Lance Tredell thrives in the challenge as Cambridge University Boat Club president

New era dawns for Light Blues

Lance Tredell will lead Cambridge University Boat Club on their annual warm weather training to Lake Banjoles – and then into a new home at Ely.

The CUBC president, who missed the recent Trial VIIIs through injury, will take his squad out to Spain after Christmas for a vital piece of training in the build-up to the Cancer Research UK Boat Races.

And the 28-year-old Hughes Hall student is revelling in leading the Light Blues.

“I’m enjoying the role and everything that comes with it,” said Tredell.

“I’ve got a great group of guys that I’m working with so I think that makes my job easier.

“I’m very proud to be leading this strong squad that we have this year. It’s certainly more of a challenge.

“I do have more responsibilities, more commitments this year with the presidency role and that has brought an additional challenge to my time management but so far I have managed to deal with that quite well.

“It keeps you very organised. Time management is crucial but you’re just on to the next thing.

“If you’re not studying you’re rowing, and if you’re not rowing you’re studying, and you’re doing this, you’re doing that.

“There is no time to really settle so as a result you end up being very productive because you’re just on it, on it, on it.”

On their return to the UK, CUBC will start boating out of the new shared Cambridge University Boathouse at Ely, and Tredell believes that the facilities will have a big impact on the club.

“You almost can’t compare our previous training facility to this one, they are that far apart,” said Tredell.

“In terms of performance, there are a number of ways in which this is going to benefit us.

“From an efficiency point of view, previously where we had been training we share our landing stage and that means we can’t boat more than one at a time.

“We often have to wait and these are quite small things but if we can save 10 minutes each day, if we can be 10 minutes more efficient every time we come here, that’s over an hour a week of extra recovery time which is very important.

“Not to mention the fact that we have great cooking facilities to refuel, we have heat, hot water – things that we didn’t always have at our previous changing facilities.”

He added: “It must be extremely satisfying for everybody that’s been involved in the process.

“The accumulation of many years hard work and it must just be very satisfying.”

The Cancer Research UK Boat Races are on Sunday, April 2 next year, with the women’s race at 4.35pm and the men’s race at 5.35pm.