The 2011-12 season brought a new adventure for OUWLRC, as we headed for the first time to Coimbra, Portugal, for our January training camp. Upon arrival at the rowing club on the Rio Mondego, we realised that we had struck gold; a wide, flat, empty river twinkling in the sunshine and crying out to be explored. So with only the threat of the weekly (at best) pleasure cruiser, and with the ancient Coimbra University buildings watching over us from the hillside, we obliged, and boated for our first outing of many.

The week was spent hard at work on the water, and we all took great delight in topping up those fading unisuit tan lines from days of sunshine past. We soon got to grips with the local customs; how to order a coffee (don’t ask for ‘coffee’), which is the best steak (‘Miranda’, hands down) and how to tackle the local drivers when navigating the city roads (hang on for dear life). New Year’s Eve saw us bringing in 2012 in style, whether it was watching the fireworks from our hillside bungalows, or dancing with the locals, for whom skirts made out of seatbelts seemed to be the norm.

However, at no point did we take our water time for granted, and towards the end of the week we moved to Montemor-o-Velho rowing lake, the site of the 2010 European Rowing Championships. Here the weather was a little less kind; upon our arrival on the second day, we were greeted by fog so thick that we couldn’t see where the rafts ended and the water began. However, with a little bit of patience (assisted by a lovely coffee from a local cafe owner), we waited for the conditions to clear, and finally found ourselves once again in glorious sunshine. Needless to say, it was a little different from the cold days at Dorney, and provided perfect conditions for the obligatory seat racing. With two days left to go, we returned to the river in Coimbra and enjoyed a last few solid outings in the sun before packing up the trailer ready for the road.

The squad thoroughly enjoyed the trip, and though exhausted, were sad to leave Coimbra behind. Our thanks extend to all those at the Centro Náutico do Parque Verde.

-Jill Betts (OUWLRC BB 2011)

At the end of our pre-Xmas training camp, some of us participated in the charity Santa run through Oxford to support Helen and Douglas House, a really good cause if you have a few spare pounds! We’re all off for a couple of weeks away from boats, to get ready for our big training camp and the rest of the season! Happy Christmas everyone and it was a pleasure to see so many at our annual christmas dinner!

Happy Christmas!

Erg session at Iffley gym — I think it’s time for a new playlist!

Winning novice 2x

Jenni Butler reports…The morning of the 19th of November saw a group of excited but sleepy rowers gathering outside Go Outdoors, ready for the trip to Kingston for our second heads regatta of the season. Spirits were high despite the early hour and we reached our destination in good time. Sadly, the organisers of the event seemed not to have banked on the large numbers of big trailers full of boats arriving on their doorstep, and our trailer ended up stuck in traffic a couple of streets away! Along with the lightweight men, however, we managed to get most of the boats and equipment off the trailer while it was still stuck, and carried them back to the river ready to rig! We had almost every boat class covered- from singles up to coxed fours, but everyone was rigged and ready in good time, the result of efficient teamwork and hundreds of rigger jiggers. The first division was, in a word, long! 4800m on an unfamiliar river is no easy task (especially when you’re steering for the first time!) but we all got on with it and produced some great results, with our 4+ (although sadly unopposed in their IM2 category) posting the fastest women’s time of the day and one of our novice doubles winning their category by 2 minutes. Doing it all again seemed quite a daunting task, but after some lunch and a few substitutions for injured squad members, we were ready to go again! The sun came out and again everyone put in a good performance, showing great consistency and commitment, with our two 4+s coming first and second in the IM3 division. After the excitement (?) of once again loading up the trailer in the middle of the street, we were all exhausted, but pleased with a very successful day’s racing, and ready to keep pushing through to even better results and stronger wins in the future. Needless to say, everyone fell asleep in the minibus on the way home!

On the last weekend of October, we embarked on our first trip to Henley to race with the whole squad at Upper Thames Small Boats Head, all of us equipped with new and shiny Tethys lycra. For some of us, it was yet another trip down to that stretch of river that we know almost as well as our home stretch, for others it was the first trip to see the waters between Temple Island and the town of Henley. And what a beautiful autumn day  it was! We took a whole fleet of boats, ranging from doubles to coxed/coxless fours. First task – unload, rig, and tighten all the nuts and bolts — Done in record time. Some of the new steerers and coxswains found their first challenge when marshalling for division one turned into a game of ‘how close can you stack 150 boats’. Once everyone had disentangled from the chaos, it was a matter of spinning and racing down the course that will be so familiar in a few months time.  Temple Island, the Barrier, Upper Thames, and then wind it towards Phyllis Court. Head races are different from bumps races, some of us had to find out — even if you catch up the crew in front of you, you have to keep going to the end, remembering to push and pace yourself. After the first race, some of us were surprised how long 3k can feel, and concerned about surviving the next division. But worries aside, after some lunch a second race didn’t seem that impossible any more. In a re-fueled state we focussed on the crews for the second part of the challenge. This time, marshalling seemed a little bit more organised, which caused smaller stress levels.  We got off the water, tired, with more experience and knowing what to work on in the next few months. The final bit of the day – de-rig, load the boats and off to Starbucks, for the traditional post-race coffee chat about what went well, what went badly and what we wanted for dinner. The results came out shortly after – some of our crews had to race without opposition due to insufficient entries, or for time only after injuries and illnesses hit parts of the squad. Overall, there was satisfaction with the times and results, but we know that it’s a long way til March. The novice doubles came 2nd and 3rd in their race, and one of our IM3 4+ beat two Osiris crews — celebrations with coffee and Sunday roast were in order. All in all, a good day, which made us hungry for more races and showed us what the long hours of land training are good for.

Happy after a good day's racing

OUWLRC’s squad has hit the gardens and hills around Blenheim Palace to run for charity and do some cross training – whilst most of us opted for the 10k option, Brooke took the opportunity to add some heat and hill training to her preparation for the NY marathon in a few weeks time. The Blenheim run supports the British Heart Foundation, and if you want to support the excellent work they are doing, please use their website and donate here.

It’s safe to say we all had fun, especially being sprayed with water to survive our current heat wave…the colourful leaves of English October, the burning sun and the beautiful surroundings ….. land training can be fun indeed!