The boys are back

Adam and I had a stonking paddle last night. Wednesday night has become a regular session with us meeting up with a few others training for the DW. We went out in the Mystere while Laurence and Rob joined us in Laances. We were meant to do 4 efforts between Kingston railway bridge and Teddington Lock but the weather was lousy with strong gusts making it hard to keep any kind of rhythm in our stroke, so we focused again on our technique and staying relaxed. In those kind of conditions in the past we've got really tense and struggled to focus on what we needed to do. It just feels completely different to how it was this time last year; despite the weather being pretty grotty we really enjoyed the paddle and had real confidence in ourselves and the boat. I don't think we worry about having to paddle all the time either. We're more ready to brace if required, ride out the bumps and then get going again when things have settled. We would not have won any speed prizes last night but I genuinely think it was one of our best paddles that we have ever done and with the two of us being creatures of confidence then that counts for an awful lot. We threw in a couple of portages as well, to try and remember what to do and we managed to not drop the boat so we must be doing something right.

We still have a lot to do however. Our support crew is still very much work in progress but we have a plan and hopefully by the time of the next post we'll have one lined up. It's only 72 days to go which realistically at best, leaves us with somewhere between 20 and 30 training paddles left.  :-/

We had a bit of a boost as well, from the DW legend that is Brian Greenaway. Last year Adam and I set up a facebook page as we were paddling for charity. Anyway, we kept the page going, basically so that we could insult each other on a public forum and the other day Brian decided to LIKE our page. That is very cool.

In other news....
#Jantastic is coming to an end and thankfully so is my cough. I only have 2 more runs to do this week to keep my 100% record of 5 runs per week in January, so I have had to set my Febulous targets. I am maintaining my 5 runs but I now have to give a distance for a longest run each week, so I've gone 10,12,14 and 12 miles. Hopefully that will also help to remove the bit of extra weight that's started to form around my middle.

I have set a new record this week with 3 turbo sets. Well, 2 and a half. This evening's brick session was curtailed by a puncture (a puncture, indoors, on a turbo, sheesh....) Anyway, it's a start. The winter plan, after a 6 week delay, is finally underway.