The come down

Well, the dust has settled, the race forgotten and the training continues....in fact, to be truthful, the training never really stopped for Henley Women's Regatta. We decided not to wind down for it as it fell in the middle of a training block, and so it was back on the river on Monday morning almost as if nothing had happened. But it had. I felt that there was more reason to hold my head up high, more reason to justify the hours I spend on the water, and more validity to my dreams, which have been fermenting for years.


It feels like the beginning of something new and special this week. Everything I have experienced up to now, the heartbreak, the pain, the tears, the loneliness, all of this goes into every stroke I take now, and each stroke takes me closer to the dream.

I was asked two questions at Metropolitan Regatta a couple of weeks ago:

"How come you're back in the rowing world?"

and

"Why are you still doing it to yourself?"

I think that I answered those questions pretty comprehensively with my very close second place in the final of the Elite Lightweight Single Sculls, and I have now gone one better and won the same event at Henley Women's Regatta. The people who were friendly to me at weigh in at 6.45 in the morning at the Met were all of a sudden not talking to me by the semi final that afternoon....and by the end of the day I seemed to be persona non grata. It seems that two weeks later at HWR they hadn't forgotten and I may as well have been invisible.

I know that I have been written off as a has been. I know that I have not yet achieved the things that I want to in rowing. I know that I have been under the radar essentially since I raced at the 2006 World Championships at Dorney Lake (Eton). What nobody knows - apart from the special and close people in my life of course - are the events that have shaped where I am coming from and where I am heading.

This time last year I was crying on a bike, unable to get out of the car normally, unable to row, unable to get my trousers on without weird contortionism due to a back injury. I sat on the Upper Thames veranda and watched everyone preparing for summer racing, holding on to the hope that I would compete - somewhere, anywhere - in 2009. Three months ago I could barely walk up a small hill, I was so tired - I was diagnosed with adrenal fatigue - and now here I am, able to train at full volume again, race over 2k and do it over and over again in the same day.


I thank my lucky stars every day for the people in my life who have believed in me, who support me day in day out, mentally, emotionally, physically...and I appreciate my health so much more. The emotion I felt as I crossed the line first on Sunday on my home stretch, in front of my home club was huge. But weirdly, I felt just as much when I completed one 2k race at Wallingford Regatta this May. Three weeks before that I couldn't do 2k at rate 24. Just getting over the course, at "race pace" (it was in fact just survival rowing, the conditions in my lane in the horrendous crosswind were so dreadful) felt like I'd won it.

In fact, in many ways I had won. I've emerged from two years of personal hell.....bereavement, marital breakdown, debilitating injury and illness resulting in indescribable tiredness. The death of our beautiful cousin has taught me to seize the day, live in the moment and appreciate the tiny things in life....a kiss from someone you love, an impromptu picnic, your favourite song on the radio, or a dragonfly landing on the stern of my boat, sitting on the inspirational quote taped there by my sister before racing on Sunday.

Each day I adopt the "attitude of gratitude". To quote a certain fat bear:

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift, that’s why it's called the present" A.A. Milne.