Tales from the Isle of Ely Rowing Club

ROWERS OF BRITAIN. The 'Peter Lee Seasonal Barometer' has changed to winter!

Peter Lee, complete with coaching advice. Oh my god! We could make Peter Lee action figures! In summer and winter versions! With a string pull thing for coaching wisdom snipets!

I thought you should be informed. There were a few intermediate days where he wore a hat + shorts, but now the change is complete. Winter is offically here.

Anyway, here are few unrelated snipets from the great IoERC.

Why you should not take the piss when I'm carrying a long object

The piss-taking, in good humour obviously (like the poking), was probably either about (a) how short my arms are (standard - one of my nicknames is "Stumpy" FFS) or (b) about how much I swear. Which reminds me - I'll put up a photo of the swear chart we've got going for Movember when I rememebr to take my camera to the gym. I am proud to say that I WIN AT SWEARING. My tally box is essentially just shaded in now. (And before you accuse me of coach-abuse, it was very light, ironic poking. I'll have you know that Peter loves coaching me.  I don't piss him off at all. Honest.)

What happens when you live in a room that's colder than outside

You have to wear a hoody in bed (as well as a duvet + woolen blanket + quilt + bloody flannel pyjamas). As a result, I wake up with my hair doing flipping weird things, like all the strands facing forwards.

All hair problems can be sorted with a really excellent hat. I mean, even hat-hair is >> Justin Bieber hair.

Oooo ooooo! Do you remember that hat I went on about in the PLSB post? The one that my mum gave me after my siblings laughed at her when she wore it? Well, the other day, my mum (who reads this blog* - hi mum!) bloody well text me and ASKED FOR IT BACK. I mean, just because that hat is now FAMOUS.

*She said of it: "I like it, apart from all the swearing". But it's all swearing! I don't get it!

Blunt and to the point, I thought.

Rage.

She's definitely never getting it back.

NEVER.

Waiting for trains at Ely station. 

 Because I randomly had my camera on me. No other reason.

Sarah was cold. Or more accurately, 'really fucking cold'. Note the hat that is much better than mine.

THE HAT and THE LEGGINGS in beautiful synergy, modelled by my good self.  I had also been to Tesco and impulse bought a 'Shaun the Sheep' shower thingy. Because I am badass like that.

Yeah, don't mess with me. I have sheep-related shower items.

*Not shown*: My completely soaking wet leg from where I stepped inbetween my boat and the landing stage. There was a lot of swearing.

  

Shopping in Cambridge on a Saturday, or "Xtreme Slow Pedestrian Rage"

OK, so this has nothing to do with the IoERC. But then nor does my hair.

So, some background. By some small large miracle, I managed to get someone to go on a date with me.

*Pause to let this sink in*

I KNOW! They weren't even drunk! (They also don't know this blog exists, which probably helped.)

 But anyway, this lead to me looking in my wardrobe and realising I have absolutely nothing to wear. Nothing. As in nothing at all.

 This is mainly due to my giving away of all of my smart clothes to my little sister at the end of the summer because my arms don't fit in them anymore :-( She did really well. And now I have no clothes apart from slighty nerdy rowing t shirts and hoodies. And lycra.

But not even I would wear those leggings to a posh restaurant. I have standards* me.

*For certain values of "standards"

ANYWAY, so I found myself in the position that I had to go into town on a Saturday and I had buy something or I was going to have to turn up in a bloody Pembroke longsleeve or something.

This was bad. Very bad. The world and his wife apparently go shopping in Cambridge on a saturday afternoon, and they don't like walking quickly.

How. Can. People. Walk. So. Fucking. Slowly? Any slower and they'd be growing roots. I mean, I need to get something now. WHY ARE YOU IN MY WAY??? I resorted to putting some really aggressive music on my mp3 and just going for it.

Yes, apparently clothes shops don't sell good clothes anymore. I mean, you'd have thought it would have been piss easy to find a nice shirt wouldn't you? But noooooooooo. Let's make life as difficult as possible for Anna by only stocking stupid cardigans. I DON'T WANT A CARDIGAN. I WANT A SHIRT. WHY DO YOU HAVE NO SHIRTS? Sort it out clothes shops. Sell stuff other than cardigans please, for fucksake.

 Of all the people I walked into as they suddenly stopped to point at some bloody shiny phone or something, the woman who stopped to stroke a pair of boots was my particular favourite. And by favourite, I mean  the one I wanted to kill the most.

FFS. They're made of leather. Get over it.

The next time I have to go shopping on a Saturday afternoon you'll hear about it on the national news, because I will have gone postal on the entire population of the Grand Arcade. 

But anyway, I did eventually get something. It took years off my life, but I got something. So now at least I don't have to turn up in my "I survived Peter Lee's Week of Death" t-shirt.

I'm sorry, but how awesome is this?  (The week of death is mentioned here and here). I even made one for Peter, but he refuses to wear it "Because it's not true" :-(  In the background - my homemade quilt my grandma made me :-D Grandmothers FTW!

Anyway, I'll let you know how much I screw up said date through social ineptitude/swearing too much.

Finally, and this is important.

 If you own a boat and blades, make sure you remember to insure your blades too.

Seriously, go and update your insurance policy now. NOW.

I've basically had a little crash which resulted with my blade hitting the other boat's rigger and completely fucking it up. (Photo to follow). I now need to find a strokeside, big blade + vortex edge Concept 2 scull from somewhere or I need to buy two new blades. OH CRAP. (If anyone out there knows of spares then please, for the love of god email me).  Because I am a twat I only insured my boat and speedcoach, completely forgetting about the blades thing. BECAUSE I AM A TWAT.

EDIT: Here you go:

Hmm. Would you race with these? It's pretty deep...

Here is a photo of a misty Ely. WITH CATHEDRAL.And loads of nettles :-(

Please don't make the same mistake! Blades are expensive!

World champs 4 - Epilogue

So, to sum up my expectionally biased view of the World Champs:

Favourite race: The women's pair final. Fuck yes!

 Best final sprint: Alan Campbell in the M1x final. (It's no wonder he can barely stand afterwards...)

You really have to watch the video if you haven't already...

 Best world domination: The Grainger - Watkins' mega-double.

Sorry, another photo of them. Because they are awesome.

 Best victory celebration: The Annie Vernon roar upon becoming World Champion

Best facial hair:  Eric Murray of the seemingly unbeatable Kiwi 2-

 

Best sunglasses: Alan Campell, hands down.

And check out these from the World Cup in Bled:

Niiiiiiiiiiiiice.

Best romantic moment (really!)
This one needs a bit of explanation. One of the girls in the silver-medal winning LTAMix4+

(which I completely forgot to talk about - mainly because their finals were earlier on in the week when I was having a MASSIVE WORK CRISIS, so a belated huge congratulations to them). But yes. Story. Kate's boyfriend, unbeknown to her, flew out to New Zealand to watch her race (and win) as a surprise (so already winning big man points there) and then AND THEN proposed to her. But it gets better! He did it in an amazingly awesome way:

Top man! That is going to take some beating! Rather hilariously, when I asked her if I could write about this in my blog, she said, and I quote:

"I'm so happy my fiance hasn't seen your blog, else I'd probably have ended up with a trebuchet!"

AHAHAHAHAHA! I'm not sure how he would have produced a trebuchet from a hot spring though, so he was probably good to stick with the ring. (If you've no idea why I'm talking about siege weapons all of a sudden, you need to read this. You'll get to it after a bit of ranting...) A silver medal in the Worlds and an engagement - I think that counts as a pretty fucking awesome week.

So from beating the world at rowing, to epic Oakleys, to romantic proposals by hot springs, there is naught more to say then:

Good night!

World champs 3 - Wooooooooooooooooooooooo!

They did it! Grainger and Watkins did it! It really was a great race to watch - domination from the start and a perfect end to the 2010 World Champs.

Here are a load of photos blatently stolen from Peter Spurrier's brilliant photo album. I feel a bit bad for essentially pinching them, but his photos really are excellent. (All of his photos are amazing: have a look at them at http://www.intersport-images.com/gallery-list. There's even one of me! :-D

EDIT: I hope he doesn't sue me.... :-S

HIGH FIVE! High five for being WORLD CHAMPIONS! High five for making it look EASY!

Medals. Oh yes.

Here's a bunch of other ones I like too.

Frida Svensson jumping for joy, literally. 

Here's a couple of the women's pair, because I love the W2-, as demonstrated yesterday.

SHIIIIIIIIINNNNYYYYY!

Also, the lightweight men's 4- really deserve a mention, winning gold by 0.07s.

I  imagine they're all simultaneously shouting "FUCK YEAH!!!!!".

The last word has to be with Alan Campbell though, with his fucking outstanding sunglasses (and his barely-being-able-to-stand-up post race).

Good man.

World champs 2 (or "here's a bunch of videos for you")

Flipping heck. Another 50m of lake and Svensson would have been in serious trouble. Oooooo. I love tight racing. OooooooOOOOOooooo. I think I still enjoyed last year's W1x final more though (where Kath Grainger got the silver  - she did a similar thing to Svensson but was overturned in the last 500m. She just jumped in the 1x for that season and ended up with a silver at the World Champs.... what an athlete.)

Woo! Yay!

Watching this I remembered this race, which pretty much left me speechless.



No one should win an Olympic final that easily. No one.

There's also this. If Frida Svensson goes out of the start like a train, then have a look at what this French pair do:



Mental French-ists!  MEEEENNNTTAAALLLL.

After the men's 2- race today no doubt they'll be lots of speculation over the future of Hodge and Reed. Will Jurgen keep them in the pair or move 'em back into the 4-? OOOooooo.

Rank	Boat	500 m	1000 m	1500 m	Finish	Lane
1	NZL	1:37.51  (3)	3:17.79  (2)	4:56.18  (2)	6:30.16	3
2	GBR	1:36.96  (1)	3:17.48  (1)	4:55.55  (1)	6:30.48	5

Anyway, I must go to bed. The best is yet to come with the W2x tomorrow....

World champs - A legend is born

I really need to do some work but I just got massively excited by all the action in NZ so just had to write something..

GBR W2-  SILVER!!!

Now, I must admit I was really really ecstatic watching this race because I know the two girls in the boat (casual name drop right there...) I mean, even though I knew the result before I watched the race, I still felt the need to swear profusely at the screen.

This is not an exaggeration. I was that excited :-)

Watch it here. Great stuff! Huge congratulations to the pair of them.

Frida Svensson: Epicness on a plate

OK, I'll update this when I've watched the race (it's not up yet) but this 5'8" Swede has overturned the great Ekaterina Karsten to take the women's single title. This is a SERIOUSLY big deal. It's apparently the second race that Karsten has lost in seven years.

I was seriously impressed with her in the semi - she went out like a goddam TRAIN and I respect that. I mean, semifinals are pretty much the most savage races of the regatta (if you don't come in the top 3, you have zero chance of making the final and getting to race for medals you see...) and she made it look like everyone else was pootling out the blocks. Linkage here. Really worth watching for some fucking hard-as-nails racing.

Wow. Just wow at that woman.

The wonders of tea

Sorry for not posting for a little while, I've been having a slight work crisis... But anyway, enough self-pity! Here is a story that has a very important moral at the end of it, so pay attention.

This is for everyone who's ever had one of those days.

Lecture fail

Work fail

Tesco value toasters only have three settings: "Burn", "Cremate" and "Spontaneously combust". I think Tesco value toasters pretty much define the phrase "false economy".

Stupid carrots. Why don't they taste nice?

I seem to be magnetically attracted to wet floor signs. I always walk into them.
Even though they're fucking BRIGHT YELLOW.

Spatial awareness fail.

FUCKING STICKY UP ROCKS. I HATE YOU.

Equipment fail.
This actually really fucked me off. I mean, you don't buy this for it to only last 8 months. Especially when in 5 of those months it never got used anyway on account of it being SUMMER. Fucking cateye Wiggle rage. I have had to emergency buy a head-torch while Wiggle sorts my stupid light out, so on the plus I do now have a kick ass head-torch. Even if I did have to spend money I don't have on said head-torch so I can actually get home from the department without dying. I blinded some pedestrians with it accidentally on the way home too. I do look a bit stupid wearing it too BUT IT'S A HEAD-TORCH and head-torches are awesome. Mainly because I can pretend I'm exploring a subterranean crystal cave or long lost tomb and I'm not just wearing it so I don't get hit by a car. But cateye bike light rage. RAAAAGGEE.

EDIT Wiggle have since sorted it and I now have a new one (their customer service is pretty bang on actually...)

Whrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrghhhhh!
Why am I always wearing a fucking white hoody when this happens ay?

:-)

Will do something more wordy + ranty + maybe funny next time. If fortran hasn't got the better of me...

EDIT: OK, either a cup of tea or a weights session. That'll make everything better. Squats always make everything better.

I'm also going to shamelessly point you in the direction of the "Homeless drawings" tab at the top of the page, in case you've not found it already. (I've just looked back over them and thought "Fuck me, these have been touched by the crazy fairy a bit haven't they?" But meh. I like chasing stuff.)

EDIT EDIT: Watch this. It is beautiful rowing. BEAUTIFUL.

EDIT EDIT EDIT: Edited to add more swears. There was nowhere near enough originally. Sorry.