Failing to be cool at the Tideway…
There are certain times in a girl’s life when she really, really wants to be cool. Parking. Clubbing. And, as it happens, racing on the Tideway.
Sadly, I am incapable of being anything other than tragic on any of these occasions. Especially on the Tideway – as I proved in no uncertain terms this weekend at the Vets’ Head.
By the time we arrived, a toxic combination of nerves and excitement at being back in the Smoke had me in a state of near-hysteria (manifested, mostly, in uncontrollable giggles at the slightest provocation). If that weren’t enough to bring out my inner loser, finding that we were sharing our borrowed clubhouse with the Oxford University Boat Club was the final nail in my coffin of cool. I was a simpering, fan-girling wreck. One look at the ranks of dark blue wellies by the door and I was having palpitations.
It’ll be fine once we’ve got hands on the boat, I assured myself. Alas, no. Hours (or so it felt) of queueing on the bank with a heavy old Janousek biting into my shoulders and hands and making my spine concertina (I have bruises to show for it) left me red-faced, sweating and puffing before we’d even got out on the water. Ah, the pitying looks of the men of the Tideway clubs as they effortlessly slung their featherweight Empachers on their shoulders before strolling a couple of yards from club to water.
So flustered was I by the time we reached the water’s edge that I was even too shy to introduce myself to one of my coxing heroes, the equally pint-sized Zoe de Toledo, who was standing right next to me as we boated (in a rather fabulous Queen B hat – heck, I even had a talking point). To be fair, I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to distract an elite cox as she directed a VIP boat on to the water, but still.
Still trying to be cool…
Anyway, we were there to race, not to pose, and at least on the water we put in a workmanlike performance. No crabs, no disasters. But for all our efforts, our rather cobbled-together crew could not be described, even by the most generous spectator, as fast. As crew after crew overtook us, we knew our time wouldn’t be great. Let’s just say the row was described as “gutsy” in the post-race report. Which, as we all know, is code for “last in the category”.
So when the results came in, as we hurtled back up the M4, and as the post-race Prosecco wore off, I’ll confess I started to feel a bit disheartened. Until, that is, we got to the service station. Suddenly thrust back into the real world, amongst people whose biggest achievement that day was getting to the front of the queue in Burger King, it dawned on me what I’d achieved. So we weren’t the most composed. Or the neatest. Or the fastest. But we’d spent the afternoon racing from Mortlake to Putney. Which, importantly, is Putney to Mortlake in reverse.
I might not have won on the water, but even an uncool, starstruck, emotional fool like me could say, as our cox brilliantly put it, that I was winning at life. And damn straight, that’s cool.
Slightly more cool…
