The elephant in the room

We had our first proper, long paddle yesterday from Old Windsor to Teddington and while it was great to get some solid miles under our belts it highlighted our major weakness, again. Core strength.

The weather wasn't great with a pretty strong headwind at times. Ad hadn't been in a boat for a week and he never really settled into the paddle properly although there were many good patches along the way. We walked through all the portages (during the race last year Jamie and I were not running by the time we got to this section anymore anyway) so we took our time and fed and drank. I was using a new camelbac bladder that had a very bad case of incontenence as it emptied its contents all over me and the boat whenever I bent down, so I need to get a valve thingy to go on the end for next time. We had two particulalry high portages to contend with at Sunbury and Shepperton but they were fine although we almost took a swim at Penton Hook as we pushed off with a lot of swell. We both had our hands completely underwater on the support stroke but we were able to keep the right way.

So, the elephant in the room? Or should that be the kayak? It's this core problem that causes us to lose our form. We are really stable in the mystere now but we loose our stability as Ad's core strength fades. The situation is getting better in that we did our longest ever paddle together yesterday and for the vast majority of it we were fine. Compare that to just a couple of weeks ago when we were struggling with this after 90 minutes. But when the lean comes on it's really difficult for us both to paddle efficiently and it just feels like were are going to tip in all the time. Not a good situation for us to be in only 8 weeks out from the race and we just don't know whether 8 weeks will give us enough time to sort it out.

So, it seems that after conquering the mystere our final hope is to get back into a discovery and see if the little bit of extra stability from it will be enough to take some of the pressure off Ad's core. To be honest, I'm not sure that it will and that what we'll just need to ensure that we are getting out onto the water 3 times a week and that Ad can keep hammering his swiss ball.

Sunday is the Waterside A. Our aims are;
1. Portage efficiently and have really good push aways.
2. Not get in anyone's way.
3. Enjoy it.

It's been nice doing some bike work recently and got a decent 1 hour run in last week. On sunday I did a 4.40 hr ride and ended up getting lost around Ewehurst but found some new lanes and old ones I had forgotten about. I'm even thinking about taking the Van Nic off the turbo and getting my tri-bars back on...

Replies
Hodge - Come and say hello on Sunday. Have a good race. :-)