One of those days

Today, the crew spent the majority of the day competing in the Reading Regatta, which is a regatta that hosts competitors from teenagers to adults over a three lane 800 meter course. For our team, the regatta gave us an opportunity to get one last race in before Henley, and learn more about racing in England. Little did we know, we ended up getting more than we bargained for.

The first race for Gonzaga was the spare pair at 10:50. Chris and Nick got out to an open water lead initially, but the referee in the boat following the race told them to go more toward one side to make room for the other crew. Unfortunately, the referee was incorrect, and he steered the pair into the bushes on the side of the river allowing the other pair to take the lead. The winning pair came up to Chris and Nick after the race and were very understanding of the situation as they both knew that Chris and Nick should have won. It was disappointing, but the pair will have another chance to compete on Tuesday in the Spare Pair's Race, which is hosted the day before Henley begins.

In the eight, we found ourselves in a dogfight with Shiplake College in the first heat for the Scholastic Eight race, and we lost by one seat in the end. Unfortunately, we were in the fastest heat, and our time was over 3 seconds faster than any other boat in the other heats, but this offered little consolation as we have been beat up the past few days. We needed to win to qualify for the finals, and we came just short. On the bright side, Henley is 2112 meters, which will play to our strength, and we have also learned from each race.

The crew then left the race course for a few hours to find lunch at The Oracle Mall in Reading. Many of us found familiar restaurants like Pizza Hut and McDonald's, and we even saw a restaurant that featured Southern American food. We thought it was funny to see a restaurant advertising American food. We also took a walk around mall and got a taste of British life, and many of us decided that even though the mall was in England didn't change the fact that we hate being in malls.

We returned to the race course once more for the Eight to race in the Intermediate Eight event, where we raced a college crew from Ireland. This event was supposed to be a challenge as the crews were more mature, but we thought we rowed better than our first race despite losing by a boat length. Understandable, morale has been a little low as we have not been used to losing this season, but we continue to charge on.

Tonight the team took the Webb boys, Henry and George, out to a pub called The Lamb, where we had a good meal. The best news of the day came when we heard the results of the draw, which is the seeding of the crews in our event. We were seeded very well, and we will race Winchester College in the first round of Henley on Wednesday. This should be a good race for us, and it gives us something positive to focus on. To see the results of the draw, you can go here: http://hrr.co.uk/downloads/draw09.pdf . We are in the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup in case you do not know. We look forward to a better day tomorrow.