In the petite finals, though, the 1V was able to put a solid row together, and finished 0.6 seconds behind Washington in 6:38.40, which wound up being the final day of racing’s sixth fastest time.

“It is really hard to feel the kind of disappointment we felt not making it into the Grand Final but go out there and race our hardest anyway,” Lambert said. “In a way, I am more proud of our race this past Sunday than I am of our championship race last year.

“We didn’t go out in a blaze of glory this year like we did last year, but I think that this year’s race demanded far more of us in terms of commitment and psychological focus. When you’ve got the kind of momentum and energy that we had heading into that race last year, it becomes easier somehow—there’s still tremendous physical effort involved, but the momentum takes over somehow and you just hang on and go with it.”

Those strokes were the last in the Black and White for Radcliffe’s seniors.

“I know that we raced our absolute fastest race on Sunday, and I’m really proud of us,” Lambert added. “It was a good race to have be my last.”

—Staff writer J. Patrick Coyne can be reached at coyne@fas.harvard.edu.