Not long to go now. All of a sudden we have realised that the DW is only 3 weeks away, so there's not much paddle time actually left. Having said that Adam and I have felt for the last few weeks that we are pretty much as ready as we are going to be and any training at the moment is merely the icing on the cake. We just want to get on with it and do it.
Yesterday was a great day. We were going to do the Royal CC's Marathon race from Windsor to Teddington but we knew that our pace would probably only just see us within the cutoff and that we would have to work well above DW effort, so we decided it would be a lot more useful to instead try to do a recce paddle from Marlow to Old Windsor. We went to pick up the Discovery from the Royal and we were really glad we made the decision that we had. Some seriously hardcore paddlers were coming in, in very skinny K1's and K2's. I think we would have been out of our depth quite badly. None of our support was available so mum and dad really kindly dropped us off at Longridge Scout Camp and then went to Windsor to pick us up. We put in, only to realise that we were not entirely sure which way we had to paddle. :-/ Luckily Adam knew from supporting last year which way it was and as soon as we got going I spotted a big house that had battlements that I recognised and it was on the correct side of the river.
I had accidently left my cag at home but even just in a base layer I was perfectly comfortable and the weather was glorious, only the southerly breeze being a bit of a problem later on. Lots of river traffic but they were all behaving and it was easy to get through. We had assumed that with so little rainfall we would have to deal with some high portages but they were all perfectly manageable. We got a bit confused at Boveney as they were repairing the rollers so it was a portage on the left as opposed to the right, but it was quite simple once we had worked it out.
Again, we really focussed on DW effort with the boat at race weight (dry bag in with all DW compulsory kit). At times it was a bit of a slog; the long pound to Boveney being a bit more hard work than expected with very little flow along that stretch to help us along. We took it really easy at the portages, just trying to keep our heart rate down and feeding and drinking (nuun in water bottles / nuts and raisins / cheese sarnies / tracker bars) It was a great paddle and a missive confidence booster. The best bit though was a surprise; as we pulled the boat out of the water mum and dad handed Adam and I a quarter pounder with cheese each; heaven!! That means we have now paddled the course from Marlow to Teddington, so we are hoping to do Dreadnaught to Marlow the weekend before the DW as our final long paddle.
But before that we will be doing the Waterside D. After the A we both swore blind that there would be no way we'd do this but we decided a couple of weeks ago that we just needed to HTFU and do it. But, we must do our own race, that is treat it as the first 7 hours of the DW; nothing more, nothing less. Do our own thing in our own way and let everyone else get involved in the biff. I am actually quite looking forward to it now.
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Hodge - Sounds tough mate, but keep throwing the kitchen sink at it. Three weeks is a long time....
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