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.

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