Doncaster Regatta

On Saturday I had my first regatta with my new rowing team.  It was a very nasty, rainy day.  I only had one race and it sure wasn't the most fabulous race of my life...

The river was so small, and right off the dock we were in the way of the race coming down the course.  We moved aside as quickly as possible, bulldozing into a single and receiving a "Warning" from the officials.

The start of the race was a total disorganized traffic jam with boats running into each other.  It was a floating start (meaning was no one there to hold the boats in place and its tricky to get everyone lined up evenly).  So we were heading straight for the trees at the start... Not good.

The other crew were beating us from the get go, but we managed to catch up with them and were neck and neck around the half way point...

Then we decided to do a pretty brutal push to win...

Check out those faces!  Pretty darn extreme, huh?  But we got flustered and couldn't keep it together.  They walked straight past us and won the race by a long shot.

All in all not a successful day - I looked like a soggy lobster and had nothing to show for it.

Hopefully I'll have better luck next weekend!  Oh and I hope you like those rowing pics Nick took.  I dragged him along to the race, he's never watched me row before and he has now decided that rowing is the most boring sport ever and never wants to come to a regatta ever again.  Thanks for your support, honey!