South London IRC

Well, I made it to the race, but probably shouldn't have travelled. My, er, 'movement' in the morning was not all one would hope for on the eve of a race, though this was not due to nerves. I picked up jainser on time (despite SatNav errors on my part) and we hada good journey down.

I could not prize Mr Jain in to my green lycra all in one, but I think this picture gives an impression of what the great man might look like when Shrekked up. Watching jainser row is impressive. He has huge forearms and very strong shoulders, just like, er, Shrek. He rowed an impressive race and was hear to mention that it was all about the pacing after we kept his natural instincts in check for the first 2000m. When he was unleashed in the last 500m it was pretty impressive.

My own row was OK given the circumstances. I did not feel "right" and knew from Thursday's test that my lungs were a little dodgy. My aim before the cold was to go through 2000m at 1:44 pace and crank up from there. But when I realised that 1:45 was a big ask for 1,500m I knew that my lungs were not really operating too well. I decided to ease off and "just get home". The guys were a great help and kept me going. I said to Roger at one point "there's nothing there" and that about summed it up. Anyway. There's always next year. I think at my best I would have been 10:20 but I got 10:42.6 I think.

Watching bangers is always an education in technique and control. He calmly went about pulling 1:53 all the way. I won't be Roger's age for 32 years and I hope that I can pull sub 2:00 split 3,000m then, let alone his sub 1:53! What a man.

It is always a pleasure to meet other Free Spirits for the first time. And BigWaveDave was no exception. He pulled a very steady 3,000m and although slower than he hoped it looked pretty good to me. He beat his expectations in the 805m, but by then I was on my way home.

I had to drag jainser away when I got a worrying call from Tamsin who had been "unwell" at home. Poor thing. We got home in the end, no thanks to my awful navigation abetted by SatNav which we both forgot to check was taking us round the M25. We ended up going through central London. Not a good idea. I was feeling distinctly dodgy at times in the journey, but didn't want jainser to stress about me vomitting on his lap so kept it to myself. When I got home, Tamsin fell from the sofa in to bed and I slept on the floor for 20 minutes with the kids playing around me. Once I woke up I steadily started to feel better and am pretty much OK now. Mind you, Abigail was sick at least three times in the night so the bug is clearly going round the family. I hope that Shrek does not catch it. I don't remember kissing him so he should be OK.