This Sabbath evening I attended the black-tie dinner for Peterhouse Boat Club, after today’s Fairbairns Regatta, which my Men’s IV has been training for the entire term. But before I detail the menu for this evening, I must of course give an account of the events on the water.
After some porridge and honey, I made my way to the boathouse in dank drizzle. We did some warm up ergos, and eventually boated. Unusually, this race starts outside the boathouses, and goes downsteam towards the lock, for a gruelling ten to fourteen minute rowing time trial. It is indeed the longest race in the calendar. Our aim was to maintain the surprisingly small gap between our boat and the Peterhouse First Men’s IV, and hold off the Queens II boat that was to start 30 seconds after us, and gain on the Churchill II boat we were to be chasing. As we were marshalling, I passed the following adage down the boat, which I have learned from my study of Matthew Pinsent.
“We have not trained in order to give ourselves the chance of winning.
We have trained in order to eliminate the chance of losing”.
I was reminded of this in a video I sent round to the chaps the night before. It is of the Athens 2004 Men’s Coxless Four race. The twist in the video is that I chose the one commentated by the hubristic Canadians, who thought throughout the race that they would nail the elderly British. This, of course, was not to be.
Just after I recited this refrain, I heard a shout “Blade, Blade”, coming from The Blonde, on the Bridge by LMBC boathouse. I nodded my head, allowed a quick smile, and then got back to business. The former Governor of Hong Kong and his wife, the college master and mistress, also joined us on the bank for a while, and gave us their best wishes.
After a rather fraughtly coxed start, in which we struggled to straighten ourselves before the gun went off, we began the lethal standing start that we have been working on. We have gone up to a rating of 37 over the week, without losing too much technique or power. Before we knew it, we were flying along, albeit without 100% control. Nonetheless, we ploughed on, and Queens II, who by now had started after their interval, were nowhere to be seen. Then we heard Coach calling that we were gaining on the Churchill II boat that we were chasing after a 30 second interval. Legs became pistons, and we did some pushes for ten. I would have liked the cox to have called pushes off landmarks, such as bridges and posts, but such is life. We continued to plough along, and by now we were very much into the aerobic part of the piece. More people shouted from the bank, and things started to become a bit hazy. We soon entered the second six minutes of the race, and pushed again for ten down the reach. Timing was off in places, but we kept on going at a good rating, and attempted to maintain the pressure through the water. The last three minutes were mental more than physical, as I had to convince myself to push even when my legs and back said no. The last minute contained within it a bow side corner, which was not a fun proposition when I had just emptied the tank for home. It necessitated my side pulling harder to rotate the boat round the corner onto the finishing straight by The Plough. We crossed the line, I was bright purple, and almost in a crumpled heap. I think we had all given it our all. We had closed to within 30 metres of the Churchill boat, after starting off at around 200 metres apart. So we knew we had done quite well. But how well? We saw the First Men’s IV on the side of the river having finished their piece, and we were handed some silver foil, which I turned into a superman cape, in honour of my bow side corner.
We rowed back to the boathouse, where I had some brownies and champagne. I then cycled into town, to meet The Blonde, at Tatties. I drank a large iced strawberry milkshake and we shared a tuna-mayonnaise baguette. We were both perturbed that the milkshakes were served in large paper coca cola cups, rather than in glasses. After looking at maps in Heffers, I made my way to get changed for dinner.
It was at this point that I learned of the race results.
We were the fasted Second IV in the regatta, and had come overall 8th in the division. We had beaten two first IVs, including Robinson and Jesus. Our time was 13:14 seconds. Peterhouse’s First IV came overall 6th in the division. Considering the training we had done, I was really rather chuffed with all of this. But we can do more next term. Oh yes, we can do much more.
As such, I went on my way, in black tie, to Temple, rejoicing.
After prayers of gratitude and so forth, I made my way to Peterhouse for the dinner.
As promised, here is the menu, detailing all that I ate and drank, in full.
Peterhouse Boat Club Fairbairns Dinner
Champagne reception
***
Tomato and sweet red pepper soup
***
Casillero Diablo Chardonnay Concha y Toro, Chile 2005
***
Oregano and Garlic marinated fillets of lamb with Claret jus
Panache of vegetables
Braised marjoram beetroot
Turned road potatoes
***
Vina Paraiso Malbec (Luigi Bosca), Argentina 2003
***
Plum and rhubarb Charlotte with whipped cream
***
A selection of English and Continental cheeses, served with biscuits and red grapes
***
Smith Woodhouse LBV Port 1994
***
Coffee and mints
December 2nd, 2006 at 9:07 pm
Aha, I see the South American Malbecs have finally reached academe. Lucky you. Not so sure about that Chardonnay.