Towards the end of January I was
back in training again making sure we built back into it slowly so as not to
disrupt my immune system yet again. In
early February I moved in to the pair for Final trials. We first had to do an assessment in March to
secure our place at final trials. This
involved a 2000m ergometer test and 2 x 1500m races in the pair. Although myself and pairs partner Fiona were disappointed
with our ergometer times it was still enough to earn our place at Final
trials.
The pair had been going well and
we went to trials with high hopes. Unfortunately
this was not to be. We did the time
trial on the Friday and although neither of us could point out what went wrong
we just knew we had posted a slow time.
The reason for this became apparent the following day in the Final when
for the last 600m of the race we dramatically slowed and we veered off course. Despite managing to finish the race Fiona had
collapsed behind me. We nearly went for
a swim and because we only have one blade it was impossible for me to get us to
safety on our own. After talking Fi to
the bank we got out and waited for the medic to arrive. After what seemed like hours her condition
had worsened and she was air lifted to hospital.
The following week is a bit of
blur sick with worry I couldn’t sleep. I
finally started to feel less worried when she was released from hospital. They had done all the major tests and they
had all come back negative. She was released
home despite the fact she was still unable to see. They are still unsure as to the root cause of
this but Fi is now back training and racing after 8 weeks of recovery. I found it very hard to get into my training
following this as it had a huge impact on me physiologically.
After 2-3 weeks I started to feel
more settled although there was still the worry of what we were going to
race. Dez was planning on racing a quad
but at this time only 3 athletes to race in it while others were still tied up
with trials. We finally got a quad
together at the end of May and had our first race at Met Regatta. We got off to a good start leading the first
500m by a 5 second margin. We then held
of the chasing crew rather than continue to open that margin but it was a job
done and a win for our first race as a crew.
We then went on to race at Henley
Women’s Regatta where we meet stiff opposition from Leander and Vesper,
USA. It’s run in a knock out series of rounds with
2 crew competing against each other to make the next stage of the
competition. We had a great race on the Saturday
against a Tideway Scullers crew wining with an easy verdict. This but us through to meet Leander and
despite getting a good start and coming out of the island ahead they powered
through and dominated the race from then in.
This could be one of the crew selected to represent at the European
Championships. The then went on to win
beating Vesper by 1-3/4 lengths.
We then seat raced for the Henley
Royal quad with 5 athletes for 4 seats someone was going to miss out. Unfortunately that was me with only 2 seconds
separating 3 athletes the decision was made to put Fiona into the quad. As yet I have not had the opportunity to race
at Henley Royal Regatta and being taken out of the quad was gutting for
me. You have to move on and move forward
so I trained hard while they were away competing. I added a lot of cross training into the mix
which I enjoyed. It added variety into
training for that short space of time.
After all a change is as good as a rest.
We then made the change in to sweep boats (each rower has one blade) for the British Rowing Championships. This year they have split the events over the normal championships and the Diamond Jubilee Regatta in October. I was put in the coxed four and the pair this time with a new pair’s partner.
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