While many clubs turn and run to Spain, the chiselled athletes of OUWLRC stayed in England for both training camps this holiday. It seemed like a good idea at the time, saving on travelling expenses… but then winter happened. Ruth Crewe reports on the first of two training camps based at Wimbleball Lake in Exmoor:
This was my first training camp away with the club and I was a little bit apprehensive. I envisaged four days of stinky chat about kilos and calories and Ready-Brek made with water, in the middle of the misty moors (no doubt the site of many moors-murders). The reality was far from it. Everyone enjoyed the chance to row and relax in each other’s company without the pressure from other areas of our Oxford lives. Injury prevented some squad members attending the camp, but we were accompanied instead by ex-president Alice Millest who contributed a lot of experience. Our performance nutritionist Juliet also joined us to see the squad in action on the lake.
First job upon arrival was to rig our fleet of boats. I was shaking. With the wind-chill it must have been well below freezing. Numb faces, fingers and toes were all prominent features of the trip. UWE held a winter training camp at Wimbleball, the last day of which happened to coincide with the first day of ours, so we enjoyed some match racing against them. With a sense of relaxed purpose, OUWLRC won six out of six pieces, and this reminded me why we punish our bodies day-in day-out at Iffley gym.
It was back to the digs in Dulverton for some R&R that evening. Rose & Millest met defeat at the hands of Baines & Crewe on the chess table, and then it was time to get involved with the local carvery and scrumpy.
The next two days were bitter - thick frost had to be scraped off windscreens before we could go anywhere. The lake was choppy except for the Upton Arm where we could shelter from the wind and white horses. We got our heads down to some technical drills and battle paddles in fours. The temperature lingered around zero degrees but nobody really complained, we just layered up and got on with the mileage set by Cavell. Around the water sessions we had hydration and body composition testing with Juliet to check we’re fuelling ourselves correctly for best performance.
The work in fours made a big difference to crew discipline, I learned to relax when things seem to be falling apart and ‘think with my hands’. Video analysis helped several of us turn important corners with our technique. When we got back into the VIII on the third day, the result was the best square-blades paddling all season. Everything just came together; it was the culmination of four months’ work and a satisfying way to round off 2007. I am sure our improvements will be going with us into January when we return to Wimbleball for a gruelling eight-day selection camp. Next it was back to Oxford exhausted, wind-whipped, and with slightly firmer thighs, for one last erg test before Christmas.
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