Nottingham Autumn Head

After closely monitoring the river conditions for the week leading up to the Autumn Head, and listening to the high winds on Saturday night, more than a few people were concerned the race wasn't going to go ahead. Luckily Sunday dawned brighter and calmer than forecast, and despite it taking approximately 2 years to get up to the pipe, the Autumn Head went off as planned, and on time!

The squad were racing in their singles in the first division, resulting in a starting order where we chased each other down the course. Despite some pre-race reconnaissance of the course, the wind and stream seemed to have other ideas, with some of us taking some creative racing lines. With two weeks left to go before trials, this race came at the end of a tough training block, and provided the perfect practice for the 5km water trial.

The squad came away with 2 wins, Yaz won Senior singles, and Laura won IM2 singles with Kirstie coming second in the same category. Nikki came second in Elite singles, behind Junior World Champion Jess Leyden from Hollingworth lake, followed by Start athlete Katie Bartlett, then Catherine in 4th and Lindsay in 5th. Abby came 3rd and Caitlin 5th in IM3 singles. Whilst the rest of the group enjoyed a nice cup of tea and some cake, Laura headed back out onto the water after a late call up into an IM2 quad which came second in their category over the shorter course in division 2. The girls then tried their hand at start marshalling, which is more difficult than it looks when you can't see half the crews and/or their race numbers, but I think everyone managed to get off in the right order!

Congratulations to anyone that managed to make it up to the start line - it's great to see so many people sculling up to race, and thanks to everyone that helped make the day go so smoothly, from the race organisers, marshals and safety team, to everyone that made cakes and manned the food stall.