Pretty (good) in Pink

After these last few weeks of intensive training Tom finally was allowed to wear the Leander kit, which he did with great pride at Reading Small Boats Head. He knows that wearing the kit of such a prestigious club also creates expectations and he was determined not to let them down. He's not yet allowed to race under the Leander name so they were entered as 'Star and Arrow'. Tom was a last minute fill in and the quad had not trained much together - my other photos showed their blades completely out of time, so although they won, Tom was not satisfied with their performance.

Later he raced in a double that performed much better, although his steering was very wide and probably cost them time. We didn't get results until this morning and as I write this he's still in bed unaware that they won that race too against strong competition.

And behind every young athlete there's a parent racing around in a different way. I got back from Geneva at 9pm on Friday night, baked flapjacks and snacks for Saturday's races, washed and dried a weeks work of kit and then got up at 5.15am the following morning to set off for Reading.... we arrived home at 5pm and I raced off to Waitrose before sitting down with G&T followed by an informal dinner with the lovely Bundle.