Another long one in the bank.

I am really pleased with how last week went and I currently have that achy tiredness you get from a sustained period of training. For me, last week included some pretty big numbers, mainly in the saddle. In fact I cycled every day and on four days, twice in a day. It's rather shocked my body but I have to say I already feel fitter, stronger and more comfortable on the bike, which bearing in mind I am going to be spending a lot of time on it during the Forestman, is a good thing. It culminated in two weekend bike sessions, the first being a one hour turbo in the garage followed by a long bike on Sunday. The turbo session was conducted while it was a balmy 22 degrees outside, light winds and broken cloud; the long bike, unfortunately was not.

I was up at 4.30am to get some breakfast in me (big bowl of cereal / banana / tea) and on the road by 5. I was dressed lightly for a sunny ride but within minutes of me stepping outside the door the grey clouds dumped on me and I stopped while I pondered whether to turn round and put more layers on. I decided against it hoping that it would perk up and also assumed that I wouldn't race with a waterproof on, so why train in one? Hmmm....

I took the long way round to Simon's house to meet him and had 40 minutes or so on the clock by the time I got there and then we set out on the A24 to Ditchling Beacon and back. It was pretty grim at first and I was cold and wet, in particular my feet were blocks of ice and I was having trouble shifting the gear levers because my fingers had started to numb up. Oh well, no one said it would be easy. Towards West Grinstead the sun started to make an appearance and my top half began to warm up but my legs felt like wood; I just couldn't get them warmed up, mainly because of my sodden feet and once again, on every slight incline I'd find it hard to maintain my cadence and have to downshift, trying to get my legs to revolve. It seemed that I was going to have a pretty grim day ahead of me. It was however, really good to be cycling on new roads and in new countryside and once we were off the A24 everything became very pretty and it helped to take my mind off how I was feeling. We approached Ditchling and as soon as we hit the bottom, Simon was off and before I knew it I was in the granny gear, pulling myself up. I normally like to sit in the saddle when climbing but I really needed to get out and stretch my legs and I was changing my position constantly; a sure sign that I was not very happy. Simon was waiting for me at the top and we had some food (Elevenses bar; food of Champions;-) and some PSP before turning around and heading back.

Although there was a stiff wind, I felt much better almost straight away. I had been feeding properly on the outward leg but I was just much warmer now and the short rest combined with now dry feet and warmer muscles meant that I was able to maintain my cadence much better. As we made our way home I was really enjoying the fact that I was not now feeling particularly fatigued and even had that nice feeling a couple of times on a rolling road where even though the road is going up it doesn't halt your cadence or speed and there's no need to change down gear. It doesn't happen often, but it's nice when it does.  :-)

Simon and I swapped being at the front as we time trialled back home (no drafting btw) and by the time I got back home I had exactly 100 miles on the clock in 5.47.xx including a couple of stops. Not earth shattering, but not too bad either.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been getting to grips with Training Peaks and the really useful that I have found with it is how it can tell you quickly the ratios of how much you're doing in the different disciplines. I have had a big bike focus over the last 3 weeks that has begun to pay dividends but I need to put some more time into some swim sessions in order that I can arrive at T1 not feeling completely wiped out.

I should be worried, shouldn't I?

Last couple of weeks have been quite strange. I have been quite relaxed and relatively unfazed by the thought of doing the Forestman in a few weeks. I should point out that I am not saying that in a 'look at me, I'm so blase / aren't I cool'  kind of way, but, shouldn't I be freaking out a bit? On a number of occasions and in a number of different contexts I have heard or read  people saying 'respect the distance'. It's a phrase that has just kept popping up while I have been listening to podcasts and reading a few blogs and every time I hear it I think to myself,  'You're being too calm, you 're not respecting what you are trying to do'. But no matter what I don't seem to be rising to the bait. I am going to take that as a good thing.

It's taken a while but I'm really enjoying being back on the bike and in the pool and I think a big part of that is because I am genuinely not worried about pace / HR etc. Everything is on feel, RPE and duration of effort and it's liberating to just be out there enjoying a swim, bike or run. I really do feel that I can do the Forestman and most importantly enjoy it. I want to finish it and feel that I want to go and do another one, but only better.

Anyway, what's been going on? Lots of cycling. Commuting to work and then taking a longer route home with a Boxhill ascent has been a real pleasure and gives me a nice 1hr 20 ride home. On Sunday I was up at 5am to meet Simon for us to do a long ride. Simon had already done a 75 mile ride the day before and was remarkably strong as we completed approximately 80 miles. I kept a cork in it and let him skip up the hills ahead of me and towards the end of the ride he was feeling it and I was really pleased that my economy of effort saw me finish the ride strongly. A massive boost. This Sunday we're heading off to Ditchling Beacon and back. Might have to stop for an ice cream. ;-) The next day I went out for a long run to try a 9/1 run walk strategy. I am very much in the camp that says ' run the run' when it comes to the marathon leg of an Ironman but common sense has to prevail. It's a tough course anyway and I do not have the volume to  run 26 miles so this seems like it could be a reasonable compromise. With a well paced bike leg (read slow) I am hoping that I can put in a pretty good run. I was quite surprised at how long 9 minutes felt and of course how short 1 minute is, but it gave me enough time to stretch my hamstrings (jeez they get tight) and powermince for a bit before getting going again.

Swimming is improving and while my technique gets ropey very quickly (my catch no longer exists) endurance is coming back and the bad cramps I was suffering have all but gone. I'm stroke counting again and just trying to keep it loose, relaxed and long, but the fact that I am on 21-22 strokes per length highlights my lack of technique and fitness.

I have discovered Training Peaks. It looks pretty good and I have started using it to log my sessions and can see that it could be a really useful tool. Something to tinker with anyway.

Too little too late?

Not surprisingly the couple of weeks after the DW saw me doing very little as regards training. I had that typical post event blues which was compounded by not finishing the race. The massive upside was that we managed to raise almost £900 for 'Born too Soon', a charity particularly close to Adam's heart, so that made it all very much worthwhile. Immediately afterwards I really didn't fancy doing the DW ever again but within a couple of days I had changed my mind and this race is still unfinished business, so over the next year the focus will be with us losing as much weight as possible, both off of us and the boat and really nailing our technique. It's those two factors I feel that really killed our race this year. Adam took a few days, but again he really wants to nail it, so he's going to focus on some running at the moment and he's aiming to run a half marathon in the autumn, which is just great.

But, I now have the not inconsiderable hurdle of a long course triathlon to get through. It's fairly obvious to anyone that knows me or has read this blog that I have constantly been putting this race on the backburner, but with less than 7 weeks to go I obviously have had to start thinking about doing some effective training. My expectations for the race are low; VERY low. All I want to do is to get around safely and enjoy the day. I really am just trying to treat it as a long training day and if it goes relatively well and I don't hurt myself (a constant worry) then I will probably enter another Ironman towards the end of the season.

So last week I headed off to the pool and in an effort to keep things simple I just wanted to cover an IM distance swim over the course of the evening, so it was 8 x 400m reps with 90 seconds recovery. It was truly horrific, not surprising after the best part of a 6 month layoff from any structured swim training. My form and aerobic fitness where non-existent and after the first 3 reps I found myself propped up against the side of the pool with the other swimmers looking on in bemused fascination as I took large, heaving breaths. I plugged on, my 'stroke' slowy deteriorating and then the second half of the swim was effectively ruined as cramp in my calves began to get more frequent and more painful. I went back on tuesday night and it was better, it really could not have been much worse. I was not able to complete the 3.2km swim I had planned due to cramp coming on again but the 2.5km that I did do felt easier and I was able to maintain my form a little.

On wednesday I did the Kingston Phoenix evening 10 and managed a long 26 which is a fair way down on my best ime from last year and the conditions were perfect. As I freewheeled to the Holmwood roundabout I had the usual metallic taste in my mouth and some dry heaving, all signs that I had at least given it a good go. The next one's in two weeks and I must remember to take my HRM along and collect a bit of data. Simon and I drove over to Dorking pool afterwards and attended a masters' swim session. Very tough with lots of fly and breastroke, funnily enough, not my best disciplines. :-/  I came out feeling like I had had a good workout though.

This morning I had a 25 minute warm up by cycling over to Richmond Park and then did 3 flying laps. Well, 'flying' about as well as a penguin, but I laid down a time with even splits and was within myself so again, it'll give me a session that I can do to give me a marker. Tomorrow is a long bike session, hopefully up around 100 miles and then a longish run in the evening.

I'm really trying to spend as much time on the bike as possible and even though it's been a while coming the mojo is returning. I'd forgotten how much I like riding my bike. My main worry is not the distances as such or the aerobic requirements, but my lack of body conditioning. Earlier on this week everything ached even though I was only completing a relatively modest training volume and some of my muscle groups are extremely weak. Tight hamstrings seem particularly bad and are having some serious stretching sessions to alleviate the tightness. Strong heart, weak legs. It'll all be fine.....

Devizes to Westminster International Canoe Race 2011

Well, the bottom line is that after 8 solid months of training we didn't finish, which is obviously disappointing but at the same time, we can hold our heads high with what we achieved. Most of our training had been conducted in the dark in cold temperatures which I thought would be perfect DW preparation but this turned out to be completely wrong. On the morning of the race when we set off at 10.30am it was already 23 degrees and by mid-afternoon it had risen to 26. We had both ensured that we were fully protected from the sun with factor 50, peaked caps (apparently mine made me look like a camp Frenchman) and fully topped up water bottles with nuun. Over the course of the next 17 hours we were to consume over 20 litres of liquid between us and we only stopped for a pee twice. Adam lost 7 pounds!

After our soul-destroying races at the Waterside A and D races where we had capsized 8 times in total our first goal was to get to Newbury dry, which would do wonders for our confidence. But as we set off I could tell that the conditions were going to fully play their part and we were really finding it hard to get the boat moving through the water as fast as we had in training. Speaking for myself my RPE seemed much higher than I would have expected for that speed and can only attribute it to the heat and trying to keep cool. We were on a 25 hour schedule which I thought would be easily obtainable for us, but with hindsight and looking at the results that was far too optimistic, but at the time it seemed more than doable. However after getting the first pound to Wooton Rivers out of the way we were already 5 minutes down on schedule; an ominous sign that was only to get worse as we progressed. From the off we were overtaken by a steady stream of crews, but more worryingly, crews who we had left with would pull away from us easily, although we usually were able to catch up at the portages only to see them pull away from us again.

The weed early on was a real problem; our boat just seemed to be able to hook it with ease and it was very frustrating to clear it only to have it clog up again. One helpful female paddler ( I think she was an Aussie) helpfully pulled some weed away as she effortlessly glided past. She made it look all too easy. Savernake was bumpy but we took it carefully and got through relatively easily and we walk / jogged the Crofton flight trying to ensure that we didn't send out heart rates through the roof in preparation for the feed stop that was waiting for us at the end.   By then we were 7 minutes down.

The next four hours or so saw us plugging our way up to Newbury and this was the part of the course that had kept me awake at night, fretting about the number of capsizes we had during WA and WD. We past each capsize point from these races, mentally ticking them off but neither of us saying anything for fear of jinxing it. I coined a new phrase 'dib dab', so as we went under a bridge, got overtaken by a faster crew or hit a particularly narrow section of the canal with hard banks 'dib dab' would be our cue to be more aware and not do a full stroke if the water seemed to have lots of reflection waves from the banks; it seemed to work and ensured we stayed upright; better for us to lose 5 seconds that way rather than 5 minutes sorting out a capsize. We continued ticking off the locks but the sun beat down on all the crews relentlessly and I was finding that my eyes were getting very sore at times from the light reflections off the water and spent most of my time squinting. My 'camp' hat and nurofen ensured that any headaches were kept at bay.

Getting to Newbury was a massive boost despite now being over 40 minutes down and we had another good feed and bottle change there and got our spray decks back on. We had inadvertently pulled up one metre before the check point so the marshall in the tent was literally waiting for us to cross her line of sight for 5 minutes before she logged us at Newbury. We were  now on a fresh bit of the course and our tails were up with our capsize free paddle so far, so we upped the tempo, got our hands higher and in the words of the marathon talk podcast, 'zipped up our mansuits' and got on with it. It was great seeing some new scenery and the next couple of hours was the best bit of paddling we did all race, with an 8 hour warm up and not unduly fatigued. During this phase we saw some of the heartbreak that can befall DW competitors. One crew was on the bank with one bloke holding a footrest that was now in two pieces and later on, I watched as the rear crew member who had portaged with us dropped his boat and the rudder sheared clean off. My brother and his wife were also taking part in the race and they had powered past us a few hours earlier and we then saw them sat on the bank with Jamie nursing a completely smashed paddle. Thankfully I had a spare so they were in the process of waiting for it to arrive and it wouldn't be long before they came past us again once it had arrived.

We got into Aldermaston and we had managed to to claw back 10 minutes or so, in fact Paul and Phil our support were busy looking at another crew and they had no idea we had arrived as we were earlier than they had expected. We eventually tracked them down, got our lights on and headed off to the next few portages before Dreadnaught. Those next two and a half hours got progressively harder. It was great that we were now out of the heat, but as we made our way through Reading at chucking out time, we were both becoming quite weary and needed to kit change and food that was awaiting us. As we approached Reading we ere treated to the most amazing light show as an electrical thunderstorm skirted the town.

Unlike last year, Dreadnaught was much quieter as we were so much later but as soon as I had some home made chicken soup (thanks Margaret!) and got some fresh kit on I was good to go and was really looking forward to the next section to Marlow. Adam, however, was having a tough time. For the last hour or so our portaging had been getting slower. I was finding it really hard to get out the boat; Adam was finding harder to get back in. ;-) His right arm and shoulder was starting to protest and his back was really bothering him and our  nurofen was not taking the edge off of it and I could tell from his body language at Dreadnaught that he was worried. By upping our work rate to stay within an hour of our schedule we had kept ourselves in the game but it had come at a price. Anyway, I felt that we could now get a little bit of help from the limited flow on the Thames and begin to tick of the locks towards Teddington.

Unfortunately, the conditions didn't help. A very heavy mist descended making navigation really difficult and we had to turn off our head torches in order that I could see anything ahead. At one point I was genuinely worried that we would turn through 180 degrees and end up paddling back to Devizes.

Adam was getting quieter and quieter and while my food and nurofen had given me a big boost, the same had not happened to him. Aware that the mist was slowing us up further I was trying to keep the tempo up whereby we could still achieve the tidal window at Teddington, but Adam had to back off in order to protect his shoulder. Our progress slowed and by Hambleden we were down to almost 90 minutes behind schedule and we were only going to slow further. As we pulled into Hurley, we had decided to assess the situation at Marlow and make a decision there and as we portaged across we found Jamie lying on the ground, being attended to by his support crew. He had suffered a back strain as they left Hambleden and they had struggled to get to Hurley. As he had been lifted out the boat they took the sensible decision to retire. We let a couple of fast crews through the portage and after we got in we had a chat on the way down to Marlow. It was obvious that Adam was not fit to carry on and the thought on him battering himself to pieces for the next 8 hours with very little chance of making the cut off, it was the right call to stop. We pulled up at the checkpoint and the marshall asked us if we were sure that we wanted to retire. Yep. Quite sure.

It was a disappointing end but with 17 hours, 75 miles, only 3 working arms and no capsizes on the clock we'd given it a really good go. There's always next year.

A few mentions.

Jamie and Jo; Great effort guys. Well done and I really hope you get to smack it next year.

Lee and Richard; Boys, I was biting my nails on Sunday waiting to see if you'd made it. Massive congratulations. Can't wait to read your report.

Phil and Paul; Thanks boys, you were terrific, even when you insisted on shouting 'We love you' as we pulled out of every portage.

Ad; Said it all already mate. Next year?

From flab to fab

Waterside D. Before it all went wrong.

No post for a while as we have been on holiday this week for a much needed break. Work had been very stressy for a month or so and it got worse as we progressed towards starting the Waterside D. Ah yes, the D. So what happened there? Well, to be honest we're still not sure. Like most crews it was going to be our last long training paddle before the DW and to that extent it was a success, but that's where the success story ends. The first pound went really well; we were one of the first crews on the water so it felt very DW like for the first 45 minutes with very few crews overtaking us, or with us overtaking anyone else. We settled quickly and really enjoyed it and got stuck into our DW effort not worrying about the faster crews who came barelling past us. Our support (Dave) met us at Honey Street with fresh bottles and we continued on, enjoying the experience and the luke warm sunshine that meant I didn't have to be togged up in a cag. When we got to Wotton we ditched the spraydecks and began focussing on keeping our nutrition going and portaging as efficiently as possible. We were comfortably on DW pace. It was perfect.

Then it turned to worms.

In the next hour we capsized four times. On the fourth one, Adam and I just stood at the ends of the boat looking at one another saying to each other, "What is going on?" We genuinely just didn't get it and were completely bemused. We were not feeling unstable, twichy or nervous at all. We did the hard stuff without any problems; Savernake was negotiated well, despite the end of the tunnel being completely blotted out by the narrowboat in front of us which also produced a shed load of chop for us to deal with. The Crofton flight was fine; uncomfortable, but fine. But paddling on a flat canal? That seemed beyond us. As we approached Froxfield we decided to quit. We'd been paddling for 5 hours and I had started to shake and quite frankly, we used that as an excuse to bail, along with the other tried and tested one that we were not going to make the cutoff.(despite a load of other competitors finishing well after 7 hours.) There's no two ways about it, we quit when we didn't need to and that's left a bad taste in our mouths.

A few days later Adam text me and said that it was strange that we seemed to have problems as soon as we started portaging and that got me thinking that we still have not sorted out our seats moving about (every roll was to the right). I hope that he's right otherwise it's going to be a very long canal section.

Hopefully, we can draw on this for next weekend. Quitting was wrong and it's given us new resolve. We were not cocky but speaking for myself I was beginning to think that Westminster was going to be comfortably in the bag, whereas the D has reconfirmed that we are going to have to really work for it. I have started dreaming at night about the event but there are no mental images of passing under Westminster Bridge; all my dreams currently revolve around getting to Newbury. Let's just get off that sodding canal and then take it from there.

I'm not going to blog again before the event as the next week is going to be very busy, but I feel it only fitting that my last bit of a post is about Adam. He has been frickin' amazing. While I've been wittering on about our training on here, really this DW attempt has been about him. By his own admission he's been a couch potato for the last 25 years with a  predeliction for fine lagers and when he asked me 9 months ago if I'd have a go at this race with him, while a readily accepted I always knew that it was going to be a very big ask. It has been very hard for both of us times and often it hasn't been very enjoyable. Not because of Ad's rubbish sense of humour (I'm used to that, ;-) but the seemingly constant problems that we have faced and in the main, overcome.

Not only has Adam stuck at the paddling, which on its own is a big technical hurdle to overcome but more than that he's put the running miles in, cycled to work, cut out the crap food and all but given up beer (he's even developed a taste for non-acoholic lager!!) and as a result he's now the best part of 3 stone lighter than he was in June. That's the real success story here irrespective of what happens next weekend and because of that we shouldn't fear what happens. He's done his very best and more, he's going to give it a really good go and that's all that anyone can ask. I have been in the fortunate position that I was able to do the DW with my brother last year and this year I'm going to do it with my best mate, two of the best blokes I know, and that for me is enough.

Good luck to all DW competitiors.

The Final Countdown

Not long to go now. All of a sudden we have realised that the DW is only 3 weeks away, so there's not much paddle time actually left. Having said that Adam and I have felt for the last few weeks that we are pretty much as ready as we are going to be and any training at the moment is merely the icing on the cake. We just want to get on with it and do it.

Yesterday was a great day. We were going to do the Royal CC's Marathon race from Windsor to Teddington but we knew that our pace would probably only just see us within the cutoff and that we would have to work well above DW effort, so we decided it would be a lot more useful to instead try to do a recce paddle from Marlow to Old Windsor. We went to pick up the Discovery from the Royal and we were really glad we made the decision that we had. Some seriously hardcore paddlers were coming in, in very skinny K1's and K2's. I think we would have been out of our depth quite badly.  None of our support was available so mum and dad really kindly dropped us off at Longridge Scout Camp and then went to Windsor to pick us up. We put in, only to realise that we were not entirely sure which way we had to paddle. :-/ Luckily Adam knew from supporting last year which way it was and as soon as we got going I spotted a big house that had battlements that I recognised and it was on the correct side of the river.

I had accidently left my cag at home but even just in a base layer I was perfectly comfortable and the weather was glorious, only the southerly breeze being a bit of a problem later on. Lots of river traffic but they were all behaving and it was easy to get through. We  had assumed that with so little rainfall we would have to deal with some high portages but they were all perfectly manageable. We got a bit confused at Boveney as they were repairing the rollers so it was a portage on the left as opposed to the right, but it was quite simple once we had worked it out.

Again, we really focussed on DW effort with the boat at race weight (dry bag in with all DW compulsory kit). At times it was a bit of a slog; the long pound to Boveney being a bit more hard work than expected with very little flow along that stretch to help us along. We took it really easy at the portages, just trying to keep our heart rate down and feeding and drinking (nuun in water bottles / nuts and raisins / cheese sarnies / tracker bars) It was a great paddle and a missive confidence booster. The best bit though was a surprise; as we pulled the boat out of the water mum and dad handed Adam and I a quarter pounder with cheese each; heaven!! That means we have now paddled the course from Marlow to Teddington, so we are hoping to do Dreadnaught to Marlow the weekend before the DW as our final long paddle.

But before that we will be doing the Waterside D. After the A we both swore blind that there would be no way we'd do this but we decided a couple of weeks ago that we just needed to HTFU and do it. But, we must do our own race, that is treat it as the first 7 hours of the DW; nothing more, nothing less. Do our own thing in our own way and let everyone else get involved in the biff. I am actually quite looking forward to it now.

Replies

Hodge - Sounds tough mate, but keep throwing the kitchen sink at it. Three weeks is a long time....

Failure Modes Analysis

All we want to do is finish; that is all. While 28 hours would prolong the agony, if that's what we do it in, then that's what we'll do it in. We won't be chasing a time. Yes, 24 hours is a nice round number but if we simply cannot push the discovery through the water in that time then no amount of positive mental attitude is going to change that. It will be, what it will be. I have however been thinking a lot about things going wrong, not necessarily because I think they will but because I really don't want them to. I am in the lucky position of having completed the event last year but I am worried about something that I do or an injury that I sustain causing our retirement and meaning that  Adam does not see Westminster. I didn't think that I would be that fussed this year, that I would be the cool 'old hand' who would see us through but the closer we get the more I have the feeling that I really don't want to stuff up. It genuinely would be heartbreaking.

So, what could go wrong? Have we done everything that we can to avoid failure? Can we do anything else? These are the main things that I've been worrying / thinking about;

Breaking the boat. Don't drop it so have good technique when portaging and good communication. Don't roll the boat off your shoulder while the other crew is unaware. Have some putty with the support team to repair damage if possible. Carry an electrical block joint and small screwdriver in the boat to repair a broken rudder wire, but check the wires thoroughly before the race. Carry a spare rudder. Locktite all nuts. Check footbars / plates etc for damage. Take care of the boat on the course; it's got to go a long way.

Paddler injury. The really big unknown. Can you legislate for this? Well, I guess the better ones technique then the more you are doing to minimise this. So, technique, technique, technique. Ours is far from perfect but it's a hell of a lot better than it was 6 months ago.
Portaging injury? Again, good technique required. The fact that our boat is pretty heavy means that we have to shoulder carry so we should be minimising the risk of a wrist or lower arm injury. A lot of cockpit carrying, while faster could lead to problems later on. Don't fall over. If it's really muddy underfoot and you haven't got decent grip you're probably asking for trouble. Either get decent footwear or slow down.

Getting cold. Don't fall in!  Be in the right boat. If you must fall in, then get paddling again as quickly as possible. Ensure that your support always has a fresh base layer at every portage just in case to get out of your wet clothes as quickly as possible. I didn't need a full kit change; a new base layer, cag and BA back on; jobs a good 'un.

 Don't hang around too long on the night portages; everything begins to slow down so don't dawdle. Try to keep moving down the course.

Nutritional mistakes. Know what you can tolerate and eat little and often. If your stomach starts feeling heavy or bloated think about cutting back on your carbs and/or get your heart rate down if you're pushing too hard. Switch to water for a bit and get your stomach under control. We need to practise with our food and drink more over extended periods; we just have not done enough of this.

Support going wrong. Have two teams. Ensure they know the course and have good maps and directions. If it does go wrong - keep paddling, keep moving down the course. They'll find you eventually. Carry a phone if you need to and / or write your supports mobile number on your boat and get someone else to call. KEEP. PADDLING. DOWN. THE. COURSE.

Loosing positivity. Keep comunicating with each other. Ask how each other's doing. If there's a problem, talk it through and try to sort it. After 22 hours, even a wonky piece of duck tape can tip you over the edge, so sort it. If you get a headache, shoulder ache, neck ache, take some pain killers. Another 20 hours of paddling isn't going to make it better.

I'm sure there's a thousand other things but these are the main ones that keep coming back to haunt me.

Please don't let me screw this up.

Creaking and Groaning

I am afraid I am one of those people who has always liked watching old black and white war films (No.3 Reach for the Sky, No.2 Ice cold in Alex, No.1 The Dambusters are my top three, if you're interested, which you're probably not). Anyway, there's a scene in 'Above us the Waves' where John Mills has to dive deep in his submarine to escape the odd depth charge or two and as he does so, the bulkheads start to creak, valves begin to pop and stiff upper lips begin to tremble. That's a pretty good metephor for my body at the moment as the training load is begining to take effect and things are starting to ache, creak and protest. Last week during our paddle I developed a real hot spot at the base of my neck which I have had before, but this time instead of it going away after 10 minutes it stayed there, nagging away for the full duration of the session. Nothing a bit of nurofen wouldn't sort out in the race but when you want everything to give you confidence it's not ideal. My hamstrings are also tighter than very tight things at the moment and require constant stretching. Not a problem when running but afterwards they are getting quite sore and have started to bother me a bit when paddling. My calves, which have been my nemesis for the last couple of years have however been absolutely fine. But. Must. Stretch. Lots.

We had to abandon Sunday's long paddle as Ad had a bug but I ended up doing a brick session instead and we bunted our paddle to Monday. It was great. We really worked hard against the flow at well above DW effort (lots of creaking from me) and then after a quick rest at Molesey we headed back at DW effort. We are really working on slowing down our stroke rate and trying to get our stroke as long as possible. Most advice that I have been given seems to suggest that you should have a shorter, quicker stroke for something like the DW, but that just doesn't seem to work for us. By slowing it down we rotate much better and get our lead hands further forward. It feels comfortable so we're going to stick with it. :-)

As we came back to Eel Pie Island we heard the distinctive 'thwack....thwack....thwack...' of a swan beating its wings hard, trying to take off. I suddenly saw a pair of them at 2 feet off the water heading straight for my headtorch no more than 20 metres away. 'Oh f**k, duck.' It wasn't a duck, it was a swan, but you know what I mean. ;-) Ad and I are not the most flexible of fellas but we had our noses on the deck of the disco as they passed no more than a few feet above our heads. Apparently quite a few people have died while DW training but being poleaxed by a rotund avian missile would seem like a particularly stupid way to go. It was however very nice not to have to wear a hat or pogees. All of a sudden, this kayaking lark's become quite a lot of fun.

It's sunny outside

We managed to get a day pass this afternoon to head out during daylight and the weather got better and better as we progressed. The plan was an easy paddle at DW effort from Teddington up to Sunbury and back. As expected we had to contend with quite  a bit more river traffic than we're used to with the only major problem being a very fast rowing 8 and its support boat throwing up a big wave as we headed back to Molesey. we had to slow down but we got through it ok and then when we encountered it again we decided that discretion was the better part of valour and pulled over to the bank while they went past  and the river settled again. We also saw another DW crew on the river heading down to Molesey as we made our way in the opposite direction which was encouraging to see.We had not taken drink out with us, which with the warmer temperature was a mistake but at 3 hours in duration it wasn't a big problem.

Another 2 paddles this week, hopefully 3 if I can get out in a K1 at some time. Posted the cheque yesterday so we're going to Devizes now whether we like it or not.

Quick update

Adam and I could only plan two paddles this week, but again it has come at the right time. When we went out on Sunday we had both had really busy weekends and so by the time we were getting into the discovery at 8.15pm we were both clattered. We decided to do a steady paddle upriver and after 80 minutes we turned back with the flow pushing us back to give us a 2.5 hour paddle time and again no dramas.

Last night, once again we couldn't get onto the water until 9.30 so this time we decided to do a one hour tempo session, but we actually ended up doing 6 efforts of about 7 minutes in duration with a short recovery. It was a great session and it's nice to see Adam so relaxed now and really enjoying it, but it's really important that we get our technique back on track.

Other good news is that our weight's dropping so we'll have less to drag along the course.  :-)  After a long bike on Sunday morning I was eating everything in sight and thought I'd jump on the scales; 71kgs! Haven't been that lightweight since about 1993! Adam's clothes don't fit him anymore and he's regularly running to work and knocking off great chunks of time as his weight comes down.

The finishing line

I was up in London today and at one point we went across Westminster Bridge and took the photo here. There was a strong easterly wind and white horses on the river. *gulp*

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Hodge. Thanks. :-) Of course another reason for not going too long in training is that you can paddle without the need to constantly have support as well as ensuring domestic harmony at home.

When is long, long?

With the DW becoming more imminent it's getting to the stage where it becomes understandable to start worrying if the long paddles are long enough. But what is 'long enough?' In the triathlon world the general consensus for an average age grouper undertaking a triathlon of any duration is that if you have done the distance you need to complete in the individual disciplines in training then that should be enough to get you through, as long as you as get your pacing right. So far, that's worked for me, although I have usually completed the odd longer bike in my middle distance preparation. With a Long course race coming up in June, I intend to adopt the same procedure although with my history in recent years of injury when upping my run volume I will probably cap my long run training at two and a half hours; this combined with a run / walk strategy should see me through.

But what about preparing for paddling for 24+ hours? What's an appropriate length for a weekly long training paddle? I know that last year I originally wanted to adopt the tri approach and attempt to put in regular 6, 7, 8 hour paddles. Thankfully, we didn't. Dan at the MPCC advised us to not paddle for longer than 2.5 hours, but that just seemed far too short. How on earth could that prepare you for paddling all day and all night? The answer was of course, that realistically, you can't .  :-0   This time round, with Adam starting completely from scratch the most important thing has been for us to get into a boat as regularly as possible with the length of the paddle being immaterial. Be consistent and we would improve. At times it's not felt that way but we've come a hell of a long way in a relatively short space of time and the very fact that we 'll be starting the race is an enormous achievement.

So, what is our long weekly paddle? Our average duration is 2.5 hours although we have completed one at 4 hours in length and the Waterside A at 3 hours (well, 2.45 + 15 minutes swimming :-(   ). Over the next 4 weeks we are going to aim to build towards 3.5 hours but we are not going to stress if that doesn't happen. Our longest paddle will be the Waterside D route at DW pace which will probably take us something like 7 hours. What's more important is that we are paddling 3 times per week, working on our technique and getting comfortable in the boat. In my opinion, a well executed 3 hour paddle with good technique will be of more benefit than slogging away in the boat for 6 or 7 hours every week. The risk of injury is too great but more importantly I would have thought that it would be quite soul destroying; save the hardship for the race, training's meant to be fun.

Is this going to be enough? Well, that's the thing about the DW isn't it? You may have done the event many times before but when you paddle to the start line you can never be sure if what you have done is enough, because quite frankly it's such a ridiculous thing to do. I'll let you know at about midday on Sunday 24th April as to whether our long has been long enough.  ;-)

Some Waterside A Pics

Just before our 3rd capsize. :-/

Not exactly together, not exactly relaxed.

Back in the Game

The 24 hours after the Waterside A were spent in gloomy reflection of our performance. The upsetting thing was not the fact that we had capsized four times but the fact that we knew we could paddle so much better than we did. There was quite a bit of rough and tumble during the race and I made the schoolboy error of being drawn into it, rather than just doing our own thing. As a result I wasn't really putting myself in Adam's position who had never experienced this type of race before and instead of helping him relax and concentrate on his paddling I succeeding in making him more nervous which ultimately proved to be part of our downfall.
Anyway, it's done now and we need to put it behind us; it was a bad day, end of. The two major changes that we are making as a result of Sunday is that we now have a Discovery to paddle and we will not be taking the start at the Waterside D race. Having done the D last year and knowing that the conditions will be similar to the A, only over twice as long, it seems sensible that we paddle the D route on our own at some point. We've also had a couple of kind offers to do it with a few other crews so we may well do that instead. The D race is nowhere near the same conditions as the DW (it's just over the same part of the course) so it seems sensible for us to do our own thing, in our own time, as we will in the DW.

So on Monday we headed out into the Discovery just to do a short session to get back into a boat and get the bad taste out of our mouths. There was quite a bit of swell as we pounded up and down between Walton and Sunbury and it even started to snow a bit but we were fine and we could both feel the additional stability that the Disco offers. Last night it was a long 2 hour paddle on the Wey and I could tell that he was more comfortable as he spent most of the paddle taking the mick out of me rather than sitting in grim silence, concentrating on everything that was going on. The other telling thing was  that during the paddle we didn't put down one, single support stroke. It was our most pleasurably, uneventful paddle we've ever had, which is a very good sign. We'll save the mystere for next year!  ;-) The only problem I can see with the disco is that because of its extra stability I immediately stopped cycling my legs and pressing on the footbar and I must make sure that we don't lose that part of the stroke. As ever, something to work on.....

Running is going really well. :-) It's got that effortless feeling at the moment, rather than me grinding out the miles. More of the same please.
This weekend will be a long bike on Sunday morning, 4 hours ish and a long paddle Sunday night. Mrs Wheezy just about remembers what I look like!

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Cheers Hodge. We should have remembered to do our own thing, like you. Lesson learnt!