Attention - Go!
The race has begun. You start off rather panicky and fast, as you see all the crews take off way ahead of you. Eventually you slow it down to a steady rate, and you start to feel sick, like you want to turn back. You can't. Even if you are losing, you can't go back.
Go to my "Well, At Least It's Interesting" page for a full run down on what the race is like, but imagine it with a lot of pain, lactic acid in your muscles and tiredness. Also, if you come last, embarrassment.
After you come in from the race, you have around half an hour before you are expected to launch again for your second race, perhaps in a four. And you do it all again. After your races are over, you can't go home. You can get fat, and go buy chips and lollies to fill your starving stomach, but you can't leave. You have to go to presentations afterwards and watch as your rival snobby school win the pennant for the best overall school. And afterwards, while all the other schools go home, you can go and de-rig boats. YAY!
After you have de-rigged and loaded the boats onto the trailer, you have to catch the bus back to the boatshed so that you can put the riggers back on, and put the boats away. When all this is done, over an hour later, you can go home and die.