News & Events
New Year Update
4th January 2016
Happy New Year to one and all. I hope you had a great Christmas and New Year Celebrations and are recharged, energised and straining at the leash to get back out on the river and training hard for the Head race season. They come fairly thick and fairly fast all on our doorstep with: 23rd January - Quintin Head (Chiswick Bridge to Harrods) 20th February - Hammersmith Head (Chiswick Bridge to Hammersmith Bridge) 19th March - Head of the River Race (Mortlake to Putney) 20th March - Vets Head of the River (Mortlake to Putney)
Head of the River weekend is the highpoint of the Head Racing season and the focus of our training. The aim is to get a minimum of two crews racing on Saturday and at least one crew in Vets Head on Sunday. Quintin Head and Hammersmith Head are big events in their own right and are great dress rehearsals for HORR and VHORR. This all depends on getting people to commit to taking part and then making getting out in regular crews to get maximum water time between now and the races as well as doing the land training. First thing is I need to know who can make the dates and wants to race so please reply to me if you are up for it along with which of the races can row in. Quintin Head is in a couple of weeks so we need to fix crews asap. We will organise the training around giving the likely race crews as much time together on the water as possible. The performances at Plum Puds were very encouraging and shows we've got the competitive spirit in the club to get us into shape and get good performances on the day.
So this week...
Tuesday 7:15 New Year Circuits with Maxi at Cavendish School. Please remember to bring a drink and a towel!
Thursday 7pm Squad Erg - 30 mins @ 20 spm feet out Weekend: Back on the Tideway. Please. please please update the spread sheet with your availability. We should be looking to get two eights on the water so we can do pieces together. Wrap up warm it's turned a fair bit colder and wetter in the last few days.
Other stuff... To enter the head races you need to be a member of British Rowing. Details can be found here http://www.britishrowing.org/membership . That's all for now, except to say that a lot of people made a lot of progress before Christmas and it was great to see a queue for the 5k erg test before Christmas, let's keep it going and really do ourselves credit in the races and have fun at the same time.
JezCygnet weekly news
22nd December 2015
It was our final full weekend on the river of 2015 the highlight of which was our two evenly matched and carefully selected 8s taking place in the Plum Puds organised by Quintin. It was the first experience of racing and rating 34 strokes minutes for our superb GFAR recruits and at 4.7k it was longer than Quintin and Hammersmith Heads. We had to make a split second decision on the start line of which crew was Cygnet A and which Cygnet B. Funnily enough it was the crew that turned out to be Cygnet B that was asked by the martial to nominate. So whereas Cygnet A was racing Quintin & MAAs first VIIIs, Cygnet B was racing against closely matched crews leading to blade clashes and 3 abreast racing between the Kew Bridges.
And the results were (drum roll......)
Out of 13 crews on the start line
Cygnet B - 7th in 16:00 dead
Cygnet A 10th in 16:17
So Cygnet A crew buy drinks for Cygnet B for the whole of 2016.
And thanks for Claudia and Marj who get free drinks for ever.
This week:
There wont be any "official" outings until the new year, but if people want to organise sculling pods, use the availability sheet to say when you plan to do it so like minded people can join up. It's always better to have a buddy out on the river especially when it's quiet. Keep an eye on the the tide and weather, there is a lot of windy weather over the coming days.
Further Ahead into 2016:
If we have enough availability on Jan 2nd & 3rd we'll get an VIII on the river (once I've sorted out the spreadsheet)
5th Jan Circuits with Maxi starts again at Cavendish School.
Then it's all about Head Races in VIIIs. We should be able to get Senior, Novice and Vets VIIIs out, I'll be pestering each and everyone of you on whether your up for it and getting the crews training and on the river as soon as possible so we perform up to our potential in the races:
23rd Jan Quintin Head
20th Feb Hammersmith Head
19th March Head of the River
20th March Vets Head of the River
Finally, have a great Christmas and a rowtastic 2016, see you all soon
Jez
Cygnet Weekly Bugle
15th December 2015
Hi Cygnets one and all,
A fab time was had by all who made the Waddle and the Christmas party on Saturday with unrestrained wild dancing display from the Cygnets. Bouncing up and down is without question our best move and we can keep it going most of the evening which is a testimony to the circuits and Ergs that we've put in over the autumn. Special awards to Tom, James and Rob for innovation and energy. We must do it more often. Hopefully by now the last of the hangovers should have cleared.
Well, a very rare calmish weekend on the Tideway, with more good experience and rowing miles for our latest recruits without the help of any seniors. A few wobbles but lots of encouraging signs of the crew coming together. Thanks to Alan for his excellent instruction. For those who made it on the river on Sunday, I tell you it was the bestest, flatest water for months, absolute sculling heaven. And thanks to everyone who did the 5k erg test on Thursday, good to see all the ergs in use and the competitive juices flowing. So, this week:
Tuesday:
7:15 pm Circuits with Maxi - final session of the year to be held AT THE CLUB!!!! Burn off some Christmas calories pre-emptively.
Thurs:
7pm Squad Erg 3 x 10 mins 4,3,2,1, @ 26,28,30,32 with 3 mins rest between. A bit of a thrash to work up a thirst for drinks in Ye White Hart afterwards.
Weekend:
Saturday 8am
Coached session
Sunday 10am
Plum Pudding Race (race starts from the Pink House at 11:15) So far we have the following crew available PPs and Y on the spreadsheet: Bart, Gav, Matt, Jez, Simon, Iain, Robin, Tom B Rashid, William, James, Rob, Scott L, Abhijeet Marj is available to cox, Claudia TBC.
If we find a couple more people we could get 2 8's out. Otherwise we'll try to enter an 8+ and a 4. So BDF, Nick B, Nick R Big Jim R are you up for it? More info to follow when the final numbers are in.
I think that's it for now. Have a good week, see you on Thursday
Jez
