A short paddle

A one hour paddle with Jamie this morning, just to remind myself what it is like to paddle a kayak. Jamie was in his Tor while I stuck to a laance. All in all, it wasn't too bad, although quite slow, with quite a bit of flow on the Thames. We just did a lap of Desborough and then most of the way down to the portage at Walton. Jamie looked relaxed and lazily fast while I felt right and achy. I really must spend a bit of time looking after my back as it will help everything. The club have a new Marsport Epsilon, so after I put the laance away I had a sit in it. It's about the same wobble factor as Jamie's Tor but it was a bit too much for me at the moment. I think I might get back out in the club Hobby and work up to the Epsilon when the air temperature warms up, as I am bound to take a swim in it at some point. 

Anyway, a beautiful morning to be on the river. Back into the shed this evening to start the Trainerroad 40km TT speciality plan and my first 10m tt at the weekend.

Jamie in his Tor 

Thinking about trying the Epsilon. Deciding against it.

The chuckle brothers back on the river.

Mixing it up a little

I didn't ride the 25 last week. The day before I had run Bushy parkrun and clocked 19:08. A very pleasing time considering I wasn't really going for it, but I think that was fairly conclusive proof that the new course with more tarmac underfoot, is a good 15-20 seconds faster than the old one. Unfortunately there was a downside in that my left calf and achilles took a hell of a beating as a result. Allied to that a load of work that had to be done and my head not in the right place meant I just didn't fancy it. So no running this week and my usual commute cycling, with a little bit of foam rolling, stretching and core work has been the order of the week.

On Monday evening I got out in a Llance again. It was very late and dark by the time I was able to actually get on the water, and again, I was just focussing on trying to get some good techniques going, attempting to remember everything that Bob taught me and Adam a few years ago with the main points trying to spear the water at my feet and getting a good rotation going. Thankfully the weather is very mild at the moment so no need for lots of warm clothing and the  40 minute paddle went by pretty quickly. I forgot how much nature you encounter on these night paddles. I think I must have seen a dozen bats, or maybe it was the same one orbiting my boat? They really are noisy, flappy things.

Last night Jamie and I met up for a paddle in a Condor which was good fun and our longest paddle so far at 47 minutes with our usual loop around Desborough Island. There was quite a bit of flow and the steering was a bit tricky with a sticky cable causing us to have to stop a few times, but even in spite of this we had the boat bouncing along nicely and our numbers are looking pretty good. Jamie is a bit of a machine and his technique is much better than mine. It's good for me to be able to be sat behind him as it really makes me focus on getting my catch and rotation correct. So lots more steady, short paddling for a few months while we build up our cores and ensure that we don't continue to fall to bits. Sounds like a plan.

Idling over

Long time no blog. Sorry. Training has had to take a necessary back seat over the last month. I won't bore you with why but I have had the kind of month where I wish that I had the talent and time to be a pro athlete instead of my actual day job, which most of the time I love but has given me a fair few headaches.

The main casualty has been swimming which had started to click recently but as I can only get along to the pool in the evenings I just have not been able to get the sessions ticked off. Of the three disciplines this is the one that requires most planning and organisation to get to and the slightest spanner in the works tends to end up with me missing my session.

Running. I am actually running again which is a good thing. Only 40 minutes at the moment and it's only a controlled shuffle but it is a start. Once again, I seem to be getting back to running Again just as the race that I was going to work up to comes into view. The Bournemouth Marathon is next week and I withdrew a couple of weeks ago when walking downstairs was proving achy. I think I would like to work up to running a couple of half marathons over the winter which should give me a good balance of stamina and speed and get down to sub 1:25.

Cycling has been in tickover with quite a bit of commuting to and from work forming the bulk of my work. I have been getting back into Strava and enjoyed hitting some of the segments hard and the work that I have put in over the last six months has seen me achieve some top 10 positions in some quite big segments. It's a nice vindication of the work that I have put in and while it doesn't count for anything it's nice to see a little gold cup next to my name.

I have been paddling taking some kids on their BCU 1 star award and as a result I have paddled a tor for the first time. I even stayed upright and yesterday we took some tubs out and did some weir
shoots. A big wobble on the last drop but I just about kept it the right way up. It's the Liffey Descent today so maybe I need to give that a go in a year or two. ;-)
So things are in bit of transition at the moment as I head towards the off season.

Oh. My. Days.

Dark? Cold? Windy? must be DW training in April.

It's just as well we have a whole year before the next DW. Tonight was my first paddle in a while. A long while. It was a filthy night and I probably should have waited until the wind had dropped and for daylight, but hey, I'm a seasoned campaigner. It's nothing I can't cope with.

I was on the water for 25 minutes which was plenty enough. It was just about getting some feeling for the water and getting into a boat again. The llance felt unusually twitchy with the wind controlling my blades more than I was. I kept my stroke rate slow and focussed on spearing my feet. Just like old times.  :-/

Pack it up, pack it in..

This week has been monumentally crap and so my training took a bit of a hit. A truly rubbish day at work on Tuesday meant that I had to scrub the commute rides for the rest of the week in favour of lugging work stuff to and fro, which with the best will in the world is hard to do, even if it is a titanium framed beauty. On Thursday evening I got my dull ache behind my second toe on my right foot again; the ominous sign that I was going to get another foot swelling episode, and sure enough on Friday my foot had begun to lump up again. The one silver lining in this episode was that I immediately put my trainers on and instead of spending 4 days in limping hell, the swelling started to abate a lot quicker and it's been a lot less painful. So, two things I have got from this. One, exercise seems to have less to do with this than I thought and two, I can control it to a certain degree. Another small victory in getting my running shoes back on.

OK, so big decision time. It's time to stop paddling. I said at the beginning of the summer that I would try to get to grips with the Ranger and hopefully get to paddle it to Hampton Court and back. I'm not even close and realistically I don't have the talent or perseverance to want to make it work. Allied to that, I just cannot see myself getting back into a boat to do the DW again. Some of my fingers and toes are still slightly numb and I am convinced that sitting on a hard plastic seat for 28 hours has made my foot problem worse. The DW and marathon paddling requires commitment and I am just not prepared to spend another winter doing stupidly late paddles to get the miles in. So today, a young man came down to the Royal and bought my boat off me and I was not sorry to see it go.  Easter will forever hold very special memories. I will never look at a hot cross bun in the same way again and when I wake up on future Easter Sundays I will wish all DW competitors luck, knowing that they are on the last leg of a fabulous journey.  But for me, it's over.  Time to concentrate fully on getting my running legs back and becoming a triathlete again.

Some great memories

Not much to see here

It was another easy paddle in a laance mid-week with Jonesy, this time venturing a little further upstream to Raven's Ait and back. I had preceeded it by scaring myself witless in the Ranger when I took that out for 20 minutes while I waited for him to arrive. It was my first paddle in it in a fortnight so felt a bit more wobbly again and when I got to the end of the island cut I had an enormous wobble as I turned the boat round to come back. I managed to keep myself upright  with the largest and deepest brace stroke that I have ever done before tip-toeing my way back to the clubhouse. I spent another 10 minutes doing some stability exercices at the club (probably should have done those before I went out :-/  ) before settling for the relative safety of a laance. At some point I am going to just have to bit the bullet and take the ranger out onto the river proper and now the colder weather's approaching and the fishermen are retreating back indoors I 'll be able to stay a bit closer to the bank. I just need to man-up a bit.

Cycling has revolved around commuting and Strava has really come into its own. There a 3 segments on the way home that I take turns in attacking and I have managed to get myself into the top 10 for 2 of them. I am patheically pleased with myself about. :-) I must look like a complete loon to other road users as they see me gurning and dry-humping my bike in a bid to get every last bit of speed out of it in order to move up a place or 2 on that particular segment's list. I am yet to become a Strava ' King of the Mountain' but I intend to get one before the winter's out.

So, still riding my bike fairly consistently and paddling my kayak fairly infrequently.  But it's all good.

Back in a laance

Jonesy and I went for a paddle last night in some club laances. I felt a bit of a failure regressing back to one after trying to master the Ranger for the past couple of months but there's only so many lengths of the narrow cut that I can take. To be honest, it's not only been a bit stressful but also a bit boring. I needed a change so we hit the river for the first time in months. It felt like good old fashioned DW training and I loved it. We were only out for an hour or so and we didn't go very far, shuttling between Teddington lock and Kingston railway bridge, but it was so good to be back in a boat paddling without worrying about a capsize all the time. I did a few half-hearted interval efforts but mainly I was just trying to do the basics right. It made me remember what I enjoy about paddling. We need a project and I would love to have a go at the Liffey Descent race next year. Weirs, capsizes and Guiness; what's not to like?

Riding my bike; paddling my kayak

Training things have been on a slow but steady rise over the course of the summer and I am seeing some improvement which is helping my fragile confidence. I stated a few posts ago that the plan was 3-4 bikes per week, a paddle and a swim. It's no surprise that it has been on the bike that most has been gained although I was starting from a very low point. The shock of setting an all-time worst for a 10 mile tt a few months ago was the starting point. All I have done, which any coach or Internet guru will tell you is key, is to be consistent. I have not tried to smash hundreds of miles or bury myself on the turbo, but simply to ride my bike up hills and ride some bits faster than normal. Keep it simple stupid. I've raced four 10 mile tts and seen a gradual improvement in performance. In fact, a couple of weeks ago on an absolutely beautiful still evening, I set a 10 pb, without trying much. One of those, 'Where did that come from?' type of performances, and then last Saturday I was on the G10/42 course again and it was back to feeling like an asthmatic ant carrying heavy shopping.  I can see from the numbers when I come back from a ride that my average speed is slowly creeping up while my rpe slowly gets lower. Let's hope I can keep that going.

Paddling was proving difficult recently. I went through a phase of simply not being able to stay upright in the Ranger for any length of time so I took a week off. Last night, I went back and I was not expecting much but it was much better. Adam accompanied me in a laance while I took to the island cut again. The first 15 minutes were really good, but then the catches started again. I've figured out what it is though. It's simply my core working very hard and gradually I lose control of my lower back and hips. I had a solid 40 minutes last night and walked away dry so that's a big step back in the right direction. I guess I need to really build up my core if I am to see some big improvement here.

My foot issue has had some developments. Firstly, I had my physio appointment a couple of weeks ago and after much prodding and poking, in a completely non-biblical sense by the very nice physio, Alison, she told me that she didn't know what was wrong. This is actually a good thing, because she has now referred me to have an MRI scan which will be the week after next. I have not run since 26th April and I have had no pain or discomfort in my foot for weeks now, so last night, after my paddle, I decided to test it out. My reasoning is two-fold. Either, it's healed, whatever it is and I'll be able to run on it or it hasn't and it may flare up again, in which case it will show up on the MRI. That said, I was not stupid. I ran for 8 minutes on grass at a very easy pace. So far, so good. Ironically, there was an article in 220 magazine this month where a reader was asking about pain on the outside of the foot. The two main culprits listed were the two things that seem to be my potential nemesis, peroneal tendon weakness or pressure on the cuboid and fifth metatarsal. The plan is to get myself some new footwear and do some small amounts of running and see how things go. In the meantime, more biking.

Fulfilling the prophecy

If you think to yourself  "I'm going to capsize" the chances are that you will. As I pushed away from the jetty early yesterday morning that was all that I was thinking to myself. I had gone early in the hope that I would be on my own because the day before I had had a bad time in the Ranger, capsizing twice and not settling down at all. So to turn up at the Royal and see Tim Brabants, the current K1 1000m metre Olympic Champion going through his paces was a tad off putting. The contrast between an athlete absolutely at the top of his game and me was particularly stark, especially when I decided to show him how well I could roll a boat and end up upside down in the water, sucking goose poo through my teeth like a blue whale eats plankton. I was not sure that he had seen how well I could capsize so I decided to do it again some 5 metres later. Boy, I was on fire. I've got this capsize thing absolutely nailed.

So last week I paddled 5 times, which for me is an all time record in consistency. That fact that I got consistently worse as the week progressed is vexing. I'm trying to get a handle on what I am doing wrong. It maybe core strength but I actually think that's one thing that I've got a lot of. I think that I have to get my legs cycling more and use my hips while keeping them relaxed. It might be that I have to increase my leg drive in order to become more stable because I'm too tense which means that a roll to one side is not conteracted with a fluid roll to the other. I don't know. Mybe it's just a lot more time in the boat is required.

In other good news, Simon did the Outlaw Triathlon yesterday and took an hour off of his time from the Forestman last year, coming home in 11:15hrs. A great performance and I am convinced that if he sticks together a solid block of training he can get down to sub 10:30. I hope that at some time in the near future I can join him.

Moving the goalposts again

My foot injury continues to play havoc with my training and this season is now officially a write-off. It's settled down in that I can walk comfortably but if I have to stand on it for any length of time it soon starts to nag away. I have been doing 3 commutes per week on the Van Nic with one of  them being my 22 mile route home via Boxhill to get me out on a 'proper' ride. I have to be careful though. I have found out that trying to push any form of larger gear gets my foot grumbling again. Gentle spinning is allowed but anything racey is a no-no. I'm still using RICE on it, but I honestly don't think it's doing any good at all, but at least it makes me feel like I'm doing something. I can feel my fitness ebbing away and when this foot problem is resolved it's going to be a long climb back. There's another GP's appointment in the pipeline and then hopefully some treatment.

In the meantime I've been getting to grips with the Ranger. We've kind of reached a stalemate. I'm not good enough to paddle it properly and it's not tippy enough to throw me in the water, although I've had quite a few close calls. Tonight I will be out for my 3rd paddle this week in it. On Wednesday I even went out onto the open river and before I knew it I was in the middle of the Thames. It was a stunning sunset over Teddington and I just wish I had had the stability to take a picture on my camera phone but as it was deep in my BA pocket I thought better about getting it out.

So, I've done an hour's paddling and stayed upright. Now I have got to figure out how to start paddling with greater fluency. I think it's something to do with my recovery; maybe leaving the paddle in slightly too long? I need a goal and it now seems obvious. I'm going to aim to be able to paddle to Hampton Court and back in the Ranger before the end of the summer holidays. At the moment I stand more chance of unicycling to the Sahara, but like I've said before, no one said it would be easy. The bit that worries me is around Kingston Bridge as it's not easy to get out there if you take a swim, so I'll plug up and down between the bridge and Teddington lock for a few weeks and then a bit like Buzz lightyear,  I'll head to Thames Ditton and beyond.

So you want to do the DW? Part 2.

Some more of my thoughts for fellow MAMILs / MAWILS training for the DW.

5. Get Stable. I have found stability an odd thing to get my head around; sometimes I feel terribly twitchy in a boat, even ones that are supposedly high up the wobble factor scale. I have found that there is a simple correlation between the amount of paddling I do and the more stable I become, but other than that, if you are struggling,  how do you improve your stability? Well, these are the points that have helped me;

i. Bracing. Bracing is basically a support stroke that is used to help you recover if you tip too far. Practise bracing. The more confident I was in my ability to brace the better I paddled. Practice bracing in shallow water and find out how far you can tip the boat over before capsizing.

This guy's just showing off, but you get the idea. ;-)

ii. Keep your head up. Don't look down at the boat but look up ahead or at the horizon.

iii. Start off in a stable boat* that you can handle, get your technique nailed and then gradually move to a more tippy kayak. It's more important that you can go out and paddle comfortably on the river for an hour and have a good training session than spending that hour trying to stay upright, so don't waste months trying to master a boat when you probably don't need to.

Start stable and paddle!

iv. There are other stability exercises that you can do in the boat. E.G. sitting in the boat and do the paddling action without the paddle. I find that this helps you to think about your hip position and how this effects the boat. I am sure there are others. Again, a coach will have exercises and drill to help you.

v. Do core exercises. You core muscles are not only essential in helping you power the boat through the water but a strong core also helps with stability. When you first start paddling you will probably find your back aching like never before; this is because your lower back, hips and hamstrings are doing an awful lot of work keeping you upright. I would advise you to do a core session or two per week, using a Swiss Ball or some other similar device of torture.

There are plenty of core exercises and videos for you to develop a simply programme. I usually did a 30 minute session twice  a week. Start gently. If you have back problems, take advice.

These are the 2 main exercises I focussed on;

* More Stable boats;

K1 - Marsport Laance or Hobby, Kirton Tor (Mid-range stability boat)

K2 - Marsport Condor, Kirton Mystere, Kirton Meister, Kirton Mirage (Mid-range stability boat)


Useful Links

Kirton kayaks

Marsport

So you want to do the Devizes to Westminster Canoe Race?

I have been inspired to write this post having read Antony Murr's blog over the last couple of years. Within it you will find a whole host of hints, information and generally useful stuff that will get you thinking about how to tackle 'The Canoeists' Everest' and I strongly advise you to trawl through it. At the moment Antony is writing a series of posts to help readers get to the start of the race, and having gone from numpty to (fairly) experienced paddler in the last 3 years I thought it might be useful to anyone reading this to get a relative beginner's ideas and thoughts on this fantastic event and how you might go about training for it and the problems that you may encounter. In conjunction with Jamie and Adam, I made a LOT of mistakes and the next few posts might just help you avoid them. Maybe.... ;-)

Let me point out, I am not a coach. There are many, many more experienced paddlers than I who can give you advice and tips but these are my thoughts and on reflection the things that I should have done to prepare me better for this event.

1. It's the DW.
You must call this race 'The DW.' At all times. It means that you're in the know and confuses anyone else who knows nothing about kayaking or canoeing. It also means that you have to explain the event, in detail, to anyone that asks you "What's the DW?" Alternatively, when seeking a partner for the Senior Doubles it means you can lie or simply not tell them how far it is, only letting them in on the 'Devizes to Westminster' bit at the last opportunity.

2. Technique is EVERYTHING.
I'm writing this making the assumption that you've never paddled before. Saying that you had a go at it once in Centre Parcs or with the Scouts doesn't count. You're a MAMIL/ MAWIL (and proud). Maybe you've done a 10k, marathon or something similar and therefore have a degree of fitness although not specifically canoe / kayak related. A friend in a pub mentions 'The DW' and it's got you interested and then you decide it sounds like a good idea. What next?

Ok, well let's start with an analogy. If you had decided that you were going to swim the Channel, but yet you couldn't swim, would you throw yourself into the sea and go for a 2 mile swim? No, of course you wouldn't. You would LEARN TO SWIM first. Therefore, it's really important that you LEARN TO PADDLE FIRST. How you learn is up to you but I would advise either joining a club with a coaching set-up or if you know an experienced paddler who can advise you and take you out, then do that. Either way, you want someone who can give you direct feedback on your technique and tell you how you can improve. Ultimately it will make you faster, but you will also be much less likely to retire through injury during the race. Let's say that you have given yourself a year to get ready for the DW, then I would not worry at all for the first 5 or 6 months about long paddles. Get in a boat and get your technique as good as you can get it. Go out with other (good) paddlers whenever you can and see how they paddle. You will learn a lot by doing this and probably get more efficient and faster as a result. I would advise against interval training in the boat initially. Better to focus on ingraining good technique rather than trying to move the boat fast through the water with poor technique.

I would also keep your paddles for the first few months relatively short but try to go out frequently, ideally 3 times in a week for say 30-45 minutes so that you can focus on maintaining good technique throughout the paddle.  In my opinion it's better to do 3 x 30 minute paddles than 1 x 90 minute paddle. Don't worry; the long paddles will come later.

3. K1 not K2
Readers of this blog will know that I have just bought myself a K1 boat, some 3 years after I started paddling with Jamie. This is 3 years too late. We did a few K1 paddles but not many. You will develop more quickly as a paddler if you concentrate on paddling in a K1. You can develop your own technique, stability and steering. It means both of you will have to learn to steer a  boat. It means that you can go out independently as a paddler as you will not have to have a partner with you. Most clubs will have club boats and they may not be pretty or fast but they will get you on the water and you can begin the process of learning good technique. Initially, for the first 3 or 4 months I would not even think about getting into a K2. You will progress much quicker in K1 boats than you would struggling in a K2. Every year there are posts on various websites for paddlers who for some reason have had to pull out through injury or illness which results in the other paddler unable to race. Being proficient in a K1 at least gives you the option of doing the 4 day race in a K1 if it should come to that.

4. Be Safe
Most of this is obvious but it's worth repeating. By joining a club you will be able to go out in a group and there's safety in numbers. At some point you will capsize so know how to do it and look after yourself. The BCU FSRT course is well worth doing in my opinion to help you manage some of the situations that you may encounter. Initially, train on a benign piece of water where you know that if you go for a swim then you can get yourself out. Wear a good fitting bouyancy aid. As you gain more experience and confidence in your ability and handling a kayak then is the time to try water where you are more likely to encounter hazards, flow, river traffic etc. You are going to encounter these issues during the DW so you will need to become confident in higher flow, waves etc, but get used to your K1 first before tackling these things.

Some useful links

BCU - Find a Club

Find a Boat

Find a Paddler

Devizes To Westminster Canoe Race


More to follow......

Kirton Ranger 7 - Wheezy 0



5.30am coming back from Aberdeen. Another boat on the road.

I had been trying to get my hands on a mid-range stability K1 boat for a long time. A wobble factor 1 or 2 boat I could have bought 20 times over but something that would be stable enough for me to cope with and yet be a little bit more racey was proving as rare as rocking horse poo. Frustration and ebay are a lethal combination and before I knew it I had purchased a boat at a really good price; but it was in Aberdeen. Actually, it wasn't in Aberdeen, it was in Aberdeenshire, in Peterhead, another 50 odd miles north of Aberdeen.  :-0 Let this be a lesson to anyone else who's geographical knowledge is as poor as mine. Mrs Wheezy just rolled her eyes at my stupidity while friends openly mocked. You've bought a what? Where? How much is that going to be in petrol? The answer; as much as the boat was to cost me. Hey ho. The boat in question is a Kirton Ranger. A quick search revealed that with a wobble factor of 4 it was probably a bit on the tippy side of stable but I like a challenge. I wouldn't know until I gave it a go.

So last weekend after a really long day at our local street party I set out at 5am to do the 10 hour drive. It was awful weather up until Kendal and then it was beautiful sunshine for the rest of the trip which was a bonus. As I went through Aberdeen and hit the coast road for the final part of the journey I saw a fleet of approximately 20 enormous fishing vessels heading out into the North Sea; it was a fantastic sight.

Although the boat was old it had not been used for the last 15 years. The gel coat's still got its turquoise colour having been stored inside and while it's got the usual scrapes here and there, the boat is in great nick. I was really pleased with it. An early night and a quick sleep in the travelodge at Aberdeen airport which was a new, all-time low in hotel accomodation and then it was up at 3am to be on the road by 3.30 for the drive back.



Just after sunrise.

After brekkie at Penrith I didn't get out of 5th gear until 10 miles from home and was back for lunch  on monday. A 1100 mile round trip. Mrs Wheezy has now given me a new ebay rule; only buy stuff which is in the same country, especially when it's 'buyer collect only.'





Names on a postcard please.



So tonight was my first go in the Ranger. If I'm honest, it didn't go well. At the Royal there's a small cut that separates the island clubhouse from the mainland and I thought that I would use this to paddle on rather than going out into the river. Almost before I had sat in it I found myself upside down in the water. Eventually I got going and I was able to get a bit of stability by remembering to keep my  head up and looking ahead, however the slightest catch of the paddle and I was swimming. I was also not able to rotate my hips at all as this had me swimming as well. In all, in the space of 40 minutes, I capsizes 7 times and I was able to paddle 20 metres. Calling it paddling would be an exaggeration. It was more like the canoeing version of Tourettes Syndrome; a stuttering, smacking the water kind of paddling as I beat the water into submission in a vain attempt to keep upright.  Most of the time I was practising my boat emptying skills.

A couple of things are evident. It's going to be quite a while before I venture out into the open river in it, there's going to be a lot more swimming going on and I will not be racing in this boat for a long time.

Onwards. 



A 'meh' kind of week

It's been the usual story with outside pressures meaning that training has had to be fitted in and around work and family commitments. Work's been mental (but enjoyable, I should hasten to add) while Mrs Wheezy has had a lot of stuff on also, meaning that it has not been as easy for me to head out the door and train. I am very lucky; without her I wouldn't stand a hope of doing half the shenanigans that I get up to in the name of sport and when she has stuff to do (because she has a life too) it rather puts into focus what I am able to do with her support. <3

My legs have also been feeling very achy from the 10km race last Sunday and all this stuff has led to a relatively quiet week. Something had to give and that something was my 2 turbo sessions. I valiantly plugged away at getting my runs done and once again I have the Marathon Talk's Jantastic Spring motivation challenge to thank for getting me out the door when all I wanted to do was sit on the sofa and eat crisps. Actually, that's a lie. I did sit on the sofa and eat crisps (while marking piles of books) but I then went out for my runs when Mrs Wheezy got home. So there I was running around the streets at 10.30 at night, eyelids barely open, running on stiff stumps for legs. I did the runs but I can't say that I enjoyed them.

I've had 2 paddles so far this week. The first was in the mystere with Adam on Monday night. A really good fun, 2 hr paddle with lots going on. The rowing club was out in force and the wash that the support boats threw up around Raven's Ait had us bouncing around but we were relaxed and once through it all we did 6 x 3 minutes with 2 minutes recovery, and then it was a slow DW paced effort for the rest of the paddle. Just after portaging Molesey we saw another DW crew training, heading the other way and exchanged greetings which was cool. We were meant to meet up again on Friday night but Adam couldn't make it so there I was heading out at 9pm on my own. For once, the ergo seemed tempting but by the time I got to the club I had regained my senses enough to get a laance out of the shed. I headed up to Kingston and did an interval session of 8 x 2 minutes hard with a 90 second recovery. I was working really hard and the laance took a bit of a battering as my technique began to disintegrate and  I started smacking the deck of the boat with my paddles, so over the last 2 reps I slowed it down a touch and tried to get some semblance of technique back. After 50 minutes I plodded back to the club feeling like I'd had a pretty good workout.

As I look out the window now, cold rain's falling and we've got a long paddle scheduled for tonight, so we probably will not be off the water until gone 11pm. I suppose starting a training session tired, at night in the cold and dark is good DW acclimatisation, but then again, it'll probably be 30 degrees Celsius again this Easter.

Onwards.

Replies

Hodge; Thanks mate. Glad that your training seems to be going well. Still haven't decided about Snowdonia yet. 

Reality Check

You may have gathered that my last post was written in a bit of a sulk. I apologise. I'm over it now. It was written on the back of 2 rubbish paddles (the other one was me in a K1, just not on it at all) and a feeling that it's all getting too close and we haven't put in enough long miles. That last K2 paddle was meant to be all about miles in the bank and it wasn't and it seemed that in the course of a 2 hour paddle we had regressed 6 months.

But of course, we hadn't. After a few days we got back into the mystere. Originally we were going to K1 but we decided that we needed to do another K2 paddle so we headed out on Sunday night. The aim was to do a solid 90 minute paddle and include some good quality reps. After a warm up to Teddington lock we turned back and started doing our 4 minute reps but really trying to nail our technique. For me, it's all about the catch and setting up the stroke at the beginning as I seem to have developed a tendency to slap the water when tired so I've really been trying to get the paddle vertical and spear the water. I am better at this when I slow the stroke down so while the reps were about increasing our speed and aerobic workrate we were not going so fast as to become ragged. We were on our seventh rep when I felt what I thought was something hitting my BA and I saw someone running after us along the towpath. I assumed that it was someone throwing stones at us only for Ad to tell me that we'd snagged a fishing line. The fisherman wasn't particularly happy that we'd dragged his brand new, £120 carbon fibre rod into the water. Adam politely pointed out that we had 3 lights on the boat and he was practically invisible. Thankfully after a few minutes we were able to unhook us from his line and after a bit of gentle persuasion, his fishing rod appeared from the deep. No harm done. Anyway, 10 miles done with the best part of 28 minutes bouncing along at a tempo pace. If nothing else it was enjoyable. Last night we were back out again, this time in the laances doing more technique work. We were both clattered so after an hour we called it quits.

Achieving the bounce

A frozen BA; always a good sign of a DW training session.

We had a long K2 paddle scheduled for last Sunday but we only ended up doing one hour. We were going to meet early in the morning and head upstream from Teddington to Walton and back but neither of us were on it at all. I had been out in Chinatown until late so I was feeling pretty delicate, while Adam decided that he was no longer able to paddle the mystere. After having such a great paddle a few days before this one was in every way, the complete opposite despite the conditions being perfect. We splashed about along the Kingston straight, just about staying upright and then turned round and came home. We put it down to being out early and having not warmed up properly. I did remark that at some point in the DW we would be paddling pretty early and cold so we might need to sort that out. :-0

Anyway, we were out again on Wednesday night and the conditions were a lot more sketchy than they had been on Sunday with very gusty wind and a high wind chill so it didn't look good for a confidence inducing session.  But we had a brilliant paddle. I am really working on getting my paddle as vertical in the water as possible and we are more often getting 'the bounce', a point when the boat seems to be pulsing through the water and we've got that simple harmonic motion with the boat rocking gently underneath us, instead of it being flat and lifeless. We don't achieve that state all the time but we are gradually getting there more and more often, which I am hoping is a sign that our technique work is starting to pay dividends.

Both Adam and I went out individually in K1's as well this week. I was out on Friday night and it was very cold. I spent an hour paddling the Kingston straight again, doing some technique work and drills and 4 x 2 minute hard efforts. I just tried to ensure that I was not dawdling at any point and had a solid paddle for an hour. I was the only person on the river and it was beautiful. :-)

Our DW plan has come together and we've got 2 support crews this time. We've got my Dad and my father-in-law John and then we've also got Phil and Alex D. Dad and John have a combined age of 138 and Phil and Alex are ginger. Success is assured!! it's going to be great having them help us as they are all top blokes and having more than one support means that no one crew has to go through the entire event supporting us.

We've pencilled in our long paddles although in the next 60 days we are probably going to be doing a lot more K1 work than last year as both Adam and I have family and friend commitments that will need to come first and actually means we cannot do any of the Waterside events. So we'll be doing Devizes to Newbury on our own and also Dreadnaught to Marlow and Marlow to Old Windsor will be our other longer paddles. We've purchase a Garmin etrex GPS so we'll accurately know our speed on the water but we'll use it in the race for accurate pacing to ensure that we stay on schedule. Having said that we've worked out our provisional start times and are confident in our plan and confident that we'll finish if our pace is not what we expect or if it drops.

60 days to go. Keep paddling. Keep the faith.

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.

Gotta have goals

December has been a rather slack month. In terms of swim (what's that?), bike and run I have been very much in recovery, doing sessions as and when, with very little in the way of any structure. It's no coincidence that with the major race on the horizon being the DW, that's where my focus has mainly been. The really good news for Adam and I is that there is now a small group of us who are preparing for the DW and who can meet up to go for a paddle. Last Monday was one such paddle with Adam and I being joined by Rob, who is hoping to crew up with someone for the race in 2013. It was a perfect night for a paddle; not cold, beautifully clear and with very little traffic on the river, except for an unusually large amount of geese and swans. Normally my high powered Petzl headtorch and a rather eccentric  high pitched squeal is enough to get them out of the way. As the three of us paddled up to Kingston Bridge in Laances I found myself plunging into a group of Geese, one of which ended up bouncing off the front of the boat. Thankfully, the combined mass of 85kilos or so of boat and paddler didn't seem to do any lasting damage and it honked noisily away into the air. As Adam and Rob chatted I kept on with my 3 stroke pause drill to accentuate the catch and was slowing the stroke down again. On the way back after we had looped around Raven's Ait I was passed by a rowing four; I was completely distracted by them and there followed an almighty clang and the K1 came to a complete standstill instantly. I had run straight into a  floating mooring, but instead of it being a lightweight plastic ball it was a floating metal beer barrel. Oh s##t!! A quick check revealed that the boat didn't have a scratch on it, let alone a hole, but with two collisions in one paddle, it was time to get off the river before I hit something more substantial, like a bridge, pontoon, floating home, fisherman etc. Once January hits though, Ad and I are going to have to start getting some solid miles in the boat. Technique focus is still really important but we will also have to get those two hour paddles in. I will have to build up my tolerance to Ad's sense of humour, extreme flatulence and generally rubbish jokes.

So as I said, December's been slack. I have lost fitness but I have done just enough to make the decline relatively small. More importantly, I feel ready to get back into some good quality training and one of the things that's going to help me with that is the Marathon Talk podcast's, #Jantastic campaign. Basically, you sign up to do a certain number of runs each week (in my case 5) and you accrue points for meeting it and lose them if you don't. There's no prizes to be won, but as I found with the TriTalk's  October of Running Challenge, it's enough to make me take that first step out of the door, which is always the hardest one. This will give me the impetus that I need to start my preparation towards the Edinburgh Marathon in May and a sub 3.10 time. In order to give me a triathlon goal I have entered the Cotswold113 half ironman. Slap bang in the middle of the season it should give me the springboard that I need to work towards an end of season Ironman. My feeling is that if I can get down to sub 5 hours at Cotswold then that will give me the base I need to realistically go sub 11 on a long course. Both big asks, but you've gotta have goals.

Seeing how it should be done

I spent an hour yesterday sorting out my paddles. I was galvanised into action by Adam receiving his shiny new blades a couple of weeks ago and I realised that I had never set my blades up properly. I had been given some basic advice along the lines of  "You should be able to grip the top of the paddle when they are standing up, but make them shorter than that for marathon paddling" and "reduce the feather angle" (from what, to what I wasn't exactly sure) . So, I stripped them down and started to muck about with them. I had always felt that they were rather too short, almost stopping me from getting my hands high enough, particularly the lead hand and I believed that extending them would allow me to ensure that I got my hands placed on the paddle correctly and I ended up extending them by 30mm. In order to help my rotation I increased the feather to 60 degrees as I had them set to a very shallow angle. My paddles had a large plastic locknut which had jammed on very tightly, this being one of the reasons why I had never reset them, so a copious amount of WD40 and a hefty pair of mole grips got it off, to be replaced by a jubilee clip that will now let me adjust them more easily and allow me to break them down for transportation instead of the kids having to climb over them in the car. My Kynysa paddles had a grip on them which I had been told by more than one experienced paddler I should get rid of, so a couple of minutes hacking at them with a stanley knife removed that, then to be followed by the addition of electrical tape on the shaft to show my optimum hand position (then to be covered up with pogees; doh.) At least now I can make some quick changes to them and find out if it will help my technique.

With that in mind, Adam and I went out in a couple of club Laances with Bob and we were joined by Laurence and Lesley who will also be doing the DW next year. It was the first time in the two and a half years that I have been paddling that someone has paddled alongside me and coached me on my technique and it made such a difference getting some simultaneous feedback from Bob. The main point that came of it was that I was leaning forward too much and not getting my torso upright. My lower back was quite tight and interestingly Bob asked me if I had problems with my hamstrings. Yep, they're a mess, so that's something I need to continue to work on. I worked on the catch again, doing the 3 stroke pause drill Bob had shown us on the ergos and I even had a go at a one sided drill to develop the catch further. I was a bit wobbly for that one but if I can master it then it will help me be more attacking during the catch and pull.

My paddles felt a lot better. I just felt like I was gripping the water more and applying more force and impulse to the boat; my hands were higher, although I still tend to cross the centreline, particularly with my right hand.

Adam looked so much better and more confident and we both probably got more out of that one hour of paddling than doing another 20 on our own. Despite it being a very cold night, paddling with others and genuinely feeling that we had made some real progress meant we came off the water happy and quite excited about the next few months training. Bob's being a star and is keen to keep paddling with us which is fantastic and will only help and improve our chances of success.

Ergo Drills

It was raining stairods tonight so Adam and I took the soft option and spent an hour on the ergos. I felt somewhat better than on Wednesday night and seemed to be getting a bit more rotation and generally felt  I was producing more power (all relative for a weedy little runner). I spent most of the second half trying to get my recovery elbow and hand in the correct position ready to 'spear a fish near my feet', as Bob was prompting us to do. I was almost, almost enjoying it at one point.

Adam's focussing on the whole hip rotation thing and like my efforts on Wednesday he was struggling to get one side forward and the other side back and was getting pretty hacked off with it. At least it's something we can work on at home.

Going to spend this week running and we have a paddle planned on Wednesday evening. Then, Christmas.  :-)

Phil - Many thanks for your extremely kind offer, but not at the moment. London to Brighton however......