18 Hours a Week

We're in the final week of preparations. All the crews have moved into houses together and we're training twice a day. This week is about bringing the last 7 months of training together for race day. This includes both mental and physical preparation. We've chatted through all the "what ifs", different scenarios, race day nerves, tactics, race plans and so on. There is no doubt that there will be race day nerves, but we know that as a crew and a squad, we are prepared and ready for this race. It's been 203 days since our pre-season training officially started, and I can honestly say that every day has been a step towards the 24th March - The Boat Race.

The Blue Boat had their official fixture against the University of London. This involved two side by side pieces on The Boat Race course. The Blondie crew then raced their fixture against Imperial College novice men, with a similar story as the blue boat. There were some tough fights, but in the end the light blues came out on top. We've also recently been working with our sports psychology team Helen and Kate who've helped us to understand how our team mates think and operate, particularly when under pressure on race day. The race is coming up fast, and there is still so much we need to pack into the last three weeks of preparation.

After a couple of weeks of settling back into our term timetables, we travelled to London to train and race on the tideway. We raced Quintin Head and the squad had a very successful day. Our crews placed 1st and 2nd overall out of all of the women’s Eights who raced on the day, winning the pennant for their respective categories. The CUWBC 1st VIII won the Elite category and placed 33rd out of 227 eights, ahead of many men’s crews. On our second day on the tideway we had some side by side fixtures with St Paul's School.

Last week the squad flew out to Spain for 7 days of training camp. With 3 months till the boat races and plenty of races coming up fast, this week is our opportunity to really work on technique and make some big changes to find extra speed.

This episode is all about Trial Eights. Trial Eights is a race between two evenly matched crews picked from the squad. It's a key step in each Club’s preparations for racing in March, as it is the only opportunity the athletes have to race the full Boat Race course side-by-side before race day. It's almost like a full dress-rehearsal of the boat race.

This episode wraps up our Fours Head campaign and introduces the next big event in the Boat Race calendar: Trial 8s

A lot that has happened over the last two weeks, including GB trials, The Presidents Challenge and the build up to our first race of the season.

Term has started in Cambridge and the squad are preparing for The Fours Head of the River. This episode we discuss training on the Tideway and continue our fundraising campaign with this months theme "Joy".

This episode is all about our preseason training. The boat race season is short, so to maximise time the squad have been up in Cambridge since the beginning of September, a month before term starts. During Preseason we kick-started our fundraising campaign "Row to Banyoles". For more information check out the Just Giving page: https://www.justgiving.com/campaigns/charity/cambridgeuni-womensboatclub/rowtobanyoles