QUBBC January Update & New Year
Winter Training
With New Years over and the crews having enjoyed their Christmas break all squads have returned to training. With exams looming the Men’s Club is prioritising their time well alongside their academics. Thanks to a break in the bad weather some great progress has been made on the water with the Novice Men’s crews going up against the more senior oarsmen of the club as well as a few Methody crews resulting in some very enjoyable and competitive training.
Festive Head 19/12/2015
On Saturday the 19th of December Belfast Rowing Club held the Annual Festive Head of River. The event was a roaring success as usual with a wide array of boats not to mention costumes. The Xmas season brought out several Alumni and past Oarsmen from the club pitting themselves against old friends and current athletes from Queens along with the eager Novice squads.
University Beginner Sprints, QUB vs DUBC 12/12/2015
On Saturday the 12th of December Trinity Boat Club travelled to the Lagan to compete against the newest intake of Novice Oarsmen at QUBBC. This event was the first of its kind and an excellent opportunity for these two squads to test their mettle early on in the season. With 3 Novice Men’s Crews travelling up from Dublin and 2 Queens crews competing there was no shortage of racing. Even at the early stages of the year this Novice Squad has shown great promise and this was reflected on the day as they completely dominated the days racing winning all but 1 of the races.
A very big thank you to Trinity for travelling up to Belfast for the day to produce some excellent racing and we hope that this shall become an annual event for our two clubs!
QUBLBC- Winter Newsletter
The Rowing season began for the ladies club with our inter women returning in September to a new training program and a series of tests which showed the power and strength within the club. As term began the whole club got behind the drive for novice recruitment and we have managed to maintain a high level of involvement with at least three eights being entered for all events up until Christmas. Bann Head of the River was the first race of the season which we sent two inter fours to and came home with the fastest women’s pennant which was a great start to the season for the ladies club. The weather conditions at Bann meant that we were unable to send our three novice eights or our inter small boats which was disappointing however the novices were given their first taste of racing as we staged a series of time trials on the Lagan which produced some excellent results for all of the novices involved. The next major event for the whole club was the BUCS indoor championships which proved a great success for the ladies club with seasons best being set by many of the inter women and even an ulster record being broken by a novice rower which considering they have only been rowing for two months is a great achievement.
Queens athlete Rebecca Edwards had been steadily working her way through the trials season producing ever more impressive results winning the senior women’s single at Tullamore time trials and coming home from the senior British rowing championships with a bronze medal in her composite four which is an incredible achievement and one which the club is incredibly proud of. She then moved on to British trials where she managed to hold her own amongst the GB squad and then then went on to become the fastest senior women’s four at fours head of the river with her same composite crew. The whole club wishes Rebecca the best of luck and continued success for the rest of the season.
The annual ladies dinner took place on the 5th of December and provided an opportunity for our new novice women to see a different side to Queens rowing that didn’t involve quite so much rain. Michelle Carpenter the women’s development officer for rowing Ireland gave a highly informative and interesting speech that gave the whole club food for thought about the development of women’s rowing in Ireland. Thanks must go to Pamela Cunningham for her contributions to the raffle which raised much needed funds for the club as well as to our Club Captain Ellie Holmes and Secretary Gemma Canham for all the hard work they put in to making sure the event ran smoothly.
Great to have this news. Please can we have more notice of upcoming events such as the Festive Head and the Bann Head, so that some of us old buffers might show up to enjoy the spectacle. Eric Woods
A new post shall be going up before the weekend Eric and we shall be providing an overview of the racing calendar, many thanks!
That’s great! Thanks.
After all these years, and infrequent Erg workouts, it was a delight this AM to read the absolutely brilliant energy levels at QUB. As expected, the lightweight men seem to be excelling and the women overall look to be pushing the competition every chance they get. Nice work ladies!
I remember our 4 and 8’s back in the early 70’s with guys from Somerset and New Jersey USA, Grads of good rowing high schools and a bunch of us “walk on’s” who all loved rowing.
It seemed even more familiar when I read and re-read Boys in the Boat remembering the many coaches including Donal M, Ken Morrow, Dusty and many more who cycled up and down the river in all weathers.
I loke to hear about the new boathouse extension, long overdue, and the very competitive erg scores., as well as the mini camps now used to drive excellence. When coaching here in the late 90’s we would drive 600 miles to Atlanta with all the boats loaded and practice on the Olympic venue. The big hazard being high speed Bass Fishermen. Fond memories during Paddy’s week practicing with Holy Cross, Georgia teams doing 3 a days before sprint season.
It is still disappointing to hear of drop offs at exam time. This shows reluctance to manage personal time and balance energy levels to excel. Later in life, those athletes will regret their decisions and may never hit their fitness peaks which can run over into their personal career success.
I remember Jan 1 early AM workouts at 0700, after changing from the NY Eve tux, dropping off the girlfriend and stopping after the first 500 m to clear residues from the night before. Overall very happy memories of competitive racing for 4 years.
I like the coaching news, the competitive focus and the drilling down on good technical rowing. This is still the lesson for success.
If you see the members of the award winning BRC men’s 4+ that set the course record for the HOCR and Schuykill races…..ask them about their training program. They are examples of resolute success with no prisoners or dead wood in their shell. I think some were QUBBC alumni!
Row Hard, Die Last!
Mike Green