Boston Marathon 2010

Charlie had been boasting that he was going to do the Boston Marathon, not just do it, but do it in a single, a mad idea if ever there was one… But increasingly on longer ergs I was thinking about it too: what boat to enter, and who would I have in my ideal crew.

I mentioned it to mountain marathon man Will, Aly the pocket rocket and we were almost there with a relatively lightweight but powerful crew. Tom deemed 50.2km just a bit too far, but John saved the day on returning from his travels and was game. And so we had a crew; 3 of the Henley eight, and Aly who (rowing for Nottingham Uni) had just pipped us to it at the Met. Regatta earlier in the summer.

Training was sporadic, with John struggling to make it from London in the evenings, and various stag dos, European University Rowing Champs and work conspiring to thwart our best intentions of getting the quad out. We shuffled seats a few times so I, the lard arse of our 78kg average crew, wasn’t at bow, and I somehow ended up at stroke. This was a bit of a learning curve not just for me, but also for Aly, more used to the bows of an eight where he doesn’t have to steer… Pluto was coaching us to finish his Level 2 qualification, and it was coming together; our incursions into the bank, other rowers, and kayaks were becoming less frequent, the pieces were getting longer, and the rhythm was feeling nice and whippy, and sustainable.

The vets four, a crew of Tom, Alan, Pete and Bert were putting the mileage in for their return visit to Boston as well.

"Mine's bigger than yours!"

The VetE 4+ measuring up before the start.

And then all of a sudden it was time, the carb loading was done, and the weekend of the race was upon us. Charlie managed what must have been a mighty impressive stack from his bike on Saturday morning and ruled himself out of the race.

Lincolnshire threw its worst at us as we tried to sleep in tents on the Saturday night before the race, but it was a blessing in disguise as the rain cleared shortly before we started. At breakfast Pluto added to his fine “injured-athlete’s figure” and showed us all up by eating more than us, and despite our derision we were really glad he was there to support us, with Lois and Charlie; thank you.

The vets went off shortly after midday, and 40 minutes later so did we, starting 2nd of 7 IM3 coxless quads, with just Bristol City RC ahead of us. The river is narrow for the first couple of km, so we took it off light to get properly warmed up, we were sitting at rate 22, just within the 22-26 we had been aiming for, but the rhythm wasn’t quite there, it wasn’t light and whippy. Taking it up felt good for a minute or two before slipping back down again; but as we started passing other boats, including Bristol City our only direct opposition ahead of us, we relaxed and it was gradually coming together. The 13km to Bardney lock flew past, and a rapid extraction, run across the bank, and quick drink saw us close the gap to the boats ahead significantly, a nice easy minute or so caught up! We were resting in pairs, and at 18km we had our first breather, just enough for a bit of food and drink, and to realise that I was going to suffer with blisters but dressing them would take far too long, and I should just man up… Aly and John had done an impressive job of keeping us level pegging with a junior quad we’d just passed, and now it was my and Wills turn. We cracked on, and had a couple of really good kilometres before we hit traffic. Boats being overtaken should get out of the way; a few didn’t, or chose to squeeze us towards the bank, or the weed, which didn’t help keep the boat relaxed.

 

 












"Are we nearly there yet?"  
"Nearly. Only another 15 miles to go."
 
 

Through the half way mark things seemed to pick up, time didn’t seem to fathom, and much of the race is now just a blur of concentrating on the rhythm and keeping it relaxed. Will and John in the middle of the boat did a superb job of delivering the pushes as they were called, and apart from numerous stops to clear weed from the fin, which had me precariously balanced on my rigger and the stern canvas we had a cracking second half of the race. After getting it back together after the earlier glut of traffic 23½ had been our rate, it was going well and we consolidated, the Runcorn Senior 4x- came past at an astonishing rate. Bristol City must have pushed hard at the beginning of the second half and had caught us up, and passed us during our second set of rests; a few kilometres later Bristol stopped and we passed them, Aly called a “shimmy”, which we seemed to respond to better than being asked for another push! 35-40km was hard work, not helped by a few missing or unseen distance markers, and more weed, we passed the Vets who seemed to be flagging a little, and an old boy in a single, wearing Chino’s and a sweatshirt and rowing at barely quarter slide but at a decent rate. It was refreshing, if he can do this, so can I!

At 40km without any calls for it the boat livened up, we had loads of run, the rate was sat effortlessly at 25 and we were on fire, I was tired and my legs hurt but we were nearly there, I felt so invigorated! A third and final food and drink stop at 43km and we pushed on, another 2 weed stops around 47km and we were level with the Sudbury IM3 8+. I hope for their sake that their cox hadn’t been that vocal the entire way, she was calling them up “More length”. “Hold the finishes.” But we were still there with them, with little more than a slight squeeze and holding the rate. She called 1km to go and spurred them home, 50m later as the 49km marker came into our peripheral vision John in a guttural war cry rhetorically asked if we were going to take it home, there were 3 equally bellowed responses and we took it up, 28, 29, then 31spm and we settled there. Where had this come from!! The eight was left behind, it felt good, and then I could hear the commentator, encouraging us in, gradually getting louder until I heard “2 strokes Maidstone”. And then we were finished, where had the last 3½ hours gone? I was delighted we’d rowed well, but gutted that it had finished.

The results were finally published an hour and a half later after the last boat in the category had finished, we’d won our category and were 4th fastest overall in 3hrs 39m 18s, just 3m 51s behind the IM3 4x- record, not bad for 4 rowers who haven’t sculled much!

The vets, competing in IM3 due to a lack of Vet.E opposition, came second in category in 4hrs 38m 5s. A very good result.

And finally, some words of wisdom for anyone doing it in future:

• Don’t overdo the sustenance – I only ate 1 banana and 2 cereal bars, and drank 1.5l during the race but carried the same again (it wasn’t particularly hot mind)
• Start in race kit – I didn’t have time to take my tech top off without feeling like I would have been holding the crew up(again, it wasn’t that hot, had I been uncomfortably hot I could have done)