Over the Easter holidays, the Shiplake College rowing crews headed to Temple Sur Lot in the South of France, to undertake a week of intensive training ahead of the regatta season hotting up in the UK. Accompanied by Director of Rowing Mr David Currie, coaches Mr Keith Settle, Mr Adam Moffatt, Mr Hugh Mackworth-Praed and Mr Charlie Jenkins, the group were fortunate to enjoy beautiful weather, and hone skills in peaceful surroundings. Mr Currie provides the following report of a successful trip:
‘In order to be competitive in the regatta season, an overseas Easter rowing camp is seen by many schools as an essential part of the training preparation. The time on camp is precious from a coaching perspective as you have all the rowers in one place with nothing to do other than row, study, eat and sleep! It is agreed that one week of an intense rowing camp equates to around 3-4 weeks of training in a normal school term, so you can imagine the improvements that were made by all the crews on our rowing camp. The Boat Club headed south in search of some good weather in which to have a pre-regatta season training camp. As has become tradition in recent years, we based ourselves in Bordeaux for a week at Temple Sur Lot. La-Base was the training centre that hosted 45 rowers and 7 staff members, here we had everything we could need to run a successful rowing camp from indoor training facilities to lots of food and, of course, the Lot River - which is very wide, mostly calm and runs for 50km.
Those that attend the camp were the J15’s, J16’s, 2nd and 1st VIII and the girls’ squad. Crews enjoyed early breakfasts and yoga sessions, followed by training on the water. The pupils studied in the afternoon – although no one could have been training too hard as we did not find anyone asleep in their books! Following an afternoon session, those that hadn’t had enough of rowing could go out for a sunset technical row to finish off the day. After six days of this regime, all the crews had sore hands and heavy legs but they all got themselves up for a final Boat Club 2K race as the last session before the long journey home. On top of the fantastic weather and training facilities we also have some of the best coaching staff in the country, including Kara Wert our rowing yoga specialist and Rob Morgan - ex Olympic Lightweight Coach. A special thank you must go to all the coaches for giving up their personal holiday time to come on rowing camp. We must not to forget the extra 3 days Mr Settle and Jenkins took to drive the boat trailer to Bordeaux, although we think they secretly enjoy playing truckers!
All individuals and crews gained a huge amount from the camp and we are all looking forward to seeing the crews in action over the coming months.’
