Sunday 16th September was the day of the annual Boston (Rowing) Marathon, which takes place on a 50km stretch of water, starting from Lincoln and finishing in Boston. This year there were over 200 crews, among them Anna & Ian (Mixed Novice 2x) and Tim and Simon (part of a composite Vet C. VIII).Not only did we all complete this gruelling challenge, but both crews set new course records in their categories and Tim & Simon's crew was the fastest boat of the day!! Truly oarsome results - HURRAY for DRC!!!
Ian & I also rowed the course in our double last year, so this time we were both determined to get to the finish a bit sooner, even though we only decided to enter two weeks before the event. Ian sat in the stern, with the stopwatch, keeping an eye on how long it took us to get from one km marker to the next, while I battled to steer us round a few corners, past other crews, out of the way of launches, barges & cruisers, and also to keep in time. By the time we got to 13km, where everyone has to get their boat out of the water, over a steep embankment and down onto the other side of the lock gate, we knew we were ahead of our opposition. After this the course got very bendy for a few km, so there was always the possibility that they could have been sneaking up on us without us having noticed. Also from this point onwards, we had the pleasure of a good, strong headwind to make things a bit more challenging. Luckily with all our training on the Deben, we weren't fazed by the wind and waves (well, perhaps only a little) and I did my best to give a running commentary on which boats we were catching up to pass the time and take our minds off the pain; luckily there were quite a few doubles and singles ahead,
as well as one junior girls quad who were merrily singing "Build Me Up Buttercup" down the course and a man in a single who was doing the marathon for the 40th time! There were also things to watch...like cows on the bank and cruisers creating nice big waves for us to row through. We had a very strong (or should that be loud?) on-shore support party (comprising of Ian's wife and her sister) whose shouts of "Give it some welly" and "Stop slacking" could be heard long before we could see them; they very kindly took these photos for us too. For most of the course there were markers for each km and once we got into the 40s it began to feel as if we might actually make it to the end afterall. At this point the course straightened out too and Ian told me we were managing to keep to 5mins per km and we started thinking of the remaining distance in relation to what it would have been on the Deben, such as Ramsholt to the clubhouse. It was only as we passed 48km and Ian told me that our time so far was 4hrs, 15mins that I suddenly realised that we might actually have a chance of beating the previous course record for our category...the tower of the church in Boston came into view next (I knew this was beyond the finish) and with more cheering from the bank to spurr us on, we even managed to overtake just one more crew seconds before crossing the line. Our official time was 4hrs 25mins - 20mins faster than our previous time, 3mins faster than the previous record, first in the mixed novice doubles on the day and faster than even some S2 and S4 crews. Ian says next time we have to try and break the 4hr mark...
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