Given that the Michaelmas novice regatta got scratched and Torpids took such an abridged form that only half the divisions were able to race, we needed to enter as many crews as humanly possible into races before the start gun goes off for Eights in a few weeks. We thus sent our finest four crews - two women's eights and two men's fours - down to ISL on Sunday to demonstrate to the people of Oxford how you do this rowing business properly.

This being ISL, each crew trained together for about 15 minutes - long enough to row down to the start line and not much else. ISL, for the uninitiated, is a time trial upstream along the Isis. In comparison to Eights, it's a touch monotone: it's devoid of screaming NCBC ultras on the banks, the reward of a post-race Pimms or the thrill of bumping your bowball into some inferior crew's stroke seat. What it does offer, however, is the chance to put yourself through some serious pain over a couple of kilometres.

Our four crews put down some pretty solid performances. The men came second and seventh in their event, while the women (competing in a much larger category) came tenth and twenty-fourth.