We Exist.

Just got back from watching the final day of racing here in Henley. I love watching the races and enjoying the atmosphere; but honestly, I was mostly angry watching the races come down today. There were a lot of silver linings in our race yesterday, a lot of pats on the back, a lot of people surprised by our speed, a lot of people congratulating us. Yeah, that's great, and yeah, I'm pumped to have turned some heads, but I knew we could run with those guys. I am mostly disappointed that we didn't trust in ourselves enough to be prepared to be leading half-way through the race. If we had been rowing together for more than a month and a half, and had more than one race under our belts as a crew, I would be far more critical and concerned about our boat than I actually am right now. I guess I felt like we were all savvy enough racers to improvise under pressure because that is something that we all do well in small boats. But it became clear to me after the race that the team boat dynamic is much more nuanced and requires simplicity and clarity of communication between all members of the crew. Steve does a great job of making all the calls in our boat, but it shouldn't( edit: SHOULD NOT, I wrote should by mistake at first) be on him alone to react and improvise, we all need to be aware and dynamic enough mentally to make changes when needed. There was a point when we could hear them moving, we could hear every call they were making to move back on us, but we just let it happen. We didn't do anything about it until they were 3/4 length up on us and there were 400 meters to go. We moved back a couple seats in the last few hundred meters but the damage had been done. 

Alas, we will iron these things out as we move forward. This was our second race as a crew and we just want to keep the improvement curve trending positively. Coming to Henley was about getting some racing in, squaring off with some of the top boats and letting them know that we exist. The real showdown will be next weekend in Lucerne at WC 3. We will be switching from a 10 year old Empacher to a brand new Filippi that will be our boat for Lucerne and the World Championships in Amsterdam. But who knows, maybe there was some magic in that 2004 Empacher! The name of the boat was "John Peters", named after the legendary British rowing coach. So we will name the Lucerne boat, " Ben Stevens". 

We fly out in the morning from Heathrow to Zurich and then will take a short train to Lucerne. Racing the single there last year was unforgettable and I so looking forward to going down that course again and laying eyes on those mountains again. There are 14 entries in the M4x at WC 3. So we will start with heats on Friday, Semis on Saturday, and Final on Sunday. 

My Dad's marked up race programme. Notice the average weights. We were outweighed by 28 lbs per man!! No wonder those guys were so slow off the start! 6:23, eight seconds off the course record without a tailwind. 

A new british rowing magazine with a full spread on BEN and I! #MULLET. 

We Exist.