Words: Mark Taylor

“I love the idea of always being busy and always having slightly too much to do so I know I’m at least doing enough.”

Trying to understand what “slightly too much to do” means to one person compared to another may be difficult, but in the context of a day or a week in the life of Kyra Delray, you imagine that it probably means there is quite a lot on the list.

That said, no week has been ‘average’ since the start of the autumn term last October.

“We definitely don’t have a structure where we do the same thing every day,” says the Oxford University Boat Club Blue. “Every day is different at OUBC.”

When you take the most extreme end of the schedule spectrum, you are looking at a potential day – from start to finish – of 16 hours. But that’s extreme for trialists. Even their more ‘normal’ days are extreme for an average person.

For most of the season, there is just one day off training a week, on a Monday, but as Delray was still rehabbing after hip surgery, she had a sports massage or physio appointment, and while the rest of the squad were training together on a Friday, Delray managed the rehab by cross training, either swimming or running, but most regularly cycling.

All that means a congested three days in the middle of the week, and a busy weekend. While a weights session in the morning may start at 6.30am or 7.30am, it is the more extreme schedule that highlights the demands on the trialists, and that is a Thursday.

The alarm goes off at 5am in order to get to Wallingford by 6.15am, then there is a briefing at 6.35am before heading straight out onto the water, and the aim is to get the bus back to Oxford for 8.45am so people can make their classes by 9am.

“Everyone knows what they need to do to bring their best to the session – it is a reminder of bringing the best of what you have in that moment, and there is an allowance of slightly being off your game at 5am in the morning but you have to bring good intent and 100% of what you have right then to make sure we’re not wasting our time,” says Delray.

“I’m always excited to go rowing, and I’m really enjoying the project. I’m excited to use the time we have to get better.”

Breakfast would be overnight oats, fruit, seeds, peanut butter, enough to sustain until lunchtime, and as Delray is doing a PhD (DPhil) in Statistics, there is a group meeting at 11am, and after lunch she either heads to the office or library for the rest of the afternoon.

The next appointment is a group weights session at Iffley Road in Oxford at 5.30pm, and that session usually finishes between 7pm and 7.30pm.

Depending on the week, it is then either heading home, which would be at around 8.30pm, or going to a formal dinner at one of the colleges, and in this case it would be returning home at 10pm, and heading for bed an hour later.

It is the weekends that Delray looks forward to most, though.

It seems strange to say that given it is a similarly early start, a 6am alarm and 6.45am departure on Saturdays and Sundays for two sessions on the water on both days.

But Delray says: “It feels the closest you can get to recreational rowing. There is no rushing, there is a bit of efficiency but it is very much that you know your day and your morning is given to rowing and you just enjoy spending time with everyone.

“Then you get the afternoon to hang out, or do work in a very unstructured way, which I like, or go and have fun doing something else.

“I have a slow morning, so my alarm goes off at 6am while some people have a turnaround of 15 minutes. Some people are so proud they have the turnaround down to 7min 30sec, but I like to take my time. It includes my coffee and I usually eat in the car.”

The sessions finish between 1pm and 3pm, so it can mean that sometimes Delray is home by early afternoon, with the rest of the day and evening to do something else. And in ways it is a case of making up for lost time.

“After my hip surgery, I had to stop rowing,” she explains. “It was six weeks of basically nothing so I stopped exercising because I had to, and then I didn’t start rowing for months.

“I can’t imagine my life now without rowing, really. When I stopped rowing, I didn’t know what to do with my time. I felt so unproductive, I really enjoy working out, I really enjoy the feeling after working out.

“The sense of team in the sport is really special, and I find it a good way to see people, bond and enjoy each other’s company while also doing something active and driving toward the same goal.

“It ticks all the boxes of everything I want in my spare time – exercise, people time, teamwork, being outside – and I was trying to find it in other things when I didn’t have that.”

Nonetheless, it is still a very crammed diary, with little free time.

Those early morning starts and late nights provide few opportunities to do much else, and so what is the motivation?

“The way I describe it is I’m probably addicted to cortisol so I love the buzz of being so busy,” says Delray.

“When I get up in the morning, it is motivating to know that my whole day is full.”

“I only do it because I enjoy it. I love the diversity of things I have in my day. I love that each one of them is striving for excellence.

“What is crazy about OUBC is that they’re a bunch of people who also like it too.

“You have a bunch of 40 strong women who are giving everything physically, mentally and sometimes emotionally and then doing a full day of doing the same thing in the classroom – and that is the most exciting part of it all.”

Kyra Delray has been selected to row at five in the Oxford Blue Boat on Saturday 4 April 2026.