'Race Day' - Forestman Iron Distance Triathlon - Part 1

You stupid boy!

I had a great weekend, mainly because I spent it not worrying about staying upright in a kayak, or worrying about how little running I can do, or how little cycling I am doing or how little swimming I have done this year. Instead, I spent it with the people dearest to me, dancing to some tunes and having a couple of cheeky beers while I celebrated the start of my fifth decade on the planet.

I am not very good (read 'rubbish') at multi-tasking, which for someone who takes part in triathlons,  is a very serious drawback. Therefore the last six weeks or so all I could focus on was kayaking and getting some prep done for next year's DW. I should also add that when we are out paddling I feel extremely responsible for Adam. He's my best mate and the last thing I want to do is see him get himself out of his depth while we are training and at the moment at least, I am the experienced one who is usually making the decisions about where we paddle, what we paddle in and what we will do in the session.. At best, it's going to dampen his enthusiasm for what he is doing if I get it wrong and at the worst he could end up floating face down in the water.  Adam's a very good swimmer and we don't take stupid risks when we are out. We always wear BA's, I always have a phone and we are training in a very benign section of the Thames with lots of get-outs, but being a natural worrier I have focused entirely on getting our boat skills up to speed. It has taken longer than both of us thought and now that the weather has become very cold it adds a whole new dimension to our safety and the decisions I make when training and once again my focus has been completely drawn away from all other things, most notably tri. My Van Nic has sat, untouched in the garage for the last four weeks, without a turn of its wheels and because of one rubbish reason after another, so has the Trek commuter. I've put in the odd run and the odd swim but I have constantly been drawn back to the the problems Adam and I are facing, but I miss tri training and have let it slide. The only option is to enter a race and prepare for it. That, I know I can do.

My registration for the Forestman Long course triathlon has just gone through. Now I am worried. :-/

Solid week

Another 3 paddles this week, with two sessions in the Laance. Basic fartlek session which was a 10 minute warm up followed by  8 hard efforts between 2 to 4 minutes. I am really enjoying these paddles and I think they are doing more to help my stroke than anything else. I am still dropping my recovery elbow too low, but I have to really think about it otherwise I just forget; old age creeping in. ;-) I tend to do these while Adam does his own thing and he had two really good paddles at the same time, both for an hour each.

Wednesday was a session in the mystere. Our last two paddles in it had been dire. Before that, everything had been good with stability but Adam just couldn't get his head right for the last couple of paddles so anything was going to be better. The bad news is, that we did have another capsize but the 10 minutes before that was the best paddling that we have done together. As we pushed off initially we teetered our way down to Kingston and after 10 minutes as we put in our turn to come back a rowing 8 with support boat came through very fast, kicking up a big wave. We had to go through it so I got the bow head on and we rode through and as a result Adam, instead of tensing up, completely relaxed. As we came back we had to ride some large swells and waves and we did it perfectly. The boat felt great, we felt great and we were still keeping a good cadence with our stroke rate. Happy days. :-)  We had got through all of that and as we were congratulating ourselves at getting back onto flat water we rolled almost directly opposite the club. We didn't mind too much. We had seen a glimpse of the promised land and proved to both of us that we could paddle the mystere comfortably. We need to just do it a lot more often.

Feeling the cold

Last week I got in three solid paddles which were really enjoyable. Monday night was an hour with Adam in a Laance each and then on Wednesday I did my first paddle out of Teddington, again in a Laance, just to suss out that stretch of river. Other than a lot of rowers with their great long sticky-out oars and the fact that they go very fast, backwards, all was good. Again, another hour or so at a steady pace. On Sunday Ad and I were due to try out a Mirage but Ad had to cancel at the last minute, so as it was 6.30am and I was sat on the sofa dressed head to foot in lycra I manage to quell the urge to go back to bed and drove down to Teddington. This time it was a paddle up to Hampton Court and back with  8 x 3 min hard efforts, really trying to fully engage all parts of the stroke. I almost felt like a proper kayaker! I had a funny moment on the way back as I approached Kingston Bridge; the weather and time of day was identical to when I had been in the DW seven months before; cold rain, low cloud and a biting wind, except this time I was not in tears and actually quite enjoying myself. It brought a lot back. ('You weren't there man!')

This of course was great for me but Ad just couldn't get out and paddle. Sunday was meant to be a session where we took a mirage out as a pre-cursor to buying one. Jamie had bought one himself and found it too tippy but as we had the opportunity to buy one at a good price and the club had two for us to train in, it seemed worth a punt. So, we arrive at the club on Monday evening and it was  cold; really cold.

"This jetty's slippy." said Ad.

"That'll be the ice on it."  Was my rather grim reply. :-(

I get in first and, yep, it's tippy, but seems controllable. Ad gets in gingerly and we sat for a few moments and then we got out paddles and lifted them up. As soon as we did so, the wobbles started and within 10 seconds we are underwater. Yep, it's cold!

We empty the boat and have another go and pretty much the same result, but this time I have the temerity to attempt a paddle stroke; the mirage responds by dumping us both in the water. We might as well be on a bucking bronco, except of course that nothing is moving except us. We repeated this five or six times and then eventually we started to get the hang of it (relatively) and the periods that we spent upright got longer. On about the seventh go we were balancing well but very slowly, we began to drift away from the edge. It was at this point, knowing full well that there was nothing I could do about it, I started to get the giggles as I slowly watched the jetty disappear out of paddle range, and with the giggles came the wobbles, and then the inevitable dunking. So we then had a go on our own. I stayed upright for a couple of minutes and began to rock the boat with my hips to get a feel for it and felt ok but had I taken any form of stroke I probably would have been in. Ad stayed upright for a time as well. Proof that we could do it but collectively we could not stay relaxed enough and were overcompensating for each other. A mirage is not for us (yet).

The boat that would really suit us is a Mystere and we have a lead on one (fingers crossed) but in the meantime the MPCC have very kindly agreed to let Ad and I use one of theirs and keep hold of it for a while, so last night we paddled the mystere from Walton down to Teddington, which would comfortably be our longest paddle to date. I felt great; Ad had the wobbles big time as he had not completed a proper paddle in a week. After two minutes I pulled us over and gave Ad a mild telling off, knowing full well that he was capable of paddling the boat well. "should we go on or turn round now?" We couldn't paddle like that for the next two hours. Ad took a deep breath, got himself together and we plunged on in much better style.

We'd been paddling for an hour and a half or so when we were approaching Raven's Ait. By this time it was gone 11 o' clock and the river was extremely dark. It was raining but we were both warm enough when without warning we were under. :-(  All along the route there were lots of easy banks and jettys to get out but we had capsized in the worse possible place. On our nearest side was a sheer brick wall about 5 metres high which is the side of a reservoir so we had to swim the boat right across the river. The reason we were not on that side was because I was concerned about getting in the way of the party boats which regularly steam up and down that section. Next time, I won't bother. We got in and I was shaking uncontrollably and in an effort to get warm I started batting out a stupidly high stroke rate and Ad told me, sensibly, to ease up. By Kingston I felt a bit better and within fifteen minutes I was under a hot shower at the clubhouse, still shaking.

Time to call in the professionals

Ad and I decided to get back into K1 boats again this week, following our last dodgy paddle in the Mystere, so on Wednesday Ad was in the Laance while I found a very battered looking club Hobby which had its rear body held on by an enormous grp bandage. It seemed unlikely that it was watertight as I put it into the water but it handled beautifully and we were soon warming up with a paddle downstream to Sunbury. The focus again was purely on technique again and trying to rotate and engaging the core muscles in our stroke. I paddled alongside Ad trying to give him some pointers to help him and I could see clearly when he was rotating his shoulders. I was having a ball; the hobby felt really stable and I was using the time to do some interval efforts while unbeknown to him I also did a bit of wash hanging off the back of Ad's boat. Ad was really enjoying himself and his steering was improving all the time and then he capsized. Doh. It's hard not to think in terms of a successful paddle as being one where you don't capsize but if we're playing it safe and not finding the limits of what we can do then we are not going to improve. The water was not too cold and we were soon finishing the session. All in all, a good one to chalk up.

That brings us to today. When I started paddling again with Jame eighteen months ago, we received some initial coaching which got us going, from the boys in the MPCC. But since then, Jamie and I very much paddled on our own, reading up on how we should be training and using youtube to give us an idea of what an effective paddle stroke should look like. Like swimming, it's extremely technical and not something that you can just copy and get right and with me being a kinesthetic learner ('Show me don't tell me' ;-) and with Ad needing help it seemed time that we got some proper help. So today we went along to our first session at The Royal Canoe Club; if it's good enough for Tim Brabants, it's good enough for us. ;-) So Ad and I sat on kayak ergos while Ed, a club coach looked at what we were doing. It turns out that neither Ad or I are natural paddlers with an innate ability and we were soon working up quite a sweat as we overlooked the Thames. At first I was all arms. Without a moving boat underneath me I was merely pulling on the bar rather than doing anything that I had taught myself, but gradually I started to swivel and get my hips moving. My main problem is at the start of the stroke with my recovery arm starting too low and close to my body which is lowering my whole stroke and not giving me enough rotation. To prove his point, Ed got me onto another ergo which only operates on one side of the stroke so you can actually see how far your rotation propels you; my lats creaked and strained and I barely stretched the single bungee cord for than  half a metre (Ed told us that Brabants does the same drill attached to a 50kg mass!!) Gradually it started to click as I kept my hand high and started to move a  bit further up the slope. It's precisely what we need in order to make some big improvements by getting some coaching, boats (Kirton Mirages; Ed reckons they're so stable you can dance in them (a wobble factor of 5 says otherwise) a gym and a bar. ;-)  Bring it on.

Bit of a rubbish one

We paddled to Shepperton and back this evening. Conditions were perfect except for the cloud cover which came over quickly and made it very dark; the Desborough cut was more like a tunnel. We were not unstable but the boat just was not riding well, particularly on the way back. We were both far too tense and once again a lean developed after 30 minutes or so. Going under Walton Bridge on the way back was the worse that I have felt in a kayak in a really long time. Time to get back in the K1's.