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After gaining vital race experience at Clare Novice Regatta, the novice men were keen to display their true rowing talents at The Fairbairn Cup. Sadly, race conditions meant their usual cox (and captain) Alannah was unable to cox them for the race. So, the week before I was given the task! I put on my coxing hat and adopted one of my favourite phrases “fake it, ‘till ya make it!!!”. After a couple of good sessions battling the traffic of the cam I was feeling confident going into the race. With my trusty race plan strapped to my legs and a sneaky plan to keep the boys calm, off we went! Aim for a long & strong rate 24 I said….and the perfect rate 26 off the start we got! Being far too preoccupied with getting the correct lines and giving encouraging calls at the right times I forgot to press start and had no idea how far the boys had gone. I gave them my best guess “pretty sure you’re halfway but haven’t actually got a clue”. Showing me some of their best rowing – beautifully in time and balanced I elected not to inform them that they were now rating at 30 and just left them to it! As we turned onto the reach the crew firmly “pushed that bridge away” and powered on to my unrelenting pressure calls until that beautiful horn to signal the end of the race. Coach Jan was seen shrieking in delight running alongside, bursting with pride at their excellent performance. When he asked me what rate they raced at, and I informed him it was r30, he asked me again - refusing to believe that it could be so high when it looked so controlled. As the results came in, the proof was right there – second in their division and the fastest college crew! Outstanding effort. Watch this space….we are well and truly on the BLADE HUNT! Watch out Cambridge!
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The novice men “Nine Times Martin” had a great time at CNR celebrating Martin’s birthday! This was their first race and a great learning experience! Vibes were immaculate and the opposition were so scared of having 9 Martins chasing them that they scooted ahead. However, the crew will make use of the experience gained at CNR to improve for their next race - Novice Fairbairns on Thursday!
The Novice women, our beloved Eaglets had another great day on the river! The weather might have gotten colder but that did not stop these little eaglets from flying! While the sun was out, temperatures on the Cam last Saturday hovered just above zero degrees Celsius which made for a chilling marshalling for Clare Novice Regatta, our second novice race of the term. Learning from Emma Sprints, our genius eaglets found the best way keep that rate 26 feeling: warming up to Uptown Girl. (Seriously, check out the Reel, it is too good to miss!) And their efforts paid off! In their first race against Kings the eaglets were able to maintain a strong rhythm pushing long and strong throughout the 800m course down the Reach. While the race was neck-and-neck for the first half, the eaglets were able to pull away to win by over a boat length! A stunning start to the day. While deservingly tired, the eaglets marshalled to race again, this time against Caius. The eaglets knew Caius was a hard draw but put their all into their second heat. After a slight blade clash off the start, the eaglets couldn’t quite keep up with Caius down the reach but gave them a good fight—the best we could have asked for. After a race well rowed, the eaglets returned to roost at the 99s singing their reprise of Uptown Girl and getting in the festive mood with an off-key version of Last Christmas. Nothing can kill the vibes of this boat! A big congratulations to all our novice rowers, be it their first or second race, and to our novice cox on her successful first race! While two 800m sprints felt like a lot, the pressure is on for the 2,700m marathon of novice Fairbairns this coming Thursday!  Emma Sprints race report - Elizabeth LeungThe Eddies Eaglets have officially fledged from the nest! Our novice women soared in their first race on Sunday at Emma Sprints dressed in their finest (hand-crafted!) eagle masks. With Eddie the Eagle tapped to their bow, the Eaglets braved through yellow-flag-worthy winds—they truly learned to fly in a storm. In their first race against Fitz they built up to an astonishing rate 38(!) off the start. When Fitz caught a crab early on, the Eaglets were able to soar past them to a quick victory (settling to a far more reasonable rate 28).  Their second race with Lucy is best summarized by the Voice-to-Text message Kathy, our bank party & LBC, sent to our senior captain (poor punctuation intentional to reflect the original message): “That one was carnage we crashed blades at the start caught a crab then Lucy got away. Then they crabbed and changed their racing side and ended up on our side, so we had to go round them then they recovered, but we couldn’t claw the back and they pulled away from us in the end but yeah he was proper sprints chaos.” Don’t worry, we are tracking down video footage of this chaos. The Eaglets were all in high spirits having rowed their best. After putting the boat away, they were matriculated as true Eddies rowers by our greatest tradition of the post-race Fort St. George pub trip—even Eddie the Eagle partook in a well-deserved beverage. Tomorrow, they rest their legs and then the countdown to Clare Regatta begins! 
Another first in recent memory, the Eddies Eagles went on a field trip! And by that we mean the women’s senior crew took our boat off Cam to race in the Isle of Ely Head on Sunday. While de-rigging the boat the day before was done in a torrential downpour, the race itself was a beautiful, sunny day although the strong stream and headwind were certainly leftover from Storm Ciaran a few days prior. The Eagles arrived in Ely with plenty of time to rig the boat (no supervision from coach Matt needed....insert wry smile...!) Coach Abbie was once again doubling as our trusty cox, lead us from the boat launch and downstream 6km to the start line. The race was a total of 5km long—the longest sustained rowing this crew had ever done—upstream against the wind. The crew found their rhythm right off the start line settling at a competitive pace. So competitive that, at the 1.5km mark, the Eagles were able to soar past the City 8+ crew and overtake in approximately 30 strokes! By the 2km mark, City was fading into the distance, and the Eagles pushed through to the finish with a respectable time of 24:10 (just 7s behind Churchill W1!). After de-rigging the boat, the Eagles were momentarily lost—where do we go when Fort St. George is not just on the other side of the river? And so, the Eagles ended up at Maccies for their post-race crew chew. While certainly tired, the Eddies’ senior women are feeling strong for the upcoming Fairbairns race at the end of the month which—while a long race—won’t be quite as long as the Isle of Ely Head and certainly another milestone they can conquer! Yeah Eddies!!  Eddie's Eagles post race The novice men were in the first division of the day and after their first two competitors held a HUGE lead. Sadly they couldn't hold onto this lead all the way through but ended up coming a very respectable 5th in their division with an average split of 1:44.0. The novice women (aka eddies eaglets) soon followed racing in the second division. Their LBC's were all away at Ely so Alannah kindly looked after them for us. She clearly did a fantastic job motivating them because they put on an outstanding display to finish in joint third place and progress to the final! They completed the final with an average split only 1 second slower than their qualifying round and finished 11th overall - great effort!! Now we just need the weather to play ball so we can transfer all this ERG work into the water! Eddie's hosted a joint social with Hughes & Lucy Cavendish last night at 99's boathouse. It was run in true QERGS style as a practice run before QERGS itself next weekend. Halloween costumes were encourage and we were delighted to see some super outfits on display and a great turnout! RESULTSMixed seniors 1st Lucy Cav (1:47.5/500m) 2nd Hughes Hall (1:48.0/500m) 3rd Eddie's women (1:50.9/500m) Mixed Novices 1st Hughes Hall (1:45.7/500m) 2nd Lucy Cav (1:46.8/500m) 3rd Eddie's (1:54.8/500m) Overall 1st Hughes Hall (1:46.9/500m) 2nd Lucy Cav (1:47.2/500m) 3rd Eddie's (1:56.8/500m) For the first time in recent history, St. Edmund’s entered a boat into the University IVs competition. Part head race, part regatta, where two 4+ crews set off 150m apart and race for the best time over a 2km course. With ARU dropping out, Eddies progressed straight to the semi-final against Emma W2. Eddies brought only their meanest faces and strongest watts onto the water ending with a competitive time of 9:06! Sadly, it was not quite enough to beat the Div.1 Emma crew, but Eddies rowed back home with a feeling of accomplishment (and very sore legs). The senior women begun training for the race before the start of Michaelmas term and faced a numerous number of hurdles. With rowers getting injured or severely ill, rowers being unable to make the afternoon race slot due to university work (do we learn here, I thought we just rowed?), and rowers switching from stroke to bow side, the race line up seemed to change every week. While our formidable crew—Adriana, Kathy, Kiran, and Sophie—ultimately rowed, I’d also like to take this moment to acknowledge Shannon, Xen, and Rosie who all helped make this race happen. And another huge thank you to our formidable cox-coach Abbie who took the tightest line around grassy and coach Matt (who even smiled a little bit)! Written by Elizabeth Leung (Womens Captain) Practice start on the plough reach
Eddie’s Eagles were back racing on the Cam as a 4+ at Autumn Head. Below is a race report written by women's captain Elizabeth Leung. “Eddies made their return to the Cam this Saturday racing in Autumn Head. They had a stacked 4+ boat with the ‘meerkat’ Elizabeth and our small-but-mighty powerhouse Kathy in stroke pair and our bow pair wow pair Sophie and Shannon making their SECBC racing debut. While the sun was thankfully out, this crew had to fight against the wind and heavy stream through the 2.6km course. And, in true Eddies fashion, they had some hiccups in the race. But when the cox box died mid-race, Abbie powered through unfazed. Feeling good about our first race of the 2023-24 year, it is but a stepping stone to the University IVs race in the coming weeks. Yeah Eddies!” We had the first two novice taster sessions over the weekend - they were fully subscribed and great fun was had by all! With ten novices & five seniors there were plenty of hands on the boat. Many hands make light work and all that....! The sessions kicked off with a talk from either one of our women's coaches Matt/Abbie, or a senior rower explaining the different parts of the rowing stroke, and the separation of movements. After a quick demo it was the novice's turn to show us what they've got! Once the basics were established we all mucked in to get our lovely 'Lily' boat out of the boat house - no easy task given that she sits four racks up!  Novice's on the ERGs Once Lily was safely out and in the water we went through the basic calls/commands that our cox Alannah was likely to use in the outing, and then got some of the novices in on stroke side whilst we held down the riggers, so that they could practice taking a stroke. Once everyone had had a go at this it was time to push off. Each batch of novices got to row to Jesus lock and back - assisted by having seniors in stroke, 2 & bow. On both days everyone did extremely well & we even had them taking a few strokes in sixes!!!! After the outing, everyone mucked in to give Lily a thorough sponge down, rinse and dry before heading upstairs to enjoy some well deserved schnaaaaacks! The keen beans then headed to our favourite pub across the water - the Fort St George! They really should sponsor us....  Yeah Eddie's!!!
As well as our water tasters we are also running some FUN ERGs in the evenings at College. These sessions spend some time going over the separation, some steady state rowing with feedback from our seniors, and finish with a fast paced, action packed ERG relay - QERG's style!
We have a busy fortnight ahead with a further SEVEN taster sessions scheduled, as well as more fun ERG's. If you've attended one already, feel free to sign up to more, and if you're totally new to this - fill out our interest form so that we can send you all the details you need to know!
Check out SECBC’s ERG tutorial video to get our top tips on rowing technique! |
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