Creaking and Groaning

I am afraid I am one of those people who has always liked watching old black and white war films (No.3 Reach for the Sky, No.2 Ice cold in Alex, No.1 The Dambusters are my top three, if you're interested, which you're probably not). Anyway, there's a scene in 'Above us the Waves' where John Mills has to dive deep in his submarine to escape the odd depth charge or two and as he does so, the bulkheads start to creak, valves begin to pop and stiff upper lips begin to tremble. That's a pretty good metephor for my body at the moment as the training load is begining to take effect and things are starting to ache, creak and protest. Last week during our paddle I developed a real hot spot at the base of my neck which I have had before, but this time instead of it going away after 10 minutes it stayed there, nagging away for the full duration of the session. Nothing a bit of nurofen wouldn't sort out in the race but when you want everything to give you confidence it's not ideal. My hamstrings are also tighter than very tight things at the moment and require constant stretching. Not a problem when running but afterwards they are getting quite sore and have started to bother me a bit when paddling. My calves, which have been my nemesis for the last couple of years have however been absolutely fine. But. Must. Stretch. Lots.

We had to abandon Sunday's long paddle as Ad had a bug but I ended up doing a brick session instead and we bunted our paddle to Monday. It was great. We really worked hard against the flow at well above DW effort (lots of creaking from me) and then after a quick rest at Molesey we headed back at DW effort. We are really working on slowing down our stroke rate and trying to get our stroke as long as possible. Most advice that I have been given seems to suggest that you should have a shorter, quicker stroke for something like the DW, but that just doesn't seem to work for us. By slowing it down we rotate much better and get our lead hands further forward. It feels comfortable so we're going to stick with it. :-)

As we came back to Eel Pie Island we heard the distinctive 'thwack....thwack....thwack...' of a swan beating its wings hard, trying to take off. I suddenly saw a pair of them at 2 feet off the water heading straight for my headtorch no more than 20 metres away. 'Oh f**k, duck.' It wasn't a duck, it was a swan, but you know what I mean. ;-) Ad and I are not the most flexible of fellas but we had our noses on the deck of the disco as they passed no more than a few feet above our heads. Apparently quite a few people have died while DW training but being poleaxed by a rotund avian missile would seem like a particularly stupid way to go. It was however very nice not to have to wear a hat or pogees. All of a sudden, this kayaking lark's become quite a lot of fun.