A funny kind of week

I have been all over the place this week. It started on Sunday when I took part in my first time trial of the season, the SCCU 25. Having been battered to bits the week before and with hardly any miles in the tank I knew that I could not expect very much and I approached it purely as a training ride. I started steady and stayed that way throughout. The last couple of miles were tough, riding into a direct headwind that had tears streaming from my eyes and the bike crawling along with barely any forward movement. My time of 1:11xx was a personal worst by quite a long way and I was a long way down the leaderboard. I've got to say that without the pressure of feeling that I had to do well I really enjoyed myself.

The next evening I went out for a paddle and a run. The paddle was in a llance for 45 minutes and i did a few fartlek efforts of approximately 3 minutes' duration. The last 10 minutes was a steady paddle to warm down. I had the river all to myself except for literally dozens of bats; great fun. I finished it off with a slow, easy 40 minute run into Teddington and back. I felt pretty comfortable and my back seems fully healed up. Happy days. Until, that is I got home and saw the news about the Boston Marathon, which prompted my last post. I just felt straight away that I should try to run the London Marathon as a mark of solidarity and respect. I know it's only a small thing but it's something I can do. So I'll do it. That's not to say I am not a little bit concerned as I know from past experience how far 26 miles is, but what's keeping me going is the fact that before my back stopped me I was in better running shape than I had been for years and had comfortably run 21 miles. My plan is to go out at 4 hour pace and see how it goes. If I'm feeling ok at 20 then I'll see if I can up the pace a bit, but ultimately my achievement will be to finish the race, enjoy the experience and show my respect for the people of the running community effected by the events of last week.

As if this was not going to be hard enough, there has been a slight fly in the ointment. Once again I have been fighting something off. I think it's more to do with being stressed at work and home but achy eyeballs and extreme tiredness have been the tell-tale signs, so I have been over-loading with vit-C  and getting early nights.

I will report back on how well an eight week, no running taper with excessive carbo-loading works next week.

Sponsored by Walkers

90 minutes in the llance last night with a steady paddle up to Raven's Ait and back. Still just trying to keep my hands high and spearing my feet. One thing I have decided is I am buying myself a comfortable seat before too long but at the moment it's just about building up some paddle time. It is all rather ouchy at the moment.

I'm going to try to get back into some running next week. There's only so many bags of crisps that can be eaten before they start to take their toll.

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.  :-/

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.

The Devizes to Westminster Canoe Race 2012

  This is a long one, so get yourself a cup of tea first.....

Pre-race

This was to be my third start in the DW with one completed attempt at the Senior Doubles in 2010 and one retirement in 2011 after 17 hours. Adam and I had been training together since the summer of 2010 so the best part of two years were behind this latest attempt. For Adam,  it was to be his last attempt so we wanted to ensure that we knocked it on the head this year. We had been let down by our technique in the past so the focus over the winter had been to do plenty of technique work rather than just concentrating on distance. Like many people, we had not been able to do as many big sessions as we would have liked but all in all, we went into this race feeling better prepared and more confident than in 2011. That said we desperately wanted to get this right and complete, with so much effort having gone into it. However, the DW Gods could still have the last laugh.

I spent the four days before the race on holiday so Adam was left sorting out the final nitty gritty. Extra torches, lots of food, more base layers, extra socks; we probably went a bit nuts in those last couple of days, not wanting to leave anything to chance. Dad, who was going to be support crew with John from Devizes to Dreadnaught had gone back down to recce the portages again during the week to ensure that they were comfortable with the meeting points. On Good Friday we loaded up and travelled down and when we arrived at the Travelodge we made the final preparations to the boat before we headed off to the kit check. It was here we discovered that we didn’t have the Garmin despite much rummaging around. I had written a thorough checklist and had ticked it off into a box, but could I find it? Bah, we’d just have to do without.

Devizes Wharf was nice and quite and after hanging around for our slot we got a marshal to check things over and all was good. It was only afterwards Dad told us that the other marshals were all standing around Sir Steve’s boat that was having his kit checked as well. Anyway, we went off to get our race number and safety bracelets crimped on and as we came out we bumped into Steve so we took the opportunity to wish him luck. He’d probably need as much as anyone else who starts the DW. We trooped off into town for a meal and then it was back to the Travelodge and in bed by 9.30 for a 5am wake up.

Let’s go

After the worse continental breakfast I have ever had, ever, we got down to the wharf by 6.30am and got our boat straight to the front. We bimbled around, used the portaloos, had some food and then decided to get on the water with 10 minutes to go. We spent a very uncomfortable time trying to keep relaxed and stationary while the clock ticked down. Eventually I took pity on Adam and held onto a narrow boat while a C2 crew decided to create waves. Thanks a bunch.

We got away at just gone 7 and for the first 10 minutes were in 3^rd place in the DW. J We took a while to settle down and relax and thankfully not many crews were coming past us so there was not too much wash for us to contend with and it was just a case of finding our rhythm and getting those first couple of hours done. At

Honey Street

we took fresh bottles and carried on towards Pewsey and the first of our portages.

Capsize and Crofton

At Pewsey we were already over 10 minutes up on schedule; we felt really comfortable and relaxed but Dad and John urged us to cool our jets. We didn’t feel that we were pushing at all and I had thought beforehand that a small buffer might be useful later on. As we left I thought about our pace and effort level and it seemed spot on so we continued on. We approached the Savernake Tunnel with a couple of crews ahead of us but we had a horrible transition through. I zigzagged all over the place and we felt particularly wobbly. Of the four times Adam and I have been through it was by far our worst go and as we came out we could see that the couple of crews ahead whom we had been keeping pace with were now more than 200 metres further ahead. A short while after Savernake we had a capsize. There was absolutely no reason for it as it was a particularly benign piece of water. Thankfully the water was not cold which could have well caused us to become tense so we emptied the boat pretty quickly and got back in. The rudder didn’t seem right but on inspection all seemed okay but when we got going again the rudder was stiffer than before. After a couple of minutes a C2 crew removed a piece of weed which they could see poking out and immediately it felt better. The capsize really annoyed us at the time but with hindsight I think it helped. We focussed more and were more relaxed in the boat determined that would be our only one. It seemed that our time buffer was already coming in useful. A big shout out goes to the crews who went past as we sorted ourselves out. Every single one checked we were ok and offered support. Thank you. J

We took the Crofton flight much more steadily using more walking breaks and we paddled one of the longer pounds so that we would keep our heart rates down and able to digest our food. With a couple of the bigger and more iconic obstacles out of the way it was now time to get our portaging as smooth as possible as we headed towards Newbury. About an hour out of Newbury I noticed the first signs of an ache in my right wrist. Although it’s common for peoples’ control  hands and wrists to fatigue and is a common cause for retirement it is not an injury that I have suffered before. I started to be much more careful in opening my hand to alleviate it, but of course it immediately started to play on my mind. I just hoped that the nurofen would be able to control it for the rest of the race and stop it from getting worse.

We arrived at Newbury, still 5 minutes up so we decided to get out of our wet tops as we were starting to cool off and we felt a lot better for this. Dad and John had some tea and coffee for us and after that we felt happier and good to go.

Swing bridges



Portage at Burghfield



Adam was looking really good, well, as good as he’ll ever look. ;-)  I could tell that his confidence was high, which was really encouraging for the rest of the paddle on the canal. A couple of the swing bridges were open but the last one was quite low. I thought we could do it and initially so did Adam. We paddled hard at it and I got my head down only to hear Adam shout “No!” and the boat came to a complete stop with me under the bridge and Adam holding the front of it. Doh. We managed to inch our way over to the edge where Adam could get under it also as we pushed ourselves through. The people standing along the bridge were quite surprised to see us emerge unscathed and dry. During this section we were receiving a lot of support from Bob, as well as Dad and John, as his crew, Laurence and Lesley were just behind us. Bob was great, giving us loads of encouragement and as I turned round I found my mouth crammed with a jaffa cake and a slurp of energy drink before I had time to refuse it. He was a top bloke, popping up at various points along the route giving us advice. We saw Laurence and Lesley a few times at a couple of portages and they were finding it tough. Their day was made harder by a problem with their rudder which cost them some time and after that we didn’t see them again. Unfortunately, they didn’t finish, retiring at Shiplake, but I am sure that they will learn from it and come back stronger next year.



Leaving Burghfield



As usual, our portaging became a bit more clumsy and haphazard as we got tired. At one portage we decided to get out at a low grass bank instead of the higher portage point. As a result I found myself face-planting into some stinging nettles and had a numb forehead for an hour or two. Unfortunately, that was not the only thing going numb. My right hand was steadily getting worse again and I was finding it painful to open it, which meant I gripped the paddle all the time making it worse. All of a sudden I had a shooting pain down the inside of my wrist which made me stop paddling straight away. We were both worried and I immediately started telling myself not to panic. I could tell Adam was concerned and I just couldn’t believe that we may be dropping out before we had even got off the canal. We were still comfortably on schedule so we soft paddled for a bit, determined to not let the situation get out of control. It was great to have a quick chat with Hodge at Burghfield lock, who had come down from the midlands to offer his support and then we saw Bob for the last time at Fobney as he led us down to the get-in. I ended up knee high in mud instead of in the boat but eventually we were on our way, covering the last few miles to Dreadnaught.

Dreadnaught came into sight and we were bang-on schedule. We had lost the 10 minutes we had in hand from the first pound, but all in all it had gone well. We met up with a good crowd. Mum had come down with Adam’s Mum and Colin and Phil and Alex were there ready to take over from Dad and John. We got dry kit on and had some hot soup, coffee and a sausage sandwich. We said bye to Dad and John. They had been brilliant. While the adrenalin had been pumping for us they had been calm and reassuring and been a great support team. They were now able to head home for a well deserved rest.

All in all we were there for 20 minutes and set off feeling pretty good. Adam looked fresh and determined while I secretly worried about my wrist. I had a feeling that it was going to be a particularly long night.

The Thames

Leaving Dreadnaught

So we were now on the Thames and able to get our heads down and pick up some speed. While there was very little flow I was expecting the greatly more spread out portages would allow us to pick up our average speed. In the back of his mind, Adam’s big intermediate goal was to get to Marlow in order to get past where we had bailed last year and we were confident that this was now in the bag, but my wrist was getting worse again. We had a couple of short pounds to Sonning and Shiplake before we met up with Alex and Phil at Marsh. When we got there I got them to strap my wrist up with duck tape (is there nothing that can’t be fixed with it?) It helped to support it just enough to take the edge off of the soreness but I could tell that this was a situation that was only going to get worse. We began switching from cold food to predominantly hot food. Towards the end of the canal I had reached new depths of culinary ghastliness; 2 mini scotch eggs, a jaffa cake and 3 jelly babies in one go. I think with my skinny neck that I must have looked like a boa constrictor digesting a sheep, swallowing that lot. My favourite during the night became Heinz tinned spaghetti that Alex heated up and spooned into me. I normally can’t stand the stuff but I found it really easy to eat and filling. Adam was on coffee, chocolate raisins and soup which the boys kept coming throughout the night.

We started losing time as we approached Hurley and it was a combination of two things. Firstly, our portaging was taking longer as we got food inside us but more worryingly we had to stop on the water every 10 minutes or so for me to rest my wrist. I would take the opportunity to dip my hand and forearm into the water hoping that the cold water might help keep the swelling down and reduce the discomfort but there was no doubt in my mind that we were potentially going to be out the race. Adam was getting tired but was still in good shape and at Marlow we were 40 minutes down on schedule but half of those were from the Dreadnaught stop, so things were still looking pretty good, all in all. We were keeping up with the crews around us when we were actually paddling but it was the constant stopping which was causing us to gradually lose ground.

The length of time that we were paddling became shorter and shorter. I was using the micro-chunking technique to break it down as much as possible. We’d paddle to a tree, a light, a bridge, whatever landmark that looked about 5 minutes away and then have a quick break while I dunked my wrist. 

Cookham proved eventful. We couldn’t see Phil at first, standing by the pub so we lost a bit of time coming back to pick up a feed and we then went and paddled into the weir stream instead of towards Boulters. In all we lost a good 7 or 8 minutes there. The next few hours were a real struggle. I was becoming increasingly concerned about my wrist and discomfort was now moving well and truly into pain territory while Adam’s control wrist was also seizing up and he was looking increasingly fatigued. Slowly but surely, our extra time in hand slipped away as our portaging slowed drastically. We were letting faster crews through which was fine but that was costing us time that we didn’t have. On the water, we were still paddling well despite having to rest my wrist every 10 minutes or so. We had a couple of crews who put in the water in front of us having caught us up and we were comfortably keeping pace with them. One crew we held onto for over an hour only losing them when we stopped at another portage. We were able to use these episodes to gee ourselves up and give ourselves confidence that we could still make Teddington by 8 o’ clock.

I can’t remember how it happened but as we went through Old Windsor and Bell I got my calculations wrong. By this time it was 3am. I must have asked a marshal how far it was to Teddington. I had then done some maths (not my strongest subject at the best of times) and deduced that there was no way we were going to make Teddington by 8am. As we paddled towards Bell I broke the news to Adam. We’d given it a go but it wasn’t going to happen. Adam was looking very tired and my right hand was literally a claw on the paddle shaft. I genuinely felt that it was over. We pulled the boat out and Phil came running up, telling us that we had not lost any time on the last 2 pounds. We told him that we were not going to make Teddington and that we were going to call it a day. Phil looked at us like we were nuts. “What do you mean, you’ve still got 40 minutes spare?” Adam and I just looked at each other. We had decided that if there was still a chance of making Teddington by 8 then we simply had to carry on but I have to say it took a lot of mental strength from Adam to get back into the mystere. He was beginning to hurt and daybreak was still a long way off, but we were now paddling on a much more familiar part of the course. We just had to keep ticking off pounds and hopefully Teddington would be in the bag but we would have to be much quicker with our portaging and feeding.

We got to Shepperton at 5.26 which in theory should have been plenty of time but the weather was deteriorating. Adam was going off his food so at Molesey I was literally popping chocolate raisins into his mouth like coins into a slot machine in order to help him keep some calories going in. I got a piece of steak pastie from a supporter for another crew which was absolute heaven before we headed off on the last pound with 4 other crews down to Teddington. We had 75 minutes for the last pound. We normally do it comfortably in 45 but it was going to be a very close run thing. I can honestly say that over those hours between Penton and Teddington we were genuinely racing, trying to stay in the race. Again, we had to take it in sections; get to Ravens Ait, rest; to Kingston Bridge, then teapot island and finally Teddington lock. There was a big crowd of supporters for us there and the adrenalin was really pumping. The last 10 hours or so had been really hard and at many times it had seemed likely that we wouldn’t get there. We were the second to last boat through Teddington and we made it through with 4 minutes to spare. I celebrated by having a little cry.

The Tideway

The tideway from 2010 is blotted from my mind. I now know why. It’s bloody horrible. We got going again with fresh bottles and a bag of food in the bottom of the boat and we paddled steadily down to Richmond where we had to portage the half lock. There were 3 other crews there and we stood around chatting. I don’t think any of us felt particularly inclined to get back in the boats and we were on a bit of a high knowing that we were on the final leg and that Westminster was at least theoretically, in the bag, but I was also conscious that we were on borrowed time with us starting this section so late into the tide window. There was mud everywhere. I’m not particularly prissy but it was pretty nasty and I realised that there was mud in the tube of my drink bottle which meant I was not to have any fluids for the next few hours.

By now Adam’s back and shoulders were suffering and my coccyx was really sore and while we were making good progress on the water, paddling with the C2 crew that we had been with at Richmond, Adam was having to get out of the boat often in order to stretch. I was getting tetchy as I just wanted to make progress and that’s hard to do when the boat is stationary on the shore. We must have stopped 4 or 5 times with every stop costing us at least 7 to 8 minutes. We had lost 2 of the crews that we started the tideway with but we were constantly swapping places with the C2 crew as we made our way through South West London and into the centre of town. The traffic was not too bad; we had a few rowers to deal with but they were all really friendly with one of the support vessels even giving us a gee-up through his megaphone.

 The real problems started with a few miles still to go. Unbeknown to us the tide had turned and with that we started to get some pretty big washes to contend with, the worst ones being those thrown up by the safety boats as they rushed down river. We just hoped that the crews behind were ok and had not got themselves into too much trouble. By this time we were crawling along the bank just to ensure that we stayed upright and Adam saved us from a capsize caused by another wave. We were both running on empty when Westminster came into view but it didn’t seem to be getting closer. I estimate that it took us well over 20 minutes to cover the last mile or so as the tide was now beginning to flow back upstream and we had very little left to actually move the boat forward. The last couple of hundred metres we could here our families shouting and cheering and they couldn’t understand why we kept dropping our paddles; we just had very little left. The rib told us to go through the second arch.

“Not the first arch?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“There’s no water in it.”

 That might be a problem then. So the last 100 metres, and I paddled while Adam supported. As we went under the bridge and steered to the steps I just felt completely done in; I was more spent than any other time I could remember. Two lovely chaps helped me out the boat and up the steps, both promising me that I’d be back to do it again and when I got to the top I just burst into tears. I felt pretty silly especially as I was faced with dozens of tourists looking on with completely bemused faces and taking pictures while I cried and hugged Adam. I have never felt relief like it. After all that effort that we had put in over the last 2 years we had finally been able to complete the DW. It was every bit as special as the first time I did it with Jamie.



The last 10 metres





Being helped up the steps.





Jones and Kew; 28hrs 40 mins 87th /161





Aftermath



The aches and pains have subsided although I still have a bit of numbness in my right hand, and my coccyx, well, let’s not go there. Mind you, I really don’t mind, I am just so pleased that I was able to help Adam get to the end and complete this very special race. If you’re thinking of doing it; do it. You’ll never regret it. It might take you a while but it will be so worth it. But join a club and learn to paddle a boat first. Trust me, it’ll help. ;-) Adam’s on holiday so I’m not sure how he’s healing up, but like me, I’m sure that he’s not bothered  and he can bask in the knowledge he’s done something very special. I found our Garmin in one of the boxes when we got back home. I knew I'd packed it.

Thank You to;

Dad, John, Alex and Phil – Simply brilliant. Upbeat, unflappable, funny and prepared. We simply could not have done it without you and we could not have asked for a better support team.

Bob – Without his help and guidance with our technique this year I do not think that we would have finished this year. Cheers mate.

Lee – Thanks so much for coming down to cheer us on, the documents you lent us and the never ending good vibes. Cheers mate.

Organisers, marshals, supporters; THANK YOU.

One last thing……

For most of the race we were leap-frogging with these guys. They were simply awesome. It’s rather hard to feel sorry for yourself when you are paddling behind a triple amputee. Inspirational doesn’t do the word justice and although they don’t know it, they played a big part in us finishing this thing. If you’ve got a spare £5, go onto their just giving site and give it to them. They have really earned it.

Thanks for reading.

Running out of time

 Due to reasons that I will not bore you with the last few days have been a mad rush to prep kit ready for the start of the DW and while I have been steadily ticking stuff off of the 'to do' list there is still a lot of stuff  still left 'to be done'. I've been focussing on the mystere. It's not ours and we've been loaned it for free, which is great, but there's no doubt that it's seen better days. I spent the best part of two hours today installing a new rudder wire as the old one looked particularly brittle and was badly frayed. Having never done it before I was obviously quite concerned that I'd stuff it up. It is a little disconcerting when you take it apart and find out how rudimentry it all is, the rudder bar merely being a couple of sticks screwed together with the cable threaded through it to lock the wire in place. I took pictures as I went to ensure that I reassembled it in the right order. Not having an access hatch at the rear I had to use the old cable which was already in situ to pull the new cable through.

Not so much state of the art, more like state of the ark.





Belt and braces



 I used an electrical connector block that you can get from diy stores as a locknut to keep both ends of the wire fastened as well as the standard screws. It's worth carrying a spare one of these in the boat with a small screwdriver in order to repair a wire breakage. 

I spent quite of bit of time checking over the hull. I was originally going to apply some gel coat to a few areas but on closer inspection it didn't need it. I also had a play around with using joined cable ties to secure the drybag under Adam's footrest. I don't think it's worked too well so we may well revert back to bungees. If the boat is going to break, then it will be the footrest that goes. I might just see if I can get a piece of timber that we could use as a replacement if that were to happen.

The sunshine was lovely but I could clearly see the bottom of the river and debris on the surface was not moving at all. 100 miles of canal anyone?

With my gammy foot proving tiresome again I dashed to the Sweatshop in Teddington and bought some New Balance MT101 running shoes. Horrible colours but very slim fitting and supportive with good grip on the sole, they should do the job. I've basically got tomorrow to pack most of the gear and then next week Jonesey's going to sort the food and a few last remaining bits. Our last paddle together will be on Sunday night, owing to another 40th birthday, but as it's Adam's wife it's a fairly important one. Shepperton to Teddington which will be couple of hours and then nothing until Saturday 7th April. Just want it done now.


Anthony- Dancing like crazy, with very little effect. :-0





Laying siege

At the end of my last post I mentioned that Adam and I would be going out for a long paddle later that evening. We did and we had a really great one. Right up to the point where we capsized. We had bashed our way up to Molesey, portaged and then carried on for another 20 minutes or so. The conditions were decidedly sub optimal with the wind throwing us off but we felt relaxed and comfortable. We were not doing any intervals, instead just doing a DW paced effort. As we turned back the weather was getting more filthy but as we were heading for home we were not particularly bothered. We were no more than 10 minutes from home, approaching Ravens Ait  when we went in. It was our first capsize in a year so we think we were due one. We were close to the bank so we didn't have far to swim but getting back into the boat was very difficult, with us both having to get in while standing waist high in water. We were very cold on the way back but thankfully not too far from the club and a hot shower.

Last night we continued the process of laying siege to 'the canoeists' Everest' over a curry and a few beers. Dad and John came over with Adam in order that we could plan our practise paddle in a couple of weeks over the Waterside D route. After speaking to Ed at the Royal a couple of week's ago we've decided to amend the paddle by not paddling from Devizes to Newbury, but instead we will be putting in at Pewsey and then finishing at Aldermaston. This does away with the long and frankly boring first 11 miles or so without a portage and means that we will also be paddling part of the later canal when things start to get a bit harder and there's a few navigation points to negotiate. We'll also have to deal with the Monkey Marsh portage which is causing a few problems at the moment and a few low bridges. It should make for a more useful paddle with more portaging while still giving us enough data to accurately know our canal pace. It will be very interesting to see how we compare to the race last year.

The devil is in the detail and hopefully we are getting the details right.

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. 

Tales from Teddington lock

DW 2010 - At Teddigton Lock

I was flicking through my old photos on the computer the other day and came across this one. It was taken at Teddington in the 2010 DW race and the funny thing is I remember very little about being there. I do remember the fact that I had spent the proceeding 30 minutes in tears, gently sobbing in the back of the boat sitting in a pool of my own wee, barely able to lift the paddle shaft above the cockpit. It was not a good place to be. As hard as that was and as low as I got it was still infinitely better to be there and ready to go into London than not there at all. For Adam and I, it is all about Teddington. Whether we catch the tide in the morning or have to wait until the afternoon then as long as we get there then we'll be ok.

Having to wait those few hours for the afternoon tide, should that be necessary, will however bring its own problems. Being members of the Royal which is only a stone's throw from Teddington Lock means that we've got a nice comfortable base in which we can refuel, change and get our heads down for a couple of hours in the warmth until we are let through onto the tidal section. If any members of the Royal are reading this and you see two people that look and smell like tramps lying down in the clubhouse on April 7th, then please do not be alarmed. It's just us. But then, after all our muscles and joints have nicely seized up, tendons have had time to get inflamed after the nurofen's worn off and blisters popped we'll have to get back in the boat and then paddle the tidal Thames in the middle of the afternoon on Easter Sunday, when every boat and everyone and their mother will be out on the river. We are reconciled  to the very real possibility that we may have to do that but we'll be doing our best to ensure that we catch the morning tide, even if that means squeaking through at 8 o' clock. We've got to know the area around the lock very well, with us pounding up and down the Kingston straight and the fact that we are both former Teddington School schoolboys also makes this quite a home from home for us.

On Friday night we headed out from the Royal. We were both clattered after a long day at work so we decided to do a DW paced effort. We paddled down to the lock first which we now use as a short warm up to get settled before we turn back to head up to Hampton Court. As we made our way down to Teddington there was a small group of boats moored on the bank. In front of them was a small speedboat and as we got within 5 metres of it we saw that there was someone in it and they suddenly gunned the engines causing an enormous wash that broke over the front of the kayak sending water into my cockpit. it was obviously done completely on purpose with the intention of capsizing us. We rode it out fine but we were screaming our heads off at him, only to then see another 2 speedboats waiting on the bankside with another 2 morons in them. What kind of dick would think that it's fun to try to capsize a kayak in the dark? They were gunning around well above the speed limit for this section of the Thames without any lights visible!!  Frickin' unbelievable.

We turned across the river and had a great paddle up to Hampton and back and as we got back to the clubhouse we saw one the boats right in the middle of the river. He saw us and started waving a light, not at us, which was the queue for the other 2 speedboats to come through at high speed causing another huge wave. Unfortunately this time we were beam on with a lot of reflection waves coming off of the hard bank from the sailing club next to the Royal, so we were really bounced around this time, but again we stayed upright pretty comfortably. I sincerely wish those 3 blokes a slow and lingering death. I am still wondering whether we should report it to the Police.

In other news......

I went with Mrs Wheezy to the Kingston Phoenix Annual Dinner and Awards evening last night and had a fab time. Had a few cheeky beers and got a couple of medals for some handicap places which was nice and I won a Phoenix mug in the raffle. Today I ran the Nonsuch Park 10k as one of Simon's relatives couldn't run it, so I had his number. As usual, I went out too fast and by halfway I was blowing hard, but I held on to take 4th place and just missed out on ducking under 40 minutes. Next time.......

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.

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.

Lurgy

I have limped through this week, metaphorically and actually. Last Friday week Adam and I finally paddled the Mystere down from Walton to The Royal and as happens with these paddles, what with mucking about with cars it ended up being a late night and Adam and I were not off the water until gone 10.30pm. The paddle was wonderfully uneventful and we were both pleased at how comfortable we were in the Mystere despite very little K2 paddling in the last 6 months. The next morning though I woke up with a raging sore throat which left me being utterly zonked for the rest of the weekend. On top of that my left foot began to ache again. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself.

My cold well and truly developed this week. Initially not too bad but as the week progressed my head got thicker and my nose runnier. Being involved with the Jantastic Marathon Talk running challenge I dragged myself out to complete my 5 weekly runs. Lots of slow 20 and 30 minute shuffles, which were horrible to start with but seemed to get better as they progressed. So, I've done my runs but there was absolutely no quality in them. I guess it beats doing nothing, but at times, I was not so sure.

Adam and I got out for a paddle on Wednesday evening, unfortunatelyy missing the DW group from the Royal. They were just coming back as we left. I didn't have the energy to do intervals as scheduled by Bob, so we did a solid tempo paddle up towards Hampton Court, turning around after 30 minutes to complete an hour on the water. The first 10 minutes were rubbish; tense and twitchy, the next 50 were pretty good.

This week, I am looking forward to getting back on my bike. I spent half an hour or so this afternoon watching a few IM and DW videos on Youtube to get some mojo back into my system and realised that I am missing my bike and I want to start getting some miles in on it. I am very pleased that this week is done with and that the next one can only be better.  :-)

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......

Best hip forward

On Wednesday night I headed off to the Royal for a coached session on the kayak ergos. For some time, the Captain of the club, Bob, had been in contact to try to arrange a few sessions whereby he could look at Adam's and my technique, and finally I managed to get away in time for a session. Bob is one of those talented swines with broad shoulders and narrow hips who is just a natural and talented paddler (with a lot of hard work thrown in as well, I'm sure). he came second this year in the four day race in a stupidly fast time so I felt pretty confident that he'd be able to iron out a few bumps in my technique. Also in the session were a couple of relative newbies who are planning to do the DW next year and Stephen, the club President.

I had this idea that Bob would take one look at me on the ergo, give me a big thumbs up and congratulate me on the magnificent self-coached style that I had developed. Not for the first time do I find myself typing 'how wrong was I?'

I know about hip rotation and thought that I was pretty good with this; it turns out I'm not. The first thing that we sorted out was the angle of my legs in order to ensure that when pressing against the footbar my leg would almost straighten, but not quite. I had not realised how critical this is to the stroke and my hip rotation. What I was able to do was get one side of my hip back but I was really struggling to get the other side of my hip forwards. It was to frustrate me for the whole hour, with me instead rocking my torso to compensate.

We moved onto the catch and spearing the paddle at the correct angle by my feet. I have always known that my recovery arm has not been doing the right thing, but unfortunately I didn't really know what the right thing was, but it turns out my main wrong-doing is that I was bringing that arm through the stroke too quickly. So Bob got us doing a drill whereby we delayed at this point to get our hands in the correct position before we started the catch. For the whole session I tried to get my hips and recovery arm in the correct position and got increasingly frustrated at my ineptitude; everything felt out of synchronisation. Bob was very patient and was kind enough to say that he felt I had made progress but I am not sure that he believed it. I know I didn't. I went for a run afterwards. That requires very little thinking on my part. :-)

I have a LOT to work on.

Adam and I will be paddling in the Frank Luzmore race in January; a 12.5 mile paddle from Elmbridge down to the Royal at Teddington. I am quietly confident that we will be last.

In other news...
My triathlon season next year is in a state of disarray. My main race for next year was going to be the Outlaw but I did not get an entry in on time. With Christmas fast approaching I had to make the choice of presents for the kids or getting my entry paid. I quite like my family, so the thought of ending up being divorced because we had no money left because I had decided to spend in on 12 hours of fun was not appealling. But what now? To be honest, I have not got a clue. Challenge Henley falls on a bad weekend, and Ironman Wales, while being a race I would really enjoy seems too far away. I even found myself straying onto the Tritalk double Ironman thread for a few minutes (that's your fault Wilson; thankfully, I came to my senses). At the moment, all I want to do is run, paddle and ride my bike to work. When I want to do more, I'll think about it some more.