A day out at the British Rowing Championships

So, at the weekend the British Rowing Championships were held at Holme Pierrepont, a watersports centre with a rowing lake in Nottingham. I was really excited (and really nervous!) because it was my first opportunity to race on the national scene, and I was determined to win a medal. After a rather shaky start to my career as a para-rower (what with immense flooding along the Thames taking me off the river for half the year, then a lot of illness and injury challenges), I'd been hoping that this might be a good way to round off year 1 and look towards year 2. I knew I wasn't feeling particularly healthy but I felt reasonably confident that I could give it a good go.

The para races weren't taking place until the Sunday, so I arrived in good time on the Saturday and prepared to stay overnight. I saw some pretty amazing rowing, including the fastest men's coxless four, featuring one of my heroes of rowing, Moe Sbihi. Once racing had finished for the day, I had the opportunity to head out on the lake for myself.

Heading out and feeling small...

Well, it was pretty windy! Holme Pierrepont is notoriously windy (probably something to do with the fact that races run from the north-east to the south-west, which is basically straight into almost every prevailing wind England ever has) and I got an opportunity to experience that for myself. To be honest, I didn't row very well to start with - I was pretty tense and although I wanted to relax and get into the swing of it a bit more I was a bit worried that I would just flip it (there were some exciting waves catching my blades). I was also really struggling to go in a straight line, because there was just the slightest amount of cross-wind pushing me over. Anyway, after spinning my lovely coach decided I should do some practice starts - argh! The first few didn't go too well; I rushed them out of panic and they were quite messy - but this is why we have practice. The last one I did was much better, and I finally started to relax and paddle reasonably well. The last little bit of paddling was pretty good, and I left the water a lot more confident than I'd felt when I first got on it.

But.......

It wasn't to be. The next day, the wind had picked up a bit. I arrived at the lake a bit later than intended, but saw a fellow para-rower also getting ready to boat. We exchanged words of excitement and lots of 'good luck!' before wheeling off in different directions - her to get changed and me to find my coach and get in the boat. I spotted my coach from a little distance away, standing near some Cambridge lightweight rowers she has also been working with, who were just boating with their 8+s. She walked towards me and then just said, 'I have some really bad news...your race is cancelled.' They weren't even running a time trial for para-rowers - the wind was too strong, and it wasn't safe to go out.

I have to be honest here, before I am fair, because my initial reaction was not a positive one - but there's no point me writing about it at all if I'm not honest.

Unfortunately, and embarrassingly, once I realised that my coach was serious my first reaction was to start crying. Now, I don't really like crying at the best of times, and I can't remember the last time I cried in public. This is mainly because crying is not a good look for me - in terms of both aesthetics and my own (perhaps silly) sense of pride, but mainly the aesthetics. As I sat in my wheelchair, surrounded by other people who were getting their boats out onto the water and going off to race, I was just so enormously disappointed that a huge amount of effort had gone to waste - not just my efforts on the water and in the gym, but also effort from my coach, from my mum (who had driven me up to Nottingham, booked - and paid for - a hotel, stayed with me, helped me get about, and so on) and from all the other para-rowers who had put in the same effort to come and race. There is also a lot of mental effort that goes into race preparation, which was really draining for me. I was already fighting a huge part of me that said I shouldn't really be rowing; that my body wasn't up to it. I had prepared myself to shove that part of me away until I had at least completed the time trial, and it had been a huge mental hurdle to make that decision and to take away the option to back out. Now, though, the decision had been made for me and it was the opposite of what I wanted to do. There are so few opportunities to race against other para-rowers that I had really cherished the thought of competing at the national championships, with world and Olympic champions at the same event. I'm not sure I'll be able to compete next year - my illness may have progressed too much. That was why I was so bitterly disappointed - this weekend might have been my only chance, and after a huge amount of effort and stress it had all ended in an enormous anticlimax. Luckily, Rosie (my border terrier) had accompanied us, so I picked her up, put her on my lap and sat and gave her the biggest hug in the world until I could control myself again to stop crying (I'd just like to repeat - HOW embarrassing).

Having a cuddle on a different occasion, when I wasn't upset!

Obviously, there was nothing to be done. Once I'd got over the initial shock and disappointment all I wanted to do was go and watch the Cambridge lightweight boys in their race - we share a coach, a trailer and a university, after all! Going round to the other side of the lake to watch the time trial crews was a bit bittersweet - it was amazing to watch some world-famous rowers racing for their clubs, and to be able to cheer on the Cambridge boys, but I was gutted that I couldn't be out there too. However, even just a bit further down the lake than from where I would have boated I could feel that the wind was very strong, and looking down the lake you could see that it would have been extremely challenging to take a single out. There was a strong headwind which was made even stronger by immense gusts. My boat is very narrow (narrower than my bum when I'm sitting perched on the seat!), I'm not hugely experienced (especially compared to some of the other rowers) and I do have trouble with grip and balance. I was precisely the kind of person that was being protected by the decision not to race, as I would have been one of the most vulnerable. My disappointment was still strong, but at least now I knew that I only had to be disappointed that the weather was bad rather than that the decision had been made - it was, without doubt, the right decision.

After watching the time trials, I met up with a couple of other para-rowers, who were equally disappointed but also pragmatic enough to agree that the decision had not been taken lightly by the race organisers, and that it was definitely the only decision that they could have come to. Going out on the lake in those conditions would not have given us good racing - I, for one, would primarily have been attempting to survive, and only secondarily attempting to race! As more and more crews were blown inside by the blustery weather outside, we could see that the entire event was under threat of cancellation - and in fact, in the end, there were no more races after the bigger boats had finished their time trials.

Spotting an Olympic/World Championship medallist - photobombed by (hopefully) a future Paralympic medallist!

Since we couldn't race, I was still keen to make the most of the day. I was already spotting some famous rowers (see Alan Campbell above!), and a bit of retail therapy at the rowing trade stands also made me feel a bit better, as did a good natter with other para-rowers. My lovely coach had kept my numbers and my competitor badge so that I could still have some memento of the day that proved I had entered and intended to race - I will keep them, as a reminder of what I aim to achieve.

My race number - complete with cute little pictures of safety pins!

So....yes, it was a disappointment that we didn't get to race, and it was quite tough to see other crews being awarded medals on the basis of time trials when we didn't get to do one. However, we all agreed that the conditions just weren't safe for us to go out. Any frustration that I felt (and perhaps still feel) is in no way directed at the race organisers - they had to make a horrible decision, which must have been tough for them, but it was the right choice and I am grateful that our safety was always more important than running a race. In a sense, it was not a decision made by people but rather one made by the weather gods - the people in charge had no other option. It's unfortunate, but there was nothing else to be done, and (if I'm honest and rational) it was just a race. There are far worse things in life than a rowing race being cancelled - ranging from flipping your single because you're out in conditions that you couldn't really cope with (which would have been a distinct possibility for me) to losing your home or even your life in Hurricane Gonzalo, as has happened in the Caribbean. What I'm trying to say is that wind is a bugger, but if the worst that happens is that your race is cancelled then you can't really complain.

I still had a good day. I'm not sure if I'll be able to race next year, but for the time being I'm going to focus on events that are coming up shortly; events that I can do - including indoor ones which hopefully will be weather-proof! I also need to write about what I got up to after leaving the rowing lake - riding in a quadrille for the first time at the Riding for the Disabled Association Eastern Regional Conference. But now I should probably do some work for my PhD...