Reading and Drawing

Today featured two big events: The Reading Town Regatta and the Henley Royal Regatta draw, each event with big significance.

The day started by driving about 20 minutes south west to the town of Reading for our first actual race of the year. While we’ve been doing plenty of training all year, we hadn’t had a chance to line up and race crews from other areas to test our speed. There were only three boats entered, so it was a straight final. We lined up against Pangbourne College and Mendota Rowing Club (which is essentially the University of Wisconsin’s summer rowing club). We had done a practice with the Mendota guys on the Charles River the weekend before we left, as they had been training out of the Union Boat Club, so we knew they’d be quick. Here’s a pre and post race recap: 

We finished last, which we weren’t psyched about, but we gained a decent amount of ground on the Mendota boat compared to the last time we practiced with them, so definitely some positive things to take away from the race. We actually had to restart the race after about 200m as the Mendota four steered into us, causing us to have to stop rowing. As this was a violation, the three boats paddled back to the start and went again.

After the race, we quickly de-rigged our boat and loaded it on to the Shiplake College boat trailer (to be brought back to Henley) and rushed home to quickly shower and go to the Henley Draw. The draw is an old tradition whereby a few crews are seeded into their event, with the rest of the event’s crews being randomly drawn from the Goblet of Fi… I mean Grand Challenge Cup, to be seeded into the remaining bracket spots.The whole event took place in a very packed town hall, filled with athletes and coaches, with the Henley Stewards sitting on the stage behind a table, and a projector screen on the far right showing the brackets being filled in.

The Henley Royal Regatta draw

We ended being one of the seeded crews, which was an honor, and also meant we wouldn’t need to race any other seeded crews in the early rounds. We drew Upper Thames Rowing Club ‘B’ in our first race, starting at the “Bucks” station, short for Buckinghamshire (course map). Racing starts on Wednesday!

After a short rest at home, we went out to dinner at a hotel and pub called The Flower Pot (click for video tour), thanks to a recommendation by Union BC coach Henry Palmer (who used to train at the Leander Rowing Club located in Henley). English food is very tasty, although we’ve noticed there are noticeably less vegetables than we’re used to. One night we had to make a point to find a restaurant where we though we could get more vegetables. Parents, consider this a parenting win.

A view of The Flower Pot pub from their beer garden.

Tomorrow we’ll go for an early row then spend the day in London. Cheers!