Focus

I've done quite a bit of soul searching in the last fortnight. With my mojo levels falling through the floor it gave me the opportunity to take a bit of a step back and make a few decisions about what I want and more importantly what I should do next. I've blogged before about how I struggle to fit everything in and as a result never quite feel that I have given of my best. This comes down to competing in long endurance events which take a lot of time to train for and are also quite specific in their demands. In the space of nine months I've completed an ironman tri, a marathon and the DW. I should celebrate this fact and I am proud to have done these things but trying to do all of them all the time leaves me constantly undercooked for the next race and fretting about not laying enough of a base to do the event as well as I would really like. I have constantly felt under pressure to get out the door, do something, anything to keep the momentum going. I have essentially been 'panic training' and to a point, it's worked but ultimately it's proved unsustainable and quite often, not very enjoyable.

So, I've decided to break the cycle and here's how...

For the next 18 months my aim is to concentrate on  marathon training and I will not be taking part in any triathlons in that time.  I really, REALLY want to go sub3 and unless I commit to it whole heartedly it will not happen. I've been speaking to a few people to get some advice in the last week or so and discussed the injuries that I have been suffering from and it's becoming obvious to me that I need to put in place a strengthening and conditioning program that will allow me to cope with the running load. I have good basic speed and reasonable endurance but I don't have the elasticity and strength to run consistently week in, week out. So, weedy old me will be going to the gym. Yikes. It makes sense. I'm not happy about it but the bottom line is that I do not have the legs of a 20 year old anymore so it's got to be done if I want to achieve a sub3 time.

Next year I'll also be taking a break from the DW. Mrs Wheezy was making some decidedly unsympathetic noises when the idea of a fourth successive start was mooted. I need a break from that BUT I really want to keep paddling without the pressure of having such a big goal in front of me. 2014 I will be back at Devizes and in the meantime I'm going to enjoy myself, work on my technique on the river and use paddling to keep my core strength high. I am trying to get myself a K1 boat at the moment but it's proving tricky to get a suitable one. There are plenty of second hand racing boats that are very wobbly and beyond my skill level but a mid-range boat like the Kirton Tor are much harder to come by second hand, but hopefully I can sort out something soon and make full use of the Royal and the Thames over the summer months. I have my coaching course to prepare for and I am hoping that a group of us can get together to train regulalry as I now there are some club members with the DW in their sights.

Without the need to train for tri this year I feel a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders and I am so much happier for making that decision. I'll commute on my Trek when the weather's good, do a bit of time trialling as training and meet up with Simon to support him (as I'm doing tomorrow). Like Pep Guardiola, this is going to be my sabbatical year. ;-)

Major mojo dip

It's been a hard couple of weeks since we completed the DW. It's common to read about people completing a big event that's been all consuming and then finding it hard to adjust with the loss of focus that then entails. I have never really suffered from that before. Yes, I've been miserable if things haven't gone my way but I've usually bounced straight into the next thing, but this has been different. This has been a full on case of the CBA's. Part of that is down to the injuries that I am carrying from the DW. My right wrist has all the hall marks of carpal tunnel syndrome. I am waking up at night with pins and needles in my first and middle fingers and it's been particularly bad this week with me being back at work, so I think that it's going to be a good few weeks before I get back into a boat again. In an effort to force my mojo back to the surface I went out for a few half hearted runs but my left leg was aching like hell so after 20 minutes I stopped both times and then spent another 30 minutes stretching. I was meant to do the first evening 10 mile tt's with the Kingston Phoenix on Wednesday night. I usually love these events. Turn up, beast myself on the bike for 25 minutes then have a cup of tea and a chat; all for £2. However, it got called off owing to the torrential rain and I have never been more relieved in my life. I just was not in the right frame of mind to do it. So I sat on the sofa and watched Harry Potter with the kids instead and it was fab. :-)

Yesterday I learnt that the Outlaw Triathlon had opened up another 50 places for the race. I had missed the original deadline and Simon had entered while I had not. I spent a good 20 minutes umming and aahing about whether to enter. I even had my credit card out at one point but then common sense (for once) kicked in. I'm just not prepared to do another Ironman again when I am not fully fit or not fully committed. I will do an Ironman again but only when I KNOW that I can get off the bike and run a marathon and do it to the best of my ability. At the moment I'm finding it hard and at times painful to run for 20 minutes and that's no basis for an Ironman that's 10 weeks away.

So what now then? Well, the Edinburgh Marathon is not going to happen as I am simply not in shape to get round let alone get near 3 hours and the Cotswold Tri just isn't floating my boat. At the moment I just want to get fit, run pain free and enjoy riding my bike again and to do a bit of paddling. Simon is ramping up his training for the Outlaw so I intend to meet up with him when I can and help him along and enter a few tt's with the Phoenix.  I also want to paddle regularly, even just once a week with the guys from the Royal and hopefully Adam and Jamie as well. I have invested too much time in it over the last few years to stop and I want to get better. At the moment it's not about racing it's just about putting a smile on my face. The racing can come later when the mojo has returned from wherever it has gone.

A favourite Picture

Another picture taken by Lee as we left Dreadnaught at 7.30. I really like this one. It's the Marines boys just behind us who eventually flew past us on the Tideway.

Had a week off repairing myself but went for a small run yesterday, but having a big mojo dip at the moment. I guess it's to be expected after the exertions of last weekend. I'd quite like to get back in a boat but I'm not sure my coccyx has quite recovered.

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.

We did it

A tough, tough day. 28hrs and 40 minutes.  87th/161.

Will blog a race report in the next week or so.
Thanks to everyone for their support and kind messages.

More sleep now. :-)

Keeping a weather eye

A couple of K1 paddles this week with me getting quite nicely toasted on the back of my neck and a k2 paddle with Adam tonight; again, just an hour splashing up and down the Kingston straight. But this week has mainly been packing, writing lists, writing new portage instructions (lost the old ones but now have new, better ones) and generally running around trying to get things together.

Thoughts have turned to the weather. We've known for the last three months that there would be very little flow on the river and it's been proved to be correct, but the other two big variables which would greatly effect our speed, namely temperature and wind speed have been harder to predict. The good news it that at the moment they seem fairly favourable. It seems that it's going to be considerably cooler than last week which is a huge relief to us. Cold, I can deal with. Just eat more pies and hot chocolate :-) The winds seem as though they will be fairly light which again will help our cause. The bottom line is we will just have to wait and see and deal with whatever nature decides to throw at us.

Anyway, I am out of the loop for the rest of the week so it's going to be Adam's job to sort out the last few bits and details before we travel down on Friday. We're feeling good about it and hopefully the hard work over the winter will pay off for us this year. To all crews taking part in this year's event, I wish you the best of luck and I hope that you achieve your goals and have an enjoyable race. I'll see you at St Thomas's for a bacon roll.

You can follow the race here;
http://www.dwrace.org.uk/results/2012/dw.html

and if you want to give a silent cheer for boat 371, then that would be grand. See you on the other side.

Replies

Antony; I wouldn't let me anywhere near your boat if I were you. I have a tendency to break things. Have a great race and give us a wave when you go past. :-)

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





What to do?

Lots of discussion at the moment regarding whether to start early or start late and wait for the evening tide window. It seems that there will be a large number of crews (40) attempting to get away at 7am on Saturday, which could make the first pound quite bouncy and slow. Here's my thoughts;

Adam and I just want to finish so for us, an early start is a no-brainer (IMO  ;-)  It gives us 2 bites at the cherry in that if things start to turn to worms and for whatever reason we slow up and miss the early tide window then we will still have the 2 hour window later on in which we can finish the event. We are lucky in that we've got a lovely warm clubhouse where we can get changed and grab some kip if that does happen. Ok, we'll be last with a finish time of 30 plus hours but after retiring last year, this year it is all about the finish.

But of course, that isn't going to happen. We are going to absolutely nail it this year and that means that when we hit the tideway we will not have anywhere near the amount of river traffic on the tideway to contend with, which I think is another plus point.

If you go for the smaller 2 hour window later on sunday and miss it, for whatever reason, fatigue, injury etc, then that's it; game over. I would have thought that for experienced paddlers used to the event and confident in the pace that they can keep then that's not such a problem.

You need to work backwards. What do you realistically think your time will be, baring in mind that there is very little flow on the Thames at the moment and that's unlikely to change significantly between now and the race? Evening high tide is at 5pm therefore a 24hr ish schedule averging 5mph on both canal and river, you would be looking at starting at around 7.30pm therefore you would be doing the canal between 7.30pm and 6.30am then the river from 6.30ish to 5pm.

That means doing the canal in the dark (lots of portaging in the dark; seems like a recipe for disaster to me) and then doing the river in the day time (potentially a lot more river traffic to contend with particulalry if it's going to be fine weather)

I am sure that there are some advantages to starting later ,but I cannot think of many. Being able to travel down on the day / less people at the start?

Discuss.

#Jantastic

The Jantastic running challenge has ended with a bit of a whimper. Once again my left foot has flared up again and as I write this I am sitting with my feet up, dosed up on nurofen and about to apply an icepack. My foot has not been right since the start of the year and rather than letting it rest and doing some proper rehab I have soldiered on when my experience should have told me better. In the last 2 weeks I have only run twice (3 times if you include Crofton)  and it's my leg simply giving up and crying for mercy. It was the running that we did during our bread pudding paddle that was the nail in the coffin for my plantar fascia and within hours I started to get that omonious deep ache that no amount of ice and stretching could get rid of. I was awake for most of last night, not able to find a comfortable position with my foot glowing in the dark as it swelled up. It's made me decide that I must get some really good footwear for the DW that I will be comfortable in, so I'm going to invest in a pair of trail or off-road  running shoes. Getting ones that can fit into a boat might not be easy but there must be something out there and if my foot starts playing up during the race then that could be a DW-ending problem. Once the DW is out the way I am going to go back to the physio and get some serious rehab done as I simply cannot keep going on like this. So, Jantastic is over. I have not laid the enormous aerobic base that I was hoping to in preparation for the Edinburgh Marathon and as things stand I cannot see me taking the start there, not unless I can recover quickly and keep this problem at bay.

Yesterday, I went on a BCU FSRT course (foundation safety and rescue training). It's a basic course designed to help paddlers cope with capsize and rescue situations, assess risks and take appropriate control measures etc when on the water.  My reason for doing it was two-fold. I wanted to have a few more skills so that I could cope with capsize and emergency training situations when I am out training and also I will be doing a coaching level 1 course in September and the FSRT is a pre-requisite. The Royal are short of coaches to help out so a group of us will be taking the level 1 and I am hoping that in the future it might be something that Wheezy junior and I could do. The course was taken by Paul who was very knowledeable about all types of boats and had many anecdotes to tell. I now know how to empty a Canadian kayak and how you can paddle 2 K1's with only 1 paddle. It's surprisingly easy.

The bread pudding run

Adam and I knew that we would find it hard to fit in the really long paddles that we would need in the run-up to the DW. I had hoped that we would do some of the Waterside series as training but it turned out that on every race weekend we were committed to other friend and family events (everyone we know’s turning 40 this month) so our windows of opportunity to get a really long paddle in were dwindling. Yesterday was to be our Waterside D replacement where we would find out our canal pace, practice our portaging and feeding and get Dad and John up to speed on their supporting duties. We had decided to put in at Pewesy instead of Devizes so that we would not have to do the first 12 miles of pretty dull paddling without a portage, but much more importantly we would carry on past Newbury and head up to Aldermaston  in order tp familiarise ourselves with that section of the course. This was where things began to unravel for us last year and we wanted to go back and get it in our heads and see the obstacles in daylight. It was going to be a long day in the boat as we only had a handful of two hour plus paddles in the bag in the last few months but we wanted to see if the technique work that we have been doing had made any difference to our ability to paddle the boat well. The next 31 miles would tell us.

The put in at Pewsey was easy with an accessible car park and the weather was perfect, being quite cool, although weakly warm when the sun made the odd appearance. We found we were too hot to start with but within an hour or so it had cooled down and was very comfortable for most of the paddle. We had the usual 15 minute shakes as Adam settled down but we had a nice easy paddle up to Wotton all on our own in order to find our rhythm. Straightaway we focussed on our technique, with me trying to ‘spear my feet’ and keep my hands high while Adam got his rotation going.

The first major obstacle was going to be the Savernake Tunnel. I knew that we would get through ok but I was worried about encountering a boat trying to get through the tunnel from the other direction, despite us having a light on the front. As it was I need not have worried; it was possible to see very clearly through the tunnel and the water was dead calm, however there was a lot of weed and other debris that had got caught-up in there, making paddling quite difficult. We tip-toed through and then got our heads down to negotiate Crofton.

We walk/jogged the whole of Crofton, expecting to meet Dad and John at the bottom, but they had unexpectedly turned up in the middle. We passed up the offer of a feed and kept on plugging away, breaking out into a trot when we felt like it, but we didn’t rush it particularly, knowing that we were going to have a pretty big feed at the end of the flight. We got there and had a sarnie, jelly babies and a bottle change. We were not using carbs drinks, instead using nuun in our bottles for electrolytes and hydration and relying on carbs through solid food. It’s very easy to stand around and have a chat and I think D & J were a bit surprised at my insistence that we get going again so soon. This need to get going and keep moving was however tempered with the need to keep relaxed when we were moving. As the paddle progressed we were more careful to slow ourselves down and not rush unnecessarily and avoid making silly mistakes that would cost us a lot of time. In the main, we achieved that pretty well although there were a few things which cost us a bit of time. For example my paddle came loose. All of a sudden I found myself slapping the water and I realised my feather angle was non-existent. Luckily we were at a portage although it took a few minutes to get a screwdriver. I’ll be sticking the plastic locknut back on for the race to avoid this happening again. Adam and I also managed to ship some water into the boat which we then had to get out. Another minute or two lost as we sorted it.

We got into Hungerford and it was at this point that I developed a back problem on my right hand side which sent a sharp pain that stopped me paddling for a moment. Bad thoughts raged and I thought that we were going to have to stop but gradually over the next half an hour it faded away. I can only think that I tweaked something during a portage. It was a bit of a worry at the time but seems ok now. It rather highlighted how quickly things could potentially turn to worms. It reinvigorated my focus on my technique once more.

The section before and just after Hungerford is densely populated with locks and a big part of this paddle was to give us the opportunity to get our portage routine squared away. We are not fast at portaging. Adam’s a big chap and getting out the boat is a big effort for him. Allied to that, we do not have the advantage of a lightweight kevlar boat that we can carry on the cockpit, so portaging requires us to get the boat out of the water by the cockpit first, before going to the handles to shoulder the mystere. This takes time. Not much time, but significantly more than just picking up the boat and running, and over 40 portages this adds up significantly. But, we got a good system going and I feel we were as efficient as we could be, also using the portages to take drink and a haribo or two to top up our sugar levels.

After seeing D and J at Kintbury, this time eating some of mum’s bread pudding,  we were on the final section before Newbury and here the locks begin to thin out, which allowed us to get back into a better rhythm. We could definitely feel the effects of hull drag on the boat but we had the mystere bouncing along nicely and we were feeling really good about how the paddle had gone. Newbury came up quickly and after another bread pudding stop and a haribo top-up we pushed on towards our next meeting with them at Midgham. As I said earlier, it was in this section last year that we started to push too hard to make up on lost time and ultimately was one of the causes for us to retire, so again, we tried to keep relaxed and maintain our technique and tick off the locks. This section has the two left turns after lock 88 and 94 but they really are no problem. We had to duck for a couple of low bridges and got through them comfortably and Monkey Marsh was open, although I made a hash of it and tried to put the boat in in front of a dredger. Another minute lost while we found a different get in point.

We were both getting a bit more clumsy as we got tired and at the second to last lock before Aldermaston we made a hash of it. I was busy saying hello to to a woman walking her dog and when I looked around Adam was floating in the water; apparently a BA strap had got caught. Not how we wanted to end the paddle but we had a really good recovery and found ourselves in Aldermaston ahead of schedule. Unfortunatley, J and D were not there. They had missed us at Woolhampton and then a road diversion in Aldermaston meant that it was another 40 minutes before they got to us. We got out our dry kit in the boat and waited. An unfortunate end to the day, but in the grand scheme of things, small beer. We were really pleased with how the day had gone with us finishing uninjured and feeling like we had not taken too much out of ourselves.

We were really pleased with our speed in the water. Despite it being the canal, we were faster in the water than we though that we would be and that’s a big testament to the work that we’ve put in over the winter. Hopefully, when we get on the Thames and we have less portaging to deal with then we will be able to maintain a good average speed. Don’t get me wrong; we’re still looking at a finishing time in excess of 25.5 hours, but we know that we can hit the cut–off times at Newbury and Dreadnaught and hit the tide window at Teddington.

I am now officially looking forward to April 7^th.

Details

Our Garmin is now installed in front of Adam's cockpit.

I think a piece of tape tactically placed over the 'distance travelled' display will be needed so as not to drive Adam nuts, constantly seeing how far we've still got to go.

We now have our confirmed entry and we've got one of the 30 slots for Good Friday check-in, so we should be able to get away super early on Saturday.

Dad has been and recce'd the paddle that we are due to do next week and reports that some of the roads around the access points are closed from this week and will continue to be so for 12 weeks. It could make it a bit interesting but at least we can make our mistakes next weekend.

I managed to get a late night ergo interval session  for an hour earlier this week and last night I got out for another interval paddle up to Molesey and back. I think my improved technique is showing as I pb'd the time for this paddle. Managed to hit another fishing line about 20 metres from the Royal, again completely unlit and again managed to unhook myself. The fisherman was a complete twit.

After my paddle I spent an enjoyable 30 minutes with epoxy resin and grp tape putting in another bolt to hold on my seat in order that there is no chance of them moving when portaging and I plan to also install our safety bags under there so that our dry bag can be much smaller. Details, details.....

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.