h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

On: He He He, Wiiipe-out....

October came with the expectation of doing great things. Summoning the blood and stiffening the sinews and putting in the mileage... that kind of thing. Alas it's turned into an almost complete wipeout as far as any productive advancing of the master-plan is concerned. Firstly, the predominant factor of the poor weather washed out the Thames for most of the first half of the month. Secondly, going back to help out at work took over half the month’s weekdays out and that was compounded when they asked to extend my participation right up to the end of the month. Heading up-country with Mrs Deke to look at puppies took another two days, and a raging cold with a sore throat (man-flu actually), has brought me to the end of an almost totally unproductive month on the paddling front.

The only bright point in this general morass of failure is my one venture back onto the Thames in a tippy boat in less than wonderful conditions and completing the excursion without taking a bath. Now while I can consider that to have been something of a confidence booster, I haven't been able to follow up on it to consolidate any gain that I might have made.

I suppose then that I can conclude that the summer, such as it was, and the best of the training conditions of the year is over. We are now well into the season of mellow fruitfulness, although conditions lately have generally been overcast and misty with the odd morning frost. Gusty winds are presently stripping the trees of their amber and russet coloured leaves which blow along the Wey's towpath and coat the water making a nearly tangible surface. So I can assume that with the depressing air of bleakness, the weather conditions are only going to get worse as autumn gives way to winter and I must take whatever opportunities to get out on the water present themselves .

One of my sons has now decided that paddling is no longer for him and he‘s sold up his very tippy kayak. Instead he's going to concentrate more on his other sport, Triathlon, and in order to spend more time on the three disciplines of Swim/Bike/Run something had to give. But his decision to turn in kayaking has had an unexpected pay-off for me though, insofar as I've been gifted a buoyancy-aid, a spray-deck, an assortment of pogies, gloves and most importantly... a paddle. Not just any old paddle, but his racing wing-paddle.

Strangely enough it had recently been mentioned to me that a full-on wing-paddle might suit my style of flapping arms and flying elbows a little better than the asymmetric paddle that I've been using up to now. The thing is that wing-paddles don't come cheap and I had no real intention of splashing out a couple of hundred quid for a new one just on the off chance that it might suit me better. I had already borrowed one earlier this year and given it a trial run but it hadn't seemed to be providing any real advantage. The trouble is that the two types of paddle have a distinctly different form to the stroke that you have to use and I would have to spend some time with it to see if its advantages will rub off on me. But to do so I’ve got to learn a different technique for the wing-paddle and use it in place of the technique that I’ve assiduously been trying to ingrain in my psyche for the last six months.

The wing paddle has to be inserted into the water in a much more upright attack stance, so that the catch of the stroke inserts the paddle almost vertically into the water near the feet. The paddle is then pulled through the water outwards and away from the side of the boat at an angle of about 30 degrees, roughly in line with the wake of the boat from its prow, in order that it’s aerofoil shape can generate the ‘lift’ on the back of the blade. It’s this ’lift’ function which the asymmetric paddle can’t produce, which provides the wing with its increased efficiency. Apparently it’s a lot less forgiving than the asymmetric, and it’s inclined to snatch inwards towards the underside of the boat if you get the paddle behind your waist when it’s being removed from the water at the end of the stroke.

For me there are two other problems with this stroke. The first being getting the paddle into the water near my feet, I must just have short arms, or the sinews have already stiffened in my back to the extent that I can’t reach much further down than my knees. The other is that the more upright the paddle goes, the further over to the stroke side the top supporting hand has to reach, and once past the centre the less balanced everything feels. Nevertheless it’s probably still worth a try as, I’m told, my stroke curves outwards anyway, and isn’t going straight along the side of the boat as it should be. Clearly I’m going to have to think quite hard about this and whether it would be worthwhile as it’s really not a very good idea to try to do both at the same time.

So now we need to see what November brings.

I know I keep saying this, but you are such an inspiration! I hate to admit it but I really am NOT doing right by myself and your charming story reels me in and before you know it I am getting all honest with myself and making myself go do the treadmill and stick to the right foods! And I have a tendency to find reasons not to do the good things (for instance, picking a fight with the lady on the next door exercise bike so I have a good reason to flounce out and not go back ) but watching you just plow ahead helps me watch myself for those sabotaging things and nip them in the bud (now.)

I like that new paddle. It seems very high tech. Don't forget what they say...

Different strokes for different folks

I know, you're asking yourself "How does one pick a fight with a lady on the exercise bike next to you?"

Well, it ain't easy.
For one thing, she wasn't interested in me. Only the men. I knew this because when I said "Hi" she didn't answer me back. And it wasn't because she had earbuds in her ears, we all know that's just a ploy to avoid interaction with your fellow human being. So when she started talking to a maaaaaaan about her crossword she was doing, I tried to offer some advice on how to do the crossword. (I was bored, it's not easy staying awake on a treadmill) Of Course, she ignored me so when I (obnoxiously) reoffered the advice she Snarled "I know, I've been doing these for years." So, naturally, I couldn't let that go and growled back "So have I."

Well! Then the session was just totally ruined, I tell you, and I had to switch off the treadmill and leave! Honestly, some people!





see how easy it is?

Hi Clare

I think I can sympathise with your 'tendency to find reasons not to do the good things'. I've always found it easiest to opt out rather than in, probably because I've never really enjoyed just participating in sport for its own sake. I've always had to have some sort of goal for motivation to get me out and do things, but it's also the little 'victories' along the way that keep me going back.

I've usually found in the past that ‘channelling’ anger was good for bringing out something extra in performance. I used to run a lot and it was always very competitive within the club I belonged to, even to the point where what was supposed to be good-humoured banter usually had a bit of an edge on it. I always found it good to harbour small grudges against any slight, even if it was unintended, and run the perpetrator into the ground if I could, the next time around. As far as the lady on the exercise bike is concerned and your altercation with her, if I had had the experience you did, on the treadmill, I would probably have turned up the pace and shown her the way home.

Actually your comments have given me a subject to write about in this column. As outlined in the last post I haven't really done very much by way of paddling that I can record in a new entry, so I'm struggling at the moment to find something to write about that's new and not repetitive. I think this column is all becoming a bit ‘samey’ but your post does inspire one topic that I can digress a bit on.

Get mad... Get even.

On: Putting it all Down to Experience.

Well, so far November hasn't brought anything very much different from October.

I had been keeping an eye on the poor river conditions through the last part of October while I recovered from a bout of man-flu that seemed to be hanging on forever, while finishing up my stint at work by the end of the month. At first, filling in part-time at work I had felt pleased to have been asked to go back, even if just on a temporary basis. But after a couple of weeks it had soon palled, and any thoughts of wanting to still work full time have now gone completely out of the window. The work ethic has definitely flown the coup. At last the rain seemed to have stopped and it looked as if conditions on the Thames and the Wey had returned to normality, whatever that is. So at the start of November I was reasonably expecting to resume some semblance of regular practice with the added value of regular weekly trips out with the club's Improvers group. It wasn't to be.

I was set for my first excursion right at the start of the month but on checking found all the red and yellow boards were posted up again. Although I hadn't seen any rain in my locality, apparently overnight torrential rain in the Thames Valley area had both rivers in flood again. Meanwhile, I'm champing at the bit to get going again but more of the same for the next couple of days made sure that the next Improvers session was cancelled. The Wey was finally reopened after a week and I got out on it the following day.

Really though, I need hardly have bothered. The experience was quite dreadful insofar as in the full eighteen days of lay-off any semblance of competence on the water had been lost, and on top of that my weight had ballooned back up to well over fourteen stone again. At first I was wobbling all over the place like a raw beginner, nearly taking a plunge twice. After a while I steadied up a bit but it was still a struggle just to complete the usual two mile course without three, count them, three, stops. Towards the end I was reduced to counting the timing for the strokes to keep the feeling of weakness in the arms and shoulders at bay and to keep cadence down to keep a slower, but marginally more efficient stroke going. All in all it took almost double the amount of time to complete the distance that I usually do and I was really, really glad to end the session, pack up and go home.

The following Saturday dawned and the Improvers session had been moved forward to that afternoon from the next Sunday morning, which was okay by me but I was the only taker for that day. The yellow warnings were still in force for our stretch of the river and red everywhere else upstream. Looking at the water it was obviously moving quite as fast as the last time I’d been on it three weeks earlier and there was a lot of detritus coming down with it, but it appeared manageable. Feeling a bit under-par I set off with two of the group leaders across the river to the opposite bank to make use of the slacker water on the inside of the local bend in the river. Crossing the main flow was... interesting. Setting the boat at a forty-five degree angle had us crabbing sideways across the water with hardly any headway, but we quickly made it into the slower stream and continued upriver, all the while hugging the bank.

After practicing steering with a few zigzag exercises we re-crossed the river and made it into the channel where we had turned back on the last excursion two weeks previously. Here we elected to carry on upriver for about another half mile towards Sunbury lock. Still working against the flow I was tiring rapidly by this point and sagging back into the cockpit even more than usual. In fact, with the effort that I was having to put into each stroke it was becoming really painful, not least where the cockpit coaming was chaffing through my now sweat-saturated clothing against my backbone, raising a large wheal and bruise. Most of the return journey was a rock ‘n roll nightmare as I tried to keep the boat steady while now laying out almost horizontal in the cockpit. But at last it was over and I made a passable fist of crossing the river again at an odd angle while trying to gauge the downstream drift to arrive at our jetty without overshooting it.

It wasn’t a pleasant experience. It never is when the river is running that hard which is how it now always seems to be. Once again it was a really hard work-out where all the concentration has to go into just maintaining the boat's speed to keep up with the leaders while staying upright. There is very little time to practice anything new in these sort of conditions and I don’t feel that it’s getting me anywhere. I can only put it down to experience and hope there's some good coming from it. I’ve put my problems with lack of balance and lack of power during these two outings down to feeling very second-hand after the cold, and the loss of what little fitness I have due to nearly three weeks lay-off.

All in all, it feels like four months wasted. Feeling as I do at the moment, for two pins I’d pack the whole thing in.

...and it’s just started to rain again.

It's so hard to be discouraged!

But, when you think about it you did way better than your first time out with them! I am really getting so much from you and your adventures. I haven't gone to the gym since last time I posted here and I am feeling it. But the way you keep going back for more reminds me I can too. Your inactivity is enforced by conditions beyond your control, mine maybe is too but not so obviously. Anyway, I Can go do it and I will in the morning when I get up. After all, when I started the gym I was out of shape too.

Just have to say, that last line, ".....and it's started to rain again" is absolutely hilarious!

On: Keeping Going

It's becoming more difficult to keep motivated, especially now the 'good' weather has moved on. But having played havoc with my schedule the Thames is sorting itself out again and the stretches upstream and downstream of the part that I use don't currently have any warnings boards up, and all the other stretches upstream now only warn that the flow is fast but reducing. Happily the weather forecasts are only for limited rain that shouldn't significantly affect the river conditions and I can only hope that's going to be the case.

As of today, 18 November, there is only 130 days to go to the start of the 2013 DW. That’s not much time left, about four months, so things are not looking too good. At the moment, where I'm at is that I can paddle an ultra-stable but slow, racing K1 kayak. I can manage about three miles without collapsing into the rear of the cockpit from fatigue of the stomach, back and/or hip muscles, and I still don't feel confidant enough to hit the exposed upper reaches of the Thames unaccompanied.

Entry dates have been posted for a series of races which take place in the New Year. They are the 'Waterside' series of four races that all take place on various stretches of the Kennet and Avon Canal and are used as warm-ups to the DW. They vary in length from twelve to thirty miles and would make an ideal practice run as between them they cover most of the length of the canal section of the DW and incorporate two-thirds of the portaging. The only thing is that they are a bit too high level events for me. One of my sons did the thirty mile one and advised that it's more productive to simply do one or two of the courses by yourself on a different day. That's maybe something to consider as a short-term target to work for.

I’m disappointed that for one reason or another I haven’t been able to get as much time out as is proving to be necessary, but even then I’m not sure how much good it would have done. Really I can't pin down any one factor that I can blame for my continued failure to progress any faster. And I can't really say that I know what to do about it that will work the oracle and catch up to where I think I should be at this stage. I'm also heartily sick of trying to analyse it. Really the only thing I should be doing is putting in more time on the river.

But I'm also about to commit another cardinal sin which will slow things up again. That's to try out the Wing Paddle given to me by my son when he retired from paddling last month. Both of my sons are of the opinion that the change will improve my efficiency once I get used to the new technique that's necessary for that kind of paddle. I'm not holding my breath on that one (unless I go in), but I guess I've got to give it a try although hoping that a change of paddle will make any significant difference feels rather like a workman blaming his tools for his own shoddy workmanship.

Earlier last week I chiselled the morning ice off the car and loaded up to sally forth again to the Wey, this time with my son who had a couple of days off work. Both of us were in single K1's, our intention being to put in a bit of mileage. The plan this time was to start together for the first mile or so, then he would push ahead to the first lock about two and a half miles away with me following on behind as fast as I was able. At that point he would return and pick me up on the way back to return the start. So the faster I could go meant that I would travel further, the potential distance would be almost six miles.

At the agreed separation point he accelerated ahead leaving me to follow in his wake. All went well for the first mile and I got into a reasonable rhythm as I warmed up and watched him disappear around the next bend. I took a short breather as we progressed and I managed about two thirds of the way before he reappeared coming back. Turning back and following on again I tried to keep up with him and this effort paid off with a good work out and took the mind off the tiring muscles.

One thing that I did learn from the last Improvers session leader that is proving useful, was how to stabilise the boat when not paddling. I recall that this was mentioned during the initial course in April, I think it was just before I fell in, which is probably why it went straight out of my head at the time. Anyway, up to now what I’ve been doing when stopping is to hold the paddle at chest height like a tightrope walker performing a balancing act over Niagara. What I should have been doing was to turn one blade of the paddle flat and lay it on the water so that it planes across the surface and provides a point of support to steady any imbalance I’m having in the boat. I tried it on the last outing and it works. How well it’s going to work with the wing paddle at the same time, I’m not sure yet.

What I’ve also got to practice is what’s known as a ’support stroke’ where in the event of a roll that’s going a little too far, I can slap the paddle blade down onto the water to counteract the roll and to stay upright. In my limited experience there wasn’t any time to get that support stroke in before I went over, but everyone else seems to swear by it. Practicing this is definitely going to get me wet, I may well swear at it.


A headlines in yesterday's paper was ' Britain to face coldest winter ever' or words to that effect... Oh God!

Wow, that outing with your son sounds pretty successful! Bet you couldn't have done that when you started out! I think it's pretty amazing considering the lack of kayaking you have been lately experiencing...

Reading through what you said and thinking about how the UK seems to be doomed to a worse than usual winter this year, I thought i might go look on the web to see what's out there concerning what other people do during this downtime and I found these:

http://theseakayaker.com/sea_kayak_exercises/kayakers_workout.html

http://www.perceptionkayaks.com/news_item/index/news_and_events/news/the_paddling_guru_getting_in_shape_for_paddling_season/

http://jacksonkayak.com/blog/2012/03/12/how-to-get-yourself-and-equipment-ready-for-the-kayak-season/

Also, I saw more than one reference to a gym machine called an Adaptive Motion Trainer.
Evidently the gyms have them and maybe a search on the web can tell you how to use it to keep/get in shape for kayaking.

Have some celery and a smile.

On: Changing Paddles in Mid Stream

Last week the Thames just coming out of flood and the Wey was navigable again as I pressed the button to send in my latest post in this thread's sorry saga. I thought then that the turn in the weather would presage a period of calmness and dryness that would let me get on with things and maybe get back on track. After all the forecast on the weather website that I use pointed to a full week of reasonably sunny weather with bearable temperatures so I thought that I could look forward to at least a full week of useful exercise out on the water. I thought too soon.

With that in mind I took myself down to the Wey on the Monday morning for a short-ish run to give the wing paddle that I've been gifted a try out. The thinking being is that using this 'racing' style paddle instead of the flat asymmetric one that I normally use might just work the Oracle and produce some sort of improvement in my performance for the same amount of effort being invested. In the last outing accompanied by my son, with both of us in K1 single seat boats things had gone reasonably well although it still showed that my overall speed is quite woeful. Nevertheless I felt optimistic that the new paddle might provide some sort of measurable improvement.

As previously mentioned, to use this type of paddle requires a quite different type of stroke to what I’m used to, but I had been assured that after a mile or so I’d get the hang of it. Initially I tried to get a feeling for the thing by sitting on the bank and paddling on the one side in the water. Once more I managed to make a couple of walker’s day as they passed by with ‘knowing’ looks. The paddle seemed to have developed a life of its own as I pulled it back through the water and it would shoot out sideways and away from me as the ‘aerofoil’ shape of the blade took over the force being applied to it. It certainly felt different although the sideways action was probably magnified due to the fact that I wasn’t moving past the paddle as I would if I were in a boat. Anyway, I felt hopeful.

With the assurance that everything would be okay after a bit of use ringing in my ears, I launched (in the kayak) from the bank beside the lock, which is the easiest place on that part of the river to get into, and after settling in in the usual manner, pushed away from the bank and tried a few tentative strokes. I was paddling against a quite significant flow and into a gusting wind that was bringing up a veritable storm of leaves from the overhead canopy of tree branches. The water was covered in an accumulated carpet of leaves and the flow had washed banks of them up to the closed lock gates where they formed a pudding like mass in the lock itself. I was also catching clumps of wet leaves and tossing them over myself with the paddle as it came up out of the water. I started off badly. I was all over the place and the sideways motion of the paddle produced a roll sufficient to require me to stop paddling and regain some equilibrium. Luckily my new found skill of placing the paddle blade on the water and letting it plane across the surface helped out here and kept me out of the water.

Restarting again, but this time with less applied effort through the stroke got me a slightly steadier start. Nevertheless the feeling that the paddle was more in control of me than I was of it persisted, and I progressed only slowly and very erratically up the river. After twenty minutes or so I’d progressed about half the distance I would usually have done, so I pulled over to a convenient spot on the bank to take stock. At that point I really felt like picking the boat out of the water and carrying it back the half mile or so that I’d come. After a few minutes rationalising I knew that I had to give it a bit longer than this for a full test and pushed off again.

This time I tried the gimmick that seemed to have helped before and counted the timing of the strokes to get them even. I also found that to get a ‘full’ stroke I had to reach forward further to get the blade fully in the water by my feet, and pull the blade out sideways when it was level with my waist. Leaving the blade in the water longer so that it was withdrawn behind me caused a definite ‘catch’ in the water as it started to come back into the side of the boat. This didn’t cause as much of a problem as I had thought that it might, just as long as I pulled it out early. By the time I reached the end of my usual run at a bit over a mile things were going better, at least well enough to give me the confidence to return in the boat rather than walk it back.

The return journey went quite well with me still counting out the timing of the strokes. In this direction I was aided by the flow and the wind going my way, and I seemed to be getting a bit of a move on for a change. At the finish, although I was exhausted from the extra reaching forward and the back muscles were beginning their usual collapsing trick, I felt that it had been time well enough spent to give it another go on the next outing which I planned for on the Wednesday having allowed myself a day‘s rest. Of course this wasn’t going to happen.

Expecting to go out again within a couple of days was counting my chickens a bit too early. Although the weather forecast still showed reasonable, even sunny weather in my locality, for everywhere else it's been a much different kettle of fish. More warnings of heavy rain and high winds for the week were being broadcast almost hourly on the national news and everywhere was battening down the hatches for a forecasted heavy rain and high winds. Sure enough, Wednesday was wet and windy and the effect on the rivers was almost immediate. The amount of rain that had been coming down over the country as a whole has now achieved almost total ground saturation with the consequence that any further rain just runs off the ground, through the drains and straight into the rivers as the already saturated ground just can’t soak up any more water.

And that's the way it's been up to date. I need a Plan B.

Hi Deke, I've just been directed here by Clare as she felt we had something in common.

I've recently (six months ago) taken up cycling as a hobby (and given up the car as a way of getting to work) and am training myself up for a 'sportive' which is sort of an equivalent thing to what you're doing with your kayak. (120ish miles with a climb the size of Mont Blanc involved).
I've only really skimmed through as I've only just found the blog here but I have to say I'm more determined than ever now. You're doing a tougher challenge from (if I may be so bold) probably further back than I started from. I'm quite a lot younger than you I guess and well cycling is kind of just like riding a bike really even if like you I've learned a lot of jargon and technical stuff over the last six months - gear ratios, 'spinning', cadence etc)
Sadly also I can fully sympathise with the problems you've had with the weather. I guess even though it's kind of wet anyway, water sports are really shafted by poor weather and we've had that in spades this year haven't we. I couldn't go out over the weekend because of the rain but you will have to deal with high rivers and such for quite a while now I guess.

Anyway I shall read on with interest and I shall start putting my training achievements here on hootoo more often rather than boring my facebook friends with them.

Hi Clare
Thanks for the references. they're interesting and it's always good to get someone elses approach to the problem.
In fact I am doing a few exercises as I go along, mostly on the days I’m not in the boat, which seems to be most of them at the moment. I’m afraid that the gym work is probably a bit too intense for me although I think I‘m going to have to introduce something like that soon. The alfresco ergo also helps a bit and I’m working on that at the moment.

I mainly concentrate on flexibility with adapted yoga exercises as Mrs D was a regular practitioner and is my personal trainer on that side of things. What I really need is more time on the water, but you’re quite right, something else is needed for the quiet times.

Hi Orcus

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment.

Your project sounds just as energetic as mine, at least I get four days to do it in and I don‘t have any hills which were always my bete-noir when I did a bit of running. I think I know the sort of terrain you’re heading for as I was in Glamorgan (St Athan) for about 18 months and had some experience of the Brecons, although that was a long time ago.

We also had the pleasure of watching the Olympic cycling events which took place near us. The worst they had to contend with was Box Hill which I thought was bad enough, but ten times?

I’d look forward to following your progress if you’re putting it up on h2.

Thanks again
Deke

Hi Deke, no worries, always good to read someone else's tales of inspiration.
I have cycled through St Athan several times! I have a 50 mile route which is basically a tour of the Vale of Glamorgan - along the A48 through Cowbridge, turn off before Bridgend and come back from Ogmore-by-Sea along the south coast to Barry and up to where I live (western Cardiff).
A lovely ride although with my current plans I think it will take a backseat as it's too flat (it wasn't always so!).
Nowadays my plans are over Caerphilly mountain, over Senghennydd mountain, over the big lumps in the Beacons....

Yes it is highly energetic but I've got 20 odd years of youth on you I think (assuming you have retired at the regular age) so I'm much more impressed with your efforts than my own. Plus you've had to learn kayaking from scratch- very impressive.
Anyway, no need for further self-deprecation I shall most definitely read on with interest and publish my own learning curve on my space.
Somewhat disappointing this morning - I took a 35 mile route 'to' work (5 1/2 miles would be direct ) which takes in two mountains either side of Pontypridd. Lost my rear light when it flew off during a fast downhill through Cowbridge and then I got a puncture in Pontypridd so had to ditch one hill or I'd have been late for work. Thanking bod for the recent purchase of a CO2 gas cannister powered pump - makes fixing a flat sooooo much easier and quicker. Lucky also that my helmet has a built in rear light or I'd be stuffed for a light until I get home this evening (I have spares there). Such are the minor hazards of cycling - I'm trying to avoid the major ones like being hit by a truck.

Yes the southeast is generally as flat as a pancake. I grew up in Bedford where it is particularly flat. I'm quite pleased that I have much more hilly territory where I am now - makes the cycling much more challenging and interesting.

On: At the Last Chance Saloon

November has gone pretty much the same way as the previous month... to the dogs.

After the last closure the Wey was open for only the middle two weeks of the month before the rains returned again with a vengeance, and both the Thames and the Wey were closed to boating again. The Wey reopened at the end of November but the Thames still remains closed with red 'Strong Current' boards along it's complete length right through into December. In fact during the last week of November the Environment Agency had over 500 flood warnings up across the country including Shepperton and Walton which is the stretch of the Thames just above my level. I revisited the club in a spare moment and sure enough the water volume through Molesey lock was mountainous.

I suppose though that every (rain)cloud has a silver lining and during the layoff I’ve been looking at the reasons I fail to keep upright in the boat after only a couple of miles paddling, and how I might put a bit more work into the remedial action.

I have unfortunately never been able to touch my toes while my knees are locked out, without ‘bouncing‘ downwards. But as far as placing a flat palm on the ground in front of me and holding it there as Mrs D can do... forget it. Also my hamstrings have always been ‘tight’, really rather more like banjo strings at full stretch. All this is something I’ve always had to recognise just as some of my many limitations, in that my legs are just too long or my arms too short. This was never too much of a problem in the past when I used to do a certain amount of running, although I was no stranger to a proper warm-up and did stretching exercises to mitigate the shortcomings as best possible.

Apparently the latest buzzword is ‘core strength’, whatever that means. This is a new concept for me, but from what I can make out it’s a generalisation for what I knew in olden days as ’upper body strength’. Anyone who was half serious about running knew that you had to work on the upper body muscles as well as the legs to get the best performance out of them. But then, using your arms and upper body to power you and a kayak along, instead of the limbs designed for that purpose does seem to be a bit perverse.

Anyway, there’s no doubt that to get very much further I need to get more endurance out of the muscles in the lower back, stomach and waist, and a lot more flexibility and stretch on the hamstrings. Normally I work on these on the ‘days off’ and I have been doing so, but evidentially I haven’t been doing enough. Over the last week I’ve upped the amount of stretching to two half hour sessions a day and the exercises I’ve been using to the second session when I’m thoroughly warmed up. I’ve also selected a few of the exercises that have been recommended to me earlier in this thread that might be useful. I’ve also found it useful to use the sides of the bathtub to do ten arm press-up from a sitting position in the bath which seems to be helping a bit with the clambering out from the boat to the bank.

The latest enforced lay-off of nearly two weeks means slipping behind again and that I haven't been able to get out to consolidate by partial success with the new 'wing' paddle. But I finally made it out onto the Wey at the start of December. Most of my solitary sessions during the summer were started fairly early and usually I had got myself onto the water by 9am.But although the day started fairly bright, sunny even, the early morning frosts have meant having to leave my start-up time until later in the morning, so this time I didn’t finish until well past midday which has almost completely screwed the day up.

But the session did go reasonably well. I set off along my usual two mile pound and after an initial shaky start settled into quite a reasonable stroke with the wing paddle. There was a fair bit of wind gusting that was throwing me off stroke for a while but I managed to settle down to an more or less even stroke by concentrating on counting the timing. I find that seems to work quite well and helps to slow the stroke down which keeps the paddle in the water longer, making the whole thing seem a bit more efficient than the rather hurried quick little strokes that I’ve been guilty of previously.

One slightly disquieting event occurred a bit before I came to the turn around point at the lock. As I went along there was an odd hump on the bank between the river and the towpath. As I got nearer it turned out to be an old and rather dilapidated kayak, upturned and apparently abandoned. I pulled up nearby and had a look around to see if its owner was around but there was no sign of anyone that might claim it. How this Marie Celeste of the kayaking world got there and why I have no idea, but it’s not something that anyone normally discards and I pressed on with a vaguely spooky feeling.

The last month has in terms of progress, been another washout and there is now only 115 days to go to the start of the race. The weather is going to have to be pretty kind for the remainder of the available time to get anywhere near back on track. We all need goals and I think I’ll have to split the overall target down to more manageable chunks and set some sort of yardstick to measure my progress by. At the moment I’m setting my sights on what is probably an unachievable target of being able to make a continuous ten-mile paddle by the end of December. That’s quite a tall order but if I can get to that sort of mileage by then I might just be in a position to join in the club distance events which are usually of about that distance. As a rough rule of thumb I’d need to be able to increase that mileage to around thirty by the end of March to justify a reasonable shot at doing the races daily mileage.

We can but hope.

>>The weather is going to have to be pretty kind for the remainder of the available time to get anywhere near back on track.<<


Oh Bollocks, Now it's snowing.

The weather can be a bind huh? 2012 is just a write off I think, roll on January and a new bloomin year.

> At the moment I’m setting my sights on what is probably an unachievable target of being able to make a continuous ten-mile paddle by the end of December. That’s quite a tall order but if I can get to that sort of mileage by then I might just be in a position to join in the club distance events which are usually of about that distance. As a rough rule of thumb I’d need to be able to increase that mileage to around thirty by the end of March to justify a reasonable shot at doing the races daily mileage. <

Dunno if it's a crumb of comfort but I was having similar confidence issues with my cycling as my target ride (Dragon Ride, 13th June 2013) features of over 10,000 ft of climbing and I couldn't even get up the 800 ft Caerphilly mountain.
In the last week all that has changed - I finally have managed it - 3 times now(!) and on Saturday managed an 86 mile ride that included one of the big climbs on the Dragon ride- the so-called Bwlch climb, just south of Treorchy. Managed that too - at the first time of asking. (in fact it is easier that the former mountain it seems - fewer evil super-steep sections)
So there has been a sudden step-change in my fitness and power output which is very pleasing.
So if it's a crumb of comfort, these things don't just seem to improve gradually there can be a sudden improvement - some of which is bound to be psychological I think.
So my advice would be to just keep grinding out what you can and you might just surprise yourself.

The bad news for me is that I won't be doing the Dragon ride I had only entered a ballot - I didn't make the ballot So I've switched to a much lower-attendance but almost as difficult event called the Tour of Pembrokeshire. This is still over 8000 ft of climbing but it also much sooner than the Dragon Ride - 27th April 2013.

Hi Orcus

Ah, sorry that you didn't make the draw for the Dragon Ride. No doubt the Tour of Pembrokeshire will prove just as testing. Looking at the map it looks like it’s through some pretty impressive scenery, if you’ve got time to look at it. I just heard that I didn't make the draw for the London Marathon which I entered (almost accidentally) in a fit of over-confidence. Probably just as well really.

Yeah, I think these training effects do have an accumulate effect and sometimes there's a 'step' that you need to get over. When I was running I seem to remember rapid improvement came when I joined a club and was ‘forced’ to keep up with the others. That’s why I’m quite keen to get out with the boat club on their extended trips, but at the moment I wouldn’t stand much of a chance keeping them in sight. Soon though...

I had geared myself up to a trip that morning only to find the roads too icy to drive on to even get to the river. There was absolutely no warning the day before and no gritting had taken place in my neck of the woods. Luckily it pretty much melted enough by the afternoon that I was able to get out for a paddle late on. It turned out to be quite beautiful with a wintry sun filtering through the trees on its way down.

On: Plan B

In terms of ability I am way behind where I thought that I should be by now. Right from the start I had assumed a gradual build up over the course of a year to the race at this coming Easter, but what with one thing and another that just hasn’t happened. Time is now short and I really don't need any further interruptions to training if I‘m going to stand any chance of making it to the start line.

What I’m now going to have to do is to try to condense six months work into four and get some solid work in with longer mileage trips. Luckily I’ve found a useful book that records the training efforts of two overnighter entrants in the 2010 event and their schedule which contains some great hints and tips. They managed a very creditable sub 24 hours on just four months training from scratch. Although some of their individual journey mileages are prodigious, and they seem to have taken some hair-raising risks on ice-bound canals and on a heavy flowing Thames throughout the winter. Nevertheless I think that I can adapt their schedule to my purposes for the four-day event.

My first target is to get up to a similar mileage that they managed for the month and a non-stop paddle of ten miles by the end of December. Their mileage for that month was 35 miles with a longest paddle of thirteen miles. At the moment I’m on track to equal the overall mileage, but I don’t need a long paddle of thirteen miles at the moment. I’ll settle for ten. With that end in view I’ve used the mostly quite reasonable weather so far this month to get back to where I was before the last couple of months enforced lay-offs. The best I managed back then was a five mile paddle in September which included two or three rests and a capsize. I can really do without the capsizes too.

I've been on a bit of a roll this last week, having been able to get out for three sessions on the Wey while the Thames still has its red warning boards up. The first session on Monday went reasonably well considering that I was coming back from almost a fortnights lay off. The weather forecast for the rest of the week was quite reasonable, bright but cold, with only the odd shower likely. Taking this at face value I allowed a day for recovery and pencilled in the Wednesday for the next session. Tuesday, which I used as a rest day, was as near a perfect December day as anyone could have wished for. It was bright, sunny, clear but cold, and without a hint of any adverse conditions having been forecast, not even rain.

On opening the curtains early on Wednesday morning I was confronted by a white wilderness. It was snowing!

By all the news reports this seemed to have caught most of the country napping. Certainly no one had thought it necessary to grit the roads and of course early morning traffic in my neck of the woods had compacted the snow on the roads to ice making them treacherous to use. Luckily though, the temperature was rising and by lunchtime the snow had stopped and the ice was melting. By the afternoon the grit lorries had been out I had loaded the boat and was preparing to chance my arm down to the Wey. I made it onto the water by about three-thirty, getting in from a muddy and snow covered bank.

By this time the sun was low and heading for the horizon. Unfortunately it was filtering through the trees and reflecting off the water dead ahead of me so that at times I couldn’t see in front of the boat. Nevertheless, in the shaded parts it was quite beautiful in a sort of warm, rosy glow kind of way. The paddling was quite successful and I didn’t manage too many poor strokes setting me off-balance. Also I was back to completing the stretch without stopping, and someone had also removed the abandoned kayak seen on the previous session.

During the off-days I’ve also been doing a lot more work on stretching the hamstrings and working the stomach and back muscles to try to alleviate their premature collapse at the end of each session. It seems to be paying off somewhat, or at least the repeated sessions are providing enough exercise in itself as the last session went without having to take a break for them. That’s a bonus as up until now that’s been the single most limiting factor on my endurance during the session.

After this outing I left another two days for recovery, partly as I had another previously arranged commitment for the Friday, so the next available day for a session was the Saturday. There weren’t any surprises sprung by the weather this time and I was out again early that morning. Once again the day went well but the cumulative effect of three sessions in one week was beginning to tell on overworked joints and muscles. In particular, exiting the boat at the end of the session which remains woeful. My paddling action with the new paddle is still erratic, especially when tired, but, on the plus side, at one or two points the technique does seem to come together nicely. Just for a short time the paddle enters and exits the water cleanly and the boat‘s speed picks up, while at the same time it feels almost effortless. If only it was like that all the time. But most of the time it’s just ugh!

Hi Deke, that' a much more positive read - looks like things are improving for both of us. I guess the old midriff won't hold things back so much now by the sound of it.

Yeah the scenery is going to be lovely, that is one big positive aspect of road cycling you do always get out into some beautiful lovely landscapes. Indeed though, it can be difficult to appreciate too much as you zip by and/or huff and puff.
Incidentally if you can contemplate doing a full marathon then I'm going to have to stop teaching you to suck eggs over fitness levels. I ran a half-marathon once and it half killed me, and that was when I was young. I wouldn't even contemplate full one. Cycling even 200 miles is not considered equivalent because your body doesn't take the same kind of pounding.