COXING
Inside Oxford
A season with OUBC
Words: Alannah Burdess
These words are dedicated to the 2022 Oxford University Boat Club squad.
“Strokeside tap it, bowside back it down.”Spinning into place in the marshalling area of Upper Thames Autumn Head, my heart in my mouth, recalling the race plan I’d made the night before to keep myself calm – this was the scene of my first race with Oxford University Boat Club, seven months ago. If you had told me even six weeks before that day that I’d be coxing for OUBC, let alone racing with them, I’d have looked at you in utter disbelief.
It is nearly a year now since I first began coxing and entered the world of rowing. What started as giving rowing a go because it’s Oxford and everyone does it at least once, has turned into 40 hours of training a week and a competitive hunger I’ve never felt before – all in less time than it takes Charlie Elwes to rig a boat. It was in a moment of slight madness that I emailed head coach Sean Bowden about trialling. What it might be like to train with a squad of elite male rowers as the only girl, and a novice to boot, didn’t even cross my mind. It’s a moment of madness I don’t regret in the slightest.
Above Alannah Burdess, Oxford University Boat Club cox
The training this squad does is gruelling, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally as well. All for one goal – winning The Boat Race. The 16 minutes and 42 seconds of complete physical exertion we witnessed on 3rd April is the culmination of hundreds of hours of training and sacrifice – and that’s only counting the six months of that season, not the years it took to get to OUBC in the first place. To succeed on that one day takes more than physical strength and good technique; your soul must want it more than anything.