Easter Weekend

Like so many kayakers in the UK, for us the Easter weekend started in Devises, unlike many who had turned up in Wiltshire this good-Friday, we weren’t heading to Westminster, we were only there to watch the start of the DW race. This was the event that I initially started this blog about and for many reasons I am glad that in the end I didn’t enter this year. While we had amazing weather on Friday, it got progressively worse over the course of the weekend (Storm Katie had something to do with it) and in the end the four day event was stopped at Teddington at the end of day three, I’m not sure how I would have felt about the event ending like that if I had taken part but I don’t think it would have been particularly satisfying. Spending Friday as a spectator did do one thing though, it was the match that lit the fuse for doing DW in 2017.

What else happened?... Oh, yeah. Triathlon. I have been having some serious doubts about taking part in this triathlon I have booked to do in May and have been contemplating pulling out. There are several reasons why but the main one is my rather stupid fear of doing something I’ve never done before (I bet there’s a phobia for that… googling… Yep, there is, it’s called Neophobia), fortunately lunch with a triathlete friend has allayed some of that anxiety (or as I like to call it Neophobia) and I have a better idea as to what to expect. Also I have to start brick training apparently.

This past week has not been all spectating and cogitation though. I’ve actually done something that looks like a real training program. Two short runs and a long run, and a pacey parkrun which was up near my PB, I have swum four kilometres, on top of all that, I have stuck in three sessions in the gym working my way through my personalised training regime. Joining the gym was a great idea and I am feeling really positive about it all at the moment, I have the good ache.

Lastly, good news in my ongoing battle with the front crawl. I had a go at bilateral breathing this week, and by Jove! I think I have struck on the secret. I don’t know why I haven’t been breathing on both sides up until now but after the first length I was a convert. I seem to get a better rhythm and more consistent breathing rate. There is a lot of work still to do but I am traveling in the right direction.

Just like my dog

It has been a bit of an uneventful week since the Larmer tree race eight days ago so I am not going to waste too much internet for this instalment of my self-indulgent discursive.

I rested a bit at the beginning of the week but I have been quite surprised with how little damage the race had actually done. I was back in my trainers after two days, though admittedly the first run was a short jog on the treadmill. I probably would have spent longer but as activities go dreadmill running is a bit dull compared with the real thing. I also ran a pretty decent Parkrun time on Saturday without a problem.

I added another couple of kilometres to my swim distance tally. Breathing is getting better with my front crawl but it can’t be right as I start to feel breathless after one length and need to swim a recovery length of breast stroke to get some air back inside my chest. I think I have self-taught all I can for this little problem, there are only so many youtube videos and help forums you can consume before you need to seek professional help.

We went kayaking yesterday, the weather was not terrible and tides suited an early start (which I prefer). My race partner and I took her K1’s because my boat would have been a handful on the tideway, I was mostly in the Hobby and she took her Talisman. We were also accompanied by the K2 crew who had their own attempt at the DW with me in 2013. The crew had split up this time each taking the stoker seat of different plastic touring K2's with a new paddle partner up front in the pilots seat.

We mostly stuck together but despite having twice as many blades in the water the glass K1’s were so much quicker than the graceless K2’s. I found myself playing a game of waiting for the two plastic barges to get a good distance ahead, then sprinting to catch and overtake them, then lying in wait for them to pass again. Thinking about it, this is a similar game that that's my dog plays when he is running off his lead with slowcoach me.

Larmer Tree 20

First off, gym news. I’ve been swimming. While I am a good swimmer, I can’t breathe when doing front crawl and I eventually have to stop or drown. I was focusing specifically on my breathing technique last week and neither stopped or drowned. Good news for the triathlon I have coming up, I just need to practice.

Swimming is not really what this week’s blog is going to be about though. It is all about the aches I have today. My hinges seem to be suffering the worst, knees and (strangely) my elbows hurt, my ankles are also trying to be noticed over the general holistic din of pain going on. I make it sound bad, but this is the good pain that you get after a race.

Yesterday was an early start to get to the Rushmore Estate for White Star’s Larmer Tree 20. Last year I took part in my first WSR event here at the Larmer Tree (it was the Half for me in 2015) and had such an amazing time that I knew I had to come back. It is difficult to explain why WSR create such an enjoyable experience, they just do everything you would expect from an event company excellently, with a dash of humour thrown in. Oh, and the medals are quite nice too. Go and find one of their events, I promise you won’t be disappointed.

What first caught my attention with the Larmer was the half marathon medal, it is a pretty piece of race bling and one of my favouites in my collection, but they also run a 20 mile and full marathon at the Larmer so I obviously had to come back again to get the next medal in the series. The idea of doing 20 miles a year ago seemed ridiculous to me, but I seem to have got over that particular mental hurdle since then and I was really looking forward to the race yesterday. The weather was perfect, the going was good to soft (with one exception where my trainer got stuck in a 5 metre section of claggy mud and I ended up hopping rather pathetically trying to not get my sock muddy) and I was feeling fast.

The race didn’t start perfectly for me mind you… After setting off from the back of the pack (as my friend was stuck in the queue for the loos) I then realised after about 500 metres or so that I had the car keys and that my wife would kill me if she couldn’t get into the car for the four or so hours I expected to be out running, I had to dash back to hand them over. Minor crisis averted we then settled into the race properly. It was long, and there were some big hills which were tough on the calves.

At about the half way mark my friend was beginning to struggle with a long standing injury and she made me go on ahead fearing that I was being held up.

While I was able to run on, there were still a lot of long stretches of walking, frustratingly up inclines that I would have run earlier in the day and trying to spur the legs back to running after a period of plodding was always tough.

I took my Polaroid Cube on a selfie stick on a bit of a whim. I wasn't convinced that it would take any good video when running but the human arm does a surprisingly good job (most of the time) of dampening the jogging motion, and I have some surprisingly good footage which I will edit into something at some point.

4 hours 18 minutes to cover approximately 34 kilometres was not bad considering the hills, and cider at the penultimate feed station (Oh, That’s another reason to love WSR). I think I’ll have to come back next year to finish the set and get the Marathon medal.

Call 0800-123-MEDALS

It has been quite a busy week. I did go for that long run right after I wrote the previous post (and you thought that I was just being flippant), I went for another long run the following morning as well. Though it was an accidental eleven kilometres because a road I thought was quite short turned out to be longer than I remembered. It seems quicker when you drive it.

I also had a go at being a pace runner for Parkrun. Pacing is harder than I thought it was going to be. I had a time of 29 minutes to stick to for the 5k which is well within my pace. I had written my goal kilometer pace on the back of my hand, and then just tried to stick to that pace based on my GPS watch. I kept finding myself running at a much faster pace though and had to be really disciplined to not try to overtake everyone in front of me. I crossed the line at 00:28:48 which was pretty close though. I really enjoyed the challenge and would happily pace again.

Then, if that wasn’t an already an action packed week, I was convinced to join in a kayak pool session to brush up on rolling and bracing skills. The last time I went to one of these sessions was about two years ago and most of my kayaking recently has been in a K1 so I was a bit rusty, but after a while I had got my roll back and was screw rolling and back deck rolling with the best of them. The morning after, and even now I have some aches. I haven’t used those muscles for some time.

And like an infomercial about to throw in another freebie to what is already an unmissable blog, that you can pay for in 12 easy installments…

…But wait. That’s not all. I also joined a gym!

Yes that’s right. This week not only do you get 2 long runs, a pace run, and a kayak rolling session thrown in, you also get the promise of future posts about how many dead lifts and arm curls I have completed…

… And if you are not completely satisfied with this week’s blog you can send it back free of charge. We pay the postage. So call Today!!!