I was at my third week at rowing and George, the man in charge of the rowing spoke to me "Look I need a cox" [ the man who steers the boat}. So this was two day trip to Wales, to partake in the Castle to Castle race. It started on a Friday on the 16th of September. I went down to the meeting point. There was no bus we went up to the ferry in an ambulance and this ambulance was what used for the driving of the trip. They had borrowed it from the Order of Malta. When driving through Dublin in the ambulance I was thinking "what was next? what had I committed too, with these strangers who I knew for a month". So we got to the ferry and then lads that I was coxing for was like you now need to come up with some inspirational words. I said "are you joking, for what ???". They looked at me and said "no man so we don't think of the pain. So sitting in ambulance going to Wales with people that I know only for a month and thinking of inspirational words for a job of cox I had practiced twice what was I thinking what had I signed up too". So then we got to ferry and of course first place everyone went was where the food was at and I got the curry. This was probably the worse idea of this trip because it was an awful curry. So in about two hours ran to bathroom. I got sick. I wasn't great. When we got to Wales at around 2:00 am , I was wrecked. Then we drove for hour. Now we were told that we sleeping in a barn and It was freezing. But when we got there we staying in someone's house. So I think we got there around three am. Then I fell asleep in two minutes. So I woke up at 6:00 am because the race started quite early. I was quite scared to eat anything because I got sick the day before. So then we got to the races start and there was coxing meeting and having only started the sport month ago, I had no notion what was going on. So thank god for Vartry's other cox Jack O'Toole who told me every thing I had to do. Luckily we had two teams. I was coxing the men's team and Jack was doing the other mixed team. My team was Jordan Ryan, Jack Doyle, Dail Flaherty and David Collard. These lads have been rowing for around 4 years and I had coxed twice for them and some of them were nervous, but I was hungry and ate a banana- thank god for the banana. So we all got in the water and it was around 1 minute to the start sequence. The race started and the lads told me to be around were this other crew was and then I heard horn and everyone went what ? and I said "GO". We with their brand new cox had the best start of the race !!! straight away we were winning, first across the line. So we had a class start, then got good mile into it when ended up dog fighting with another crew for first. These were a more experience crew so they took the first position. So for the whole rest we trying catch the leaders. This race was 12 mile race and then we got first third race done on the map and the lads hadn't even broken a sweat. They were a machine. We still had this second outta twenty and I was screaming every word I knew in the dictionary to make sure these didn't even known what pain is. "Pain is temporary and Glory is forever". This race test these men to there limit and then we got two the two thirds into the race and told them. "Give it everything but only one problem with this race the last race ratio was so wrong and we had only half way through it. Then for rest race it was them like How long to finish and I was like 1km every two 2km. So I say the lads ready kill me but the map was so bad. Then leaders had kept lead and did pull away and there was no chance catching them. So we were just stuck in this second place with third place gaining and them the lads gave it everything. At the end of it all. We got are second place and I have say the lads were destroyed when we got to the beach. Then we all went up to clubhouse for prizes and I enter in a raffle were paid a pound in a raffle and some told I got ripped of because he paid a euro and said " no no I paided for the winning ticket" and guess what I won. So look right now it was class weekend and then headed home and that was my rowing experience