European trials and some thank you's!

Last week we moved training over to my favourite place, Caversham lake.  For those of you who don’t know Caversham (aka Cav/the place where your soul dies) it is a purpose built lake and boat house especially to house GB Rowing.  On the other side of the lake it is also home to a sailing club.  Last week was a good week for the sailing club.   Not so good for us….

We were due to do race at European and U23 trials over the weekend but due to a terrible weather forecast racing was moved a day forward.  However when it came to the semis and finals the wind was really strong and I was dreading a 9 minute race!

My semi went to plan, I managed to get out ahead in the first 500m and sit on my lead the rest of the way down the course.  I did have one ‘Oh S***’ moment when I had wound it down at the end and was so engrossed in the tight race for the remaining spots, that I didn’t realise how quickly they were coming at me!  All I could think was I’m gonna look like right idiot if I have to sprint to the line after paddling in at rate 20! Luckily the line came just in time to save face!

I decided to go with the same plan for the final, get a good start and lead the race from the front.  Sat on the stake boat I was just praying I could get a clean start.  I didn’t….. it was probably one of my worst starts.  However I guess it could have been worse.  One of my competitors in the lane next to me came over into my lane off the start.  All I was thinking was…..s***, I better get the hell out of here before she hits me!! I think this probably gave me a bit of an edge and I had clear water over the field at the 500.  The rest of the race went as I’d hoped and I managed to hold a clear water lead and fend off any pushes from the girls behind me.  I came through to win the race by 7seconds ahead of Georgie Hazell of Reading RC, who put in a good last 500m to just take 2^nd ahead of Pippa Whittaker of Nottingham RC.  You can read some more professional race reports from the weekend here.

On my way to the start at Euro trials with my new lucky visor courtesy of Headsweats :)

As a result of the trials I have been selected to represent GB at the European trials in a double with Erica Bodman, one of my fellow Leander girlies.  We have hit the sponsorship requests hard and have found lots and lots of kind people who have generously donated products to help with our training. 

Many thanks to Hunter Boots, Headsweats, Buff, Solar Sport and Faith in Nature for their support.

Like a kid at Christmas.  Hunter's new union jack wellies :)

Can't wait until winter and I can test all the warm weather gear from Buff

I have also been on a personal mission to find sponsorship.  I am looking for some dollar to help me buy a new boat of the new Olympiad.  Although I have not been lucky finding any money yet I have had lots of support in other ways….and every little bit definitely does help.

Many thanks to TCL Sports, Eat Natural, Sigvaris Sports, Power the machine and Ocado.

feet up resting between races in my Sigvaris Sports compression socks

Lastly a massive thank you to my big bro who has given up his time to build a website for me! It is still not 100% done but www.kstiller.co.uk is live!! Woooo!  So thank you Matt I massively appreciate it!