machines and sat down. Then “Attention, Go!” and we were off. For me the first few strokes were a blur of adrenaline, then my brain took over and told me to sit on the split carefully formulated by our coach, then the plan was to just sit there for 1700m. However, like most well laid plans this has the potential to go astray. The sound of the marshals calling other people on, the voice of the commentator and the noise of the crowd all serve to corrupt the rhythm which is essential to finishing the race. By 700m the dry air in the hall burns at the back of the throat. On the screen you can see the person ahead and behind you and personal, inter-squad rivalries spur people on. In no time (but what feels like forever) it’s over. We all collapsed on our machines gasping for breath, but thankful that the first performance test of the year is over.
At this point two of our squad realised they had done particularly well; Rachel Hall had won the silver medal and Felicity the bronze. We all watched proudly as they stepped up to the podium to receive their prizes. As we caught our breath back, we cheered on our cox Matt in the men’s lightweight category appreciating the pain as he went over the 2km mark!
In the minibus on the way home we reflected on what had been an important day; our first real test in public. Bearing this in mind we headed back to Oxford to go and eat twice our weight in pizza!
Thanks to Mike for the awesome pre and post race chats.
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