Butterflies

Last week was very nearly a complete write-off;  by Thursday evening my foot had swollen considerably and I could barely stand on it, let alone walk or run. But I hit the rehab as hard as I could and by the weekend I was able to do a couple of short runs on the Saturday (15 mins max) and then two more short ones on the Sunday. Being involved with the rest of the Tritalk team helped to get me out the door, which is precisely what the #Jantastic challenge is all about. Yesterday and today I increased the duration again and it seems that everything is back to normal, although I will wait until next week before starting some serious speedwork.

The focus is now firmly on our DW preparation and I am getting that excited feeling you get with an impending big event. We were due to do the Luzmore Race from Elmbridge to the Royal but with my foot playing silly beggars it seemed highly unlikely that we'd get on the start line. As it was, we could have ended up doing it but on Saturday night Adam and I paddled up to Hampton Court for the first time this year. A solid 8 mile paddle in the Laances, again focusing on technique. That was backed up with another short paddle on Monday night; a quick 45 minute paddle to Raven's Ait and back and on Friday night we will be finally paddling the Mystere down to the Royal from Walton. I think both of us are going to try to paddle more independently in order to get hopefully, three paddles in per week.

Unlike last year where we did quite a few tempo and interval sessions, I think it'll be better to focus much more on steady, DW paced paddles. I think that will help us to learn to paddle properly with the most efficient technique possible, rather than paddling like madmen with rubbish technique. Bob has offered to help us with a training schedule so we can discuss that with him and see what he has to say about that. Paddling fast(er) is more fun but it might not actually help us to get to Westminster.

We're hoping to do a few races in preparation, but I know that Adam is not as keen as I am to have another go, but I really do think that we should. It's just actually fitting it all in. We should be able to do either the Waterside B and/or C and the Runnymede to Royal race in March. Ad's not around for the Waterside D, so we are going to have to do that on our own. We are both keen to paddle the nighttime section again in training runs, i.e. Marsport to Shepperton and I think that is going to involve some very late night Friday paddles. We just can't see a way to fit them in at any other time at the moment.  There is however one other big stumbling block; we found out a couple of weeks ago that we do not have any support as Phil will not be available. That's a pretty big headache that we have to resolve but I am sure that we can find someone who can throw the odd hot cross bun at us.

85 days to go. Bollocks.