A good one, at last.

Adam paddling back from Molesy Lock

After our trials and tribulations in the mystere over the last couple of weeks, we have finally had something good to report. On Wednesday last week we tried the Stratos; it's even more unstable than the mystere so after sitting in it for approximately 30 seconds we got out and went for a short paddle in the Laances. I was feeling pretty shaky still and did not relax until we were almost back home after 30 minutes. We had both decided that we needed to get out in daylight so this morning we headed out for an easy paddle up to Hampton Court. It took 2 hours, so it was pretty slow but it was just about re-building some confidence. The fact that the temperature was a dizzyingly high 5 degrees also helped and while I had a poor first 20 minutes it was what we needed to log some paddle time. Ad was feeling it a bit in the last 20 minutes with his back protesting but with work and a lot more paddling that will sort itself out. It was the first time in quite a while that I was enjoying being on the river.

Other good news; I have been running, pain free a couple of times. Only for 25 minutes but with no reaction at all so the stretching I am doing must be working and I am looking forward to maintaining this over the next few weeks. Turboing has been patchy and hard work and swimming has dropped off the radar altogether. On Friday I will be cycling outside for the first time in a long time, as long as no more snow arrives.

Time for plan B

Things came to a bit of a head yesterday after our latest paddle in the mystere. It started off badly, with Adam having a big dose of the wobbles as we pulled away and the first 10 minutes were as bad as we have had in the last 6 weeks. I was doing my best to keep relaxed but Adam could not get comfortable until he had moved the seat. We settled in and kept ploughing up and down but gradually our form started to disintegrate until eventually, I just lost it; I really threw my toys out the canoe. I can honestly say I have never felt as demoralised as I did then and the ten minute paddle back to the clubhouse was the worse 10 minutes, ever, I have had in a kayak, with it conducted in silence as we twitched and splash supported our way back. Even now, I cannot quite understand how I can have so much confidence one minute and so little the next and it is this that makes our lack of progress so infuriating.

So what now? Well, one thing's for certain, we will not be doing the DW in a mystere. We both agreed that we have been deluding ourselves that with practice we could overcome the problems we have faced, and when we thought about it we really have made little progress. We can stay upright, but that simply is not enough as we need to be putting in a lot of solid miles over the next few months with good technique and with confidence. At the moment we have neither of those things.



 and that's not going to happen in the time we have left. The club has a stratos we can train in for the time being which is more stable and we can see how we go with it.

Staying indoors

We were due to go out in the mystere last night when a blizzard came through (well, by Surrey standards anyway!) so we hit the kayak ergos for 45 minutes, a bit of core work and then a 25 minute run on the rec next to the club. it was my first run in three weeks.

Turbo this afternoon followed by a paddle tonight now that it's a bit warmer.

It's not you, it's me.

As you may have gathered from my last post paddling has been pretty difficult. We had hoped to make some big gains and be comfortably settled into the boat by now and putting some mileage in, but we have still been fighting with it to a degree. It's taken a while but I have now got something straight in my head which I am hoping will be a bit of  a turning point for us. The boat feels a lot different with Ad in it, much more so than when Jamie and I paddled together and in my mind I always thought that is what it should feel like again. Jamie and I were in a heavy, stable boat, we both weighed approximately the same andwere a fairly lighweight crew and therefore there was hardly any movement, even when we were giving it some beans. The bottom line is, it is never going to feel like that for Adam and I in the mystere and pretending otherwise is dillusional. It moves a lot more, it's less forgiving of mistakes and it is taking a lot of concentration for us at the moment to paddle it well.

I simply have to get used to the movement that we are generating and relax more. I am getting really tense when we cross the river, for absolutely no reason; I just get extremely twitchy> I am absolutely fine in the Laance which is as stable as the mystere, but get me in the mystere and I get the shakes. It's all in my head and I need to find a way to overcome it as it's holding us back. Tuesday's paddle was a case in point. We had a solid paddle up to Kingston with a stretch at halfway. As we paddled back under Kingston bridge we had a bad patch, followed by a good patch at Kingston Rowing club and then as we made the turn to come back to the club my stroke went to worms and all I could think about was 'Don't go in the water'. It was actually almost paralysing and as we made it back with 100 metres to go, still with my stroke all over the place I ended up shouting at the top of my voice a rather fruity expletive. I was seriously hacked off at my own performance and I need to overcome it. I'm just not quite sure how.

The following day was a turbo session; 2 x 20 minutes which hurt. A lot. But at least I can't fall off a turbo.

Not feeling the love

A 40 minute paddle in the mystere this evening, with both of us at various times feeling pretty rugged. We just can;t seem to get comfortable in the boat. We;re going to give it another few weeks before we start thinking that maybe we need something even more stable. Hopefully it will not come to that....

My left foot - part 2

One K1 paddle on monday night with Adam and a run on Tuesday has been followed by four days hobbling around after stretching / tweaking / twisting my left ankle and achilles. Not during a hard training session but while sleeping in bed.  I must be one of the few people that can injure themselves while unconscious; it beggars belief.

Normal service will be resumed......

Back in the habit

No paddling this week; I think mentally Ad and I needed a break as the last paddle we did on sunday week ended up with us getting changed in silence, contemplating our up and down progress. In the Laances everything is fine but as soon as we get into the mystere it all turns to worms. Our paddle last week was one hour and it was ok (ish) but whenever we had to cross the flow we really tensed up, so I ended up sticking to the bank which meant when we came to the end of a run we couldn't get the boat aound. It was as we were faffing about trying to stern rudder the boat the right way that we went over. I tried as hard as I could to brace and keep us upright but I simply couldn't overcome the inertia. A very cold 5 minutes back to the clubhouse. Grim!  We had put in a few practice portages to try to break things up but really we should have just stayed in the cockpits; it was too cold for that shennanigans! Ad is getting really frustrated at not being able to progress as well as he was hoping and I am really frustrated that I cannot help him more. I think the appropriate phrase here is 'The blind leading the blind'. I think more K1 work, more ergo work and short paddles in the mystere until the air temperature gets back above 0 degress is the plan.

I've had 4 turbo sessions on the bike this week. The weather's been rubbish for running and I only have a very old and knackered set of running flats, not suitable for ice and snow. My main focus towards the Forestman is the bike; that's where I can make the most gains but at the moment I need to get back into the habit of training regularly in all three disciplines so that's what the next month or so is going to be about. Little and often.

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