Some Training Pics

Okay, so it's now one week until Nick flies out for the motherland. Nick and Joe have been out training in the double everyday and it's going very well. From the emails from Brad and Henry, they too are training hard over in Europe which is nice for Nick to hear. Also we have confirmed that the Henley Regatta has received our entry, now we are waiting to hear that we are entered!

Heading out into the harbour

How can you not enjoy training in this?

This is just a quick update. Our Henley issue dress shirts have arrived so at least this time the boys will look the part instead of what happened last time where we turned up in our polos, jandals and stubbies while everyone else was wearing their blazers... 

Fitting in... how not to do it

Joe and I have been making the most out of our training sessions in the double. The weather has been awesome. Even when the weather packed in for a day we were still able to go out and get our work done. For those of you that are struggling to get out of bed at the moment, this is the sort of thing that we are training in:

Obviously too rough

Aside from the on water stuff, we have got our money sorted and are pretty much counting down the days. We've sent out a few thank you letters to some of the people that have given us large donations. Again thanks to all that have given us money. Nick has to figure out how to get the blades over to the UK so this is his next challenge.  This weekend will be a good hard blast of training for us all as we celebrate the Queen's birthday. 

Henry Is Off!

Well it is that time again and now it is Henry who has jumped on the flying tube. He is travelling over to Europe to check out some of the rowing in Amsterdam on his way to the U.K. Since Brad left, Joe and I have been training in the double and Henry was in the single.

In all honesty I haven't seen Henry move his single so well since he was good. Obviously the last few months worth of training has been paying off. I think that one of the best improvements has been in doing core - specifically making Henry do it. We started off with about 4 minutes of exercises to over 20 minutes. It has made a great difference in bearing but also boat movement.

Henry trying to stay in front

Brad got over to Lucerne and swiftly realised why every other team has a manager: because they organise things. We were getting updates like - "Hey does anyone know how to rig up a Fillippi single?" With pearls like this, we knew he was in safe hands. He had his first race where he was shown the level that he needed to be. In the repecharge he went all out in the start and then blew up trying to stay in with the bunch. Being Olympic year, competition was always going to be tough.

So we have finished with all our fundraising efforts and now we are spending it like crazy. Our accommodation is paid for and so is our rental car. All we are waiting on is confirmation of entry and we are set. We managed to raise over $9500 not a bad effort for a bunch of muppets!

We are just a month away from the start of competition and the fast stuff begins here. Joe and I are heading over soon and we will be tying up the last few things to be organised here. We are taking our blades over on the plane so I have to explain what these long tubes are every time. Last time we went over we took our sweep oars which are much bigger, but so was Rich who took them over!

Will leave you here. Keep checking on us as we will be updating all the time and it's time to start practising our posh accents.

Quiz Night Success!

Man, what a night! It was an awesome event for the three of us. Here is how it went:

Knowing that we were a man down, Henry, Joe and myself set up all the tables and chairs the night before. We figured that we would be too busy to do this on the night. Henry also managed to do the shopping and luckily for us we did this otherwise we might not have made it!

Tom complained that WERC couldn't afford a proper peeler

The night kicked off furiously with Henry and his team of friends bringing in the drinks and setting up the tub of hummus and trays of bread from the Stone Oven team (a big thanks!) and the carrot cutting crew. Meanwhile, I was busy helping set up the technical side of things with the projector and computer. Another thanks to Henry's friend Rory, for providing us with a PA system and mike and Garth Tremeer for the projector.

Pretty soon people were turning up. We could only hope that we had enough chairs for everyone as we had 100 people confirmed and we didn't know how many were going to turn up on the night. The plan for that was to make the young 'uns to sit on the ground.

Fortunately it never came to that and we kicked off the quiz with the first round and it was game on. My old man, Michael was the Quizmaster and he did a great job. The Wikipedophiles were off to a quick start and they were followed by some of the teams of the older generation. Not to be undone however was the young team, the Quizlamic Extremists.

During the drinks break we encouraged people to come outside for the "Coin Toss". We had a bottle of Chivas Regal, kindly donated by Henry's family and we had quite a few people throwing all sorts of coins to claim the prize. It was eventually won by Mike Tolhurst as he managed to get within two inches of the bottle. Despite many others trying no one could get closer.

We got back into the quiz and with two rounds to go there were only two points separating the top three teams. Before the last round, we had a raffle and an auction. The raffle prizes were two bottles of champagne, a t shirt signed by Mahe and Juliette (two of our clubs Olympic hopefuls), and a bottle of Pimms that Brad bought through Duty free on the way to Henley last time, only to find out it was cheaper over there anyway. Then there was one final item to be auctioned off, a framed picture collection of the Henley crew with each of our signatures. A collector's item for sure. One our favourite masters, Harry Waalkens bought it for $200 which was fantastic!

Who wouldn't want this?

Then it was into the final round. Some teams had given up already and were handing in some great answers which were completely irrelevant. But the team that took it out were the youngsters from the Quizlamic Extremists. Well done to them. They received West End Event Trophy, kindly donated by the Henley 4x and we hope that the tradition continues. We were pleased to hear the next day that people had a great night and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Some of the winning team with their trophy

It was a great night to host and a massive thanks to all that helped out. It was a great turn out and a great way for us to see people before we all leave. A big thanks goes out to my father and Joe's family who helped us clean up, we would have still been there in the morning if you weren't there.

So in the morning it was back to business for the three of us with racing pieces as if we hadn't hosted a quiz the night before. It was a swift return to reality as now that our last fundraising venture is over we only have just over a month until the regatta begins. Henry is leaving this Friday and it will be left up to Joe and myself to organise the last few things before going over ourselves. Also our best wishes for Brad who begins racing today over in Switzerland as he tries to be the first Samoan rower to qualify for the Olympic Games.

I will leave with some photos of the night:

Henry busy behind the bar

My dad, the Quizmaster

Some of the many teams

Henry and Alisa taking a break during the quiz

Favourite Quotes

There are always moments in any campaign where people begin to say and do stupid things. These are some quotes from the boys in moments of brilliance:

Brad - What's the time?
Nick - It's just gone 8am
Brad - Shit, I'm going to be late

Joe - I was pushing but then I realised I could push harder

Nick - Guys, I want you to do what you're doing, but faster

Henry - 300kg is the same as 160kg just harder

Joe - I love (insert anything)

All of us - OK, de-rig it. See you guys at Henley (usually after a good session)

Nick - Don't worry guys, I'll sort it

Henry - Don't worry, Nick will sort it

Brad - (when asking for money on the street) Oh no, here come the bats

Joe - (when asked what he'll be doing later) I'm going to study

Henry - It's raining really hard, do we have to go out?

John - Ok, this time put some pressure into it

Our First Goodbye

So this past week we have been training pretty hard as this is the last time we will be together before we all meet up in Henley. It has been a good build up so far with plenty of new boundaries being found each day. We are also getting closer as a crew. Some might say too close, but Joe had to learn sooner or later.

We are still figuring out the logistics of rowing, but I think we may be on the right track. 

We are loving the support that we are receiving from our friends and families, without your help we wouldn't be able to train at the required level. We had a good turn out on the Movie Night and this week we are tying up all the loose ends for the Quiz Night. It looks like it will be a packed evening with quite a few teams already confirming their places. The next challenge for them all is to come up with some great names. The Wikipaediafiles has already gone. There will be a small prize for best team name on the night and we have a lot of things to raffle off and give away.

And so Brad is off in the tin bird to race at the Lucerne "Regatta of Death" to try and qualify for the Olympics in the single for Samoa. We wish him the best and also to the other NZ guys racing as well. Our last weekend together was pretty tough but we all feel like we are in a pretty good place. With our last training as a quad in New Zealand done, we decided to have a few photos taken of us at our best.

We like hearing from you guys, and if you have any more messages like this one from the legendary Bill Tinnock, please give it to us. We were very impressed by the linen paper. I will put up the address where we will be staying if you want to send us anything from home.


Here are a couple of photos:

Brad still figuring out which end to hold the blades

And finally, one for the ladies:

Perfect poise

Movie Night Success!

Hey guys, we have had a spell of average weather recently but being West End we have a great patch of water to be able to train on so there was no interruption. It just meant that my course was worse than usual. We came back form racing and we were straight back into it. This week we've had a GoPro out with us. It's a camera that you can attach to the bow or stern to see what you are doing and already it has helped.

Pushing off at Lake Karapiro on the weekend

So last night we had the West End Movie Night. It was a huge success with at least 120+ people turning up to watch the Avengers movie. We knew that we had about half the theatre sold before we turned up and we were surprised by the number of people that turned up on the night. We had everyone gather in the foyer to receive their entry ticket before heading into the theatre.

One time only deal

Once everyone was seated, it was Joe's time to shine as he introduced us to everyone there and gave a quick description of what we were up to. According to several of our mums, Joe spoke very well. Apparently Garth's mum wanted to give Joe a cuddle.

The movie was a great watch, although it was a bit much for Brad as he was found with his eyes closed. Whether he had fainted from the excitement or was too tired from training is still up for debate. We would like to thank St Luke's Event Cinema for hosting our movie night and a big thanks to everyone who turned up you made it into a great event and we have now raised enough money to eat while we are in England!

All that is left is our final fundraiser on Friday 18th May - The Great West End Quiz Night. This will be held at the club, please get in contact with Henry. Details are on the web page. We hope to see you there. Make sure you study up for it!

The Racing

Well, it was a great weekend of racing for us down at Lake Karapiro. We had to get up at a sparrow's fart on Saturday morning to head down. We had already loaded the trailer and so we had a quick start. It wasn't until we were on the motorway however that Henry asked if we had remembered the stern section... After a quick turn around we were back on our way.

The weather has been pretty awesome so far this year and when we turned up the Lake looked awesome. We soon found out our race time and competition. We were up against the Olympic and Under 23 quads and also the Under 23 4- so we had a good test.

Being our first race together, we thought that we would keep it to a constant beat and see how we went. We were surprised to be pulling away from the other crews in the first 500m. This gave us a bit of a boost, but then the lungs started burning and we began to fade a bit. This wasn't to be unexpected. and so it was a good lesson to take on board. We thought that the race had some good patches and we knew where we could make improvements for the next day.

We would have liked to stay the night down there, but had to come back for Henry to get to his hair appointment. So at the crack of dawn we were back off down to Karapiro with a much sleeker looking Henry. We were in the same line up and our race plan was essentially the same as the day before with an addition: push harder.

Brad and Henry chilling out before racing

The race went a lot better and we were a lot more aggressive. Yesterday the other crews put some distance on us in the second 1000m, but today we fought and held for a tighter finish. We felt like we had a much better race, and even despite my steering in the last 250m we enjoyed it. Guess I had better get that under control as at Henley there is no forgiveness in the wooden booms.

And so it is back into it from tomorrow. The countdown continues and we are getting excited about racing overseas. There is the West End Movie Night coming up on Wednesday, details are still here. We hope to see you there. Also make sure you book a table for the Great West End Quiz Night as there are already tables being booked. It will be a great night with prizes and raffles.

Check out our new video on the video page!

Race Time!

Hi guys, we are starting to get quite excited. This weekend we are heading down to Lake Karapiro, location of the 1978 and 2010 World Rowing Championships. We are going to be racing against some of the New Zealand crews, the Olympic quad, Under 23 quad and maybe the Junior quad so it looks like we are going to have some good opposition. This is the last time that Brad and Nick will be at the lake for a long time so it will be good to go out fast.

Sure the course is only 2000m, but that's plenty long enough and at least it will give us a good indication of where we are. We have had a good week of solid training and the boat is really starting to tick along quite well. All of us are pretty happy with it, and we even got some positive feedback from Coach John White which never happens.

We have also been busy off the water. Movie tickets for next week's Avengers movie are going faster now and we're looking forward to it. Also we have locked in an MC for the Great West End Quiz night and you can check out the Page Tab above for more info.

We have also been told that there is most likely a boat for us to use over in England which is great. Everything is now starting to come together. We are just waiting to hear back from the Henley people about our entry and we are about to send off for entries to the Marlow Regatta and also the Reading Town Regatta. Hopefully we win at the RTT this time around as there are tankards to win.