Rowing Profile: Felicity Shelley

I really enjoyed Development Squad in my first year but decided I wouldn't be good enough to trial so went back to my college. Then I went along to Development squad testing at the end of my second year just to see if I'd improved as I had trained hard with my college all year. I surprised myself and the coaches with my 2k time and was encouraged to trial in September, so I thought I'd give it a go for a few weeks and perhaps last until Christmas... Six months later I raced in the boat race! Trialling for OUWBC is not the intimidating process people on the outside think it is. There are probably hundreds of girls around the Oxford college boat clubs who have a lot more potential than they realise!

What did you enjoy most about it?

I loved the fact that even when we thought we had raced badly we still did very well and often won. When training for weeks with no racing it's easy to forget to step back and look at how much we had improved and how fit and strong we had become - racing was a nice way to remind ourselves what all the effort was for.

What aspects did you find the hardest/most challenging?

As one of the smallest athletes I found it hard to stay mentally positive in some of the strength based parts of training such as weights and steady-state ergos. I had to keep motivating myself and thinking about being the best I could be as a rower on the water rather than worrying about other people's strength in the gym.

In a sentence name a highlight of your time with OUWBC:

Being able to eat all my favourite foods more or less the entire time I spent awake and still staying the same weight!

How did you cope with managing training with work and any other commitments?

I had been a college captain, coached, coxed and rowed in my second year and so by trialling I actually spent less time doing rowing-related activities and didn't have to do any of the organisational work! I developed really good time management skills and was much more efficient with my work than non-rowing friends because I always had little deadlines to work towards with training in the evenings, rather than knowing I had the entire day to do something and let it drag out.

Do you have any advice/handy tips for future OUWBC rowers?

Eat and drink as much as you can during the day and never ever give up on a session as the mental advantage you get from completing things when others don't is huge (even if you do it badly) and it means you will never doubt your ability to do it again.

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