The whole is greater than....

Already a week into the trialing season and it seems to have flown by; yet I already feel like I've been training alongside the other girls for a lot longer.  Some might attribute it to the emails we sent each other over the summer or the team building assault course that we challenged ourselves with at the beginning of the week. We did have a lot of fun running around in the mud, carrying tyres, jumping into water and clambering over various obstacles (although we are hoping our coxes and coaches didn't pick up too much of the instructors' bootcamp style). However, this sense of camaraderie is something that goes back further than just this year's squad and is strength drawn from being a member of CUW.

Every trialist signs up at the beginning of the season with the same goal, all with the desire to earn their seat and the right to row with light blue blades. We all dream of the opportunity to line up at the start of a Boat Race, alongside people who (if my past three years of CUW crews are anything to go by) will become some of your closest friends.

These are the girls who are there for you through the highs and lows, the laughs and the tears. They are the only people in the world who can truly understand what you are going through and why you are trialing - a question so often asked, yet one which no single sentence can ever fully answer.

This feeling of closeness within the squad and the crews that you become part of over the year was summed up for me when I received an email from Lene Hansen (BB 1997) during the summer.

'Almost 20 years on from the catfight to get into that boat, those women are still my Blues Sisters. We have certainly had our ups and downs, but most of us are in contact and I am more grateful for them every passing year... In fact, I am hoping that one of my sons marries one of my Sister's daughters!'

Looking back at the photo of some of us as we began our trialing journey at the assault course on Monday, we are very much a group of strong minded, competitive individuals. However, over the next few months we will become a team and form friendships that will no doubt last long after we cross the finish line next April.