Fixture season is upon us. Last Saturday Oxford University Women’s Boat Club lined up against Molesey Boat Club for three pieces, marking the beginning of fixtures and of the last leg of the 77th Women’s Boat Race campaign.
It is remarkable just how many moving parts there are around fixtures. Selection is ongoing, line ups are still shifting and yet, almost every weekend between now and race day the Oxford and Cambridge clubs will head to Putney to race the best clubs in the UK (and abroad), with plenty of eyes watching. If my time coxing Oxford University men and women has taught me anything, it’s the importance of being prepared no matter the circumstances.
This was highlighted well by OUWBC’s fixtures over the past two weekends. Although we were fresh back in the eights for the Molesey fixture, that was no excuse not to row well. With only 41 days remaining until the Boat Race at time of writing, every outing must count. It says a lot about the mentality of a crew if they can come together in a short space of time and mentality is a large part of what the fixtures help us to practice.
You might ask why we do so many fixtures ahead of The Boat Race if our time is so limited. The short answer is that they provide invaluable practice. Practice of what it’s like to be next to another unknown crew with little idea of how fast they might be or how much time they’ve spent as a crew. Though attention is of course paid to our competitors, what makes the Boat Race the spectacle that attracts millions of viewers every year is that, at the end of the day, no one can really predict what will happen or who will be faster off the stake boats. Then, of course, there’s no such thing as spending too much time on the Tideway. Though I question the mythical status sometimes given to the Tideway, it’s certainly a river that will make you respect it. Rowing into a headwind in lashing rain at the top of the flood tide is not for the faint hearted and it’s crucial to practice maintaining composure in conditions that are irreplicable elsewhere. As a cox, fixtures are incredibly important. Not only do they play a key role in selection, the equivalent of a 5k ergo test perhaps, but they are also one of the few chances we get to steer the Championship Course side-by-side at pace.
Yet fixtures aren’t all about what goes on on the water. Practicing everything around the races themselves is also important. This is my second season wearing Dark Blue and I don’t know if I will ever get completely used to the eyes and camera lenses that follow you along Putney embankment at this time of year. Nevertheless, fixtures allow us to hone the process of getting in the zone. Eyes may be on us, but our heads are in the boat. Given the crush of crowds that will be there on race day, it’s important we learn to drown out the noise now.
12 for 12 across both the men and women against Molesey and with three wins in the OUW Blue Boat and two losses for Osiris against Thames, Oxford has had a fairly successful start to fixture season, but nothing can be taken for granted. With the first two set of fixtures complete, we we must consider the lessons for the next two against Leander on February 26th and Brookes on March 12th. How can I improve my steering, my calls and my strategic reading of the race? Did we do what we set out to do? Where are our weaknesses and what can we do to fix them? Though we obviously want to win every race, what did we learn from our losses? I personally feel that fixtures are as only valuable as the amount you learn from each piece. At the end of the day, our objective is to beat Cambridge on March 26th and fixtures are a part of the process to get there.
The next livestreamed fixture will be on March 12th. Catch all the action on YouTube.
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