No DW for me in 2009

Sorry – this blog has stalled rather. Its mostly because I’m not training very hard and I’m not doing the DW this year. I decided, reluctantly, but probably wisely that being 22 weeks pregnant at easter probably made me a better support crew this year.

There are benefits to not doing it – I have discovered that there are 4 quarters in a year rather than 3 and that you can do things in the January-March part of the year – including growing veggies, going to Celtic Connections in Glasgow and learning to play the Uilleann Pipes, taking the Shropshire paddlesport girls to Burton to have a play in a K4 rather than doing Waterside C…

I am still missing the DW. I am watching a friend train and realising how much I’d like to be doing it too; there are people that I have got used to seeing in the spring who I’ve not seen this year and probably won’t; I’m missing the camaraderie of the races, avoiding faster crews, the teasing from random strangers – including Dan Seaford (who last year complemented me on the best portage at Windsor … from someone so short), collecting stories to dine out on (the waves on the Henley Straight were 8′ tall – really!)…

There will be other years and I’m enjoying doing other things but a world without the DW in is a slightly strange place.

What you learn from the DW

The first year I did the DW I learned that you could be too exhausted to cry. I also learned that there wasn’t really anything that I couldn’t do if I REALLY put my mind to it.

The second year I learned that balaclavas are not sexy but bloody marvellous when its really cold, that you can cut your finger and not notice for several locks because its numb with cold, and that my crew mate is a complete hero.

This year I have learned that I am a creature of habit. Even when I know I should go training, that I need and want to go training, once my routine is shattered I find it really really hard.

Normal service has been resumed this week. Saturday’s ice (which you could stand on) has gone completely; I went running yesterday because it was Monday morning and I went paddling today because it is Tuesday. Most of me thinks this is really quite sad – I actually thought I was quite sponteneous; clearly not as much as I though, and maybe not as much as I am lazy.

But tonight’s paddle was fantastic. The sky was completely clear the water flat, it was almost completely silent… apart from all of us cursing how unfit we’ve become in the last month and how the pounds we’ve put on over Christmas are almost directly proportionate to the amount of cheese that was consumed.

Anker Valley duathlon was rearranged due to ice which means it now clashes with the coaching conference in Nottingham and we can’t go which is a shame. Can’t do Fladbury either ‘cos we’re away so have time to train for Shropshire in Feb. Clearly training for a 4k race is really good when you’re really training for a 200k race…

Water water everywhere and its all bloody frozen

Repeat after me. I am an athlete. I do go training. Really. I do. Just not much at the moment.

The last 3 weeks have been rubbish. I crawled into the Christmas break absolutely knackered, woke up on the first day of the hols feeling rubbish, drove Andy into town to pick up his car and finish the Christmas shopping and crawled back into bed. For the rest of the weekend. Missed the 10k race (decided if I couldn’t breath lying down I probably couldn’t breath to run and asphyxiating half way round the course might put other people off their stride). Postponed Christmas. By the time we were better the ice had come, the pavements were lethal and the roads without pavements which do get gritted are rural A roads where running or cycling involves taking your life in your hands and now the canal has frozen. It was an inch thick on Saturday when we pitched up to coach/restrain a bunch of potential ice skaters.

I so need to pull my finger out. Its easy when you don’t have to think about it – when the world isn’t frozen I have a routine. It grinds to a halt when it gets slippery; I can’t paddle cos the canal is frozen and I keep thinking about going running and then thinking better of it. One of my colleagues slipped and broke ribs just leaving the office tonight – I don’t want to be in that situation. I think I’m probably a wuss – the odds on it happening are slim, but any odds are too high in my book!

Somebody – who lives near the club has offered to pick my boat up so we can paddle on the river. Its very kind of him – and it saves me an hours round trip (which I wasn’t prepared to do tonight) and it means I can get out on the water tomorrow. I think a dry bag with a complete set of dry kit in is in order – just in case there is swimming. It would be unpleasant to be in the river 5 miles from the car in temps of -5. And there’s more snow forecast for tomorrow. That should be pretty! I’m looking forward to it. Now… how many sets of thermals do I own…

I don’t seem to have done much recently;

managed a short run in Taunton last weekend…  I say run, it was more of a skate; even the roads were monumentally slippery.  It had been my intention to do two or three  circuits from Comeytrow up to Trull but having survived one without falling over and taking damage I returned home whilst I was still winning.

Tuesday’s water training was better.  Our senior coach, Phil, is working on the theory that if you’re not a pro – or possibly even if you are, you can only train hard for 15 weeks before hard training starts delivering dis-benefits.  15 weeks for the DW will start in early January so until then we’re working on technique.

We were all pretty bushed on Tuesday – yes, all, there were 5 of us!!!  I guess it the end of term thing so we opted for a gentle technique paddle; pushing down on the blade, keeping it vertical and driving it round.  It was a nice gentle paddle of about two miles with good company and good conversation.  Its so much better training as part of a group.

On Wednesday Kirsty and I were to go for a run – our last before the 10k but she was ill and I was on the 7:40 train to Sheffield which would have meant getting up to run at about 5. What a slacker.

I managed to get to Thursday night’s on-water training though. Still working on power and technique; doing lots of drive and glide to really focus on getting power off the blade.   Its not something a relative novice like me can do for 126 miles but its really useful for short distances to stay on someone’s wash.

The whole wash hanging thing is interesting; my PBs on club courses have come from wash hanging and that was off people who are only slightly faster than me and washhanging was relatively easy.  The first year I did DW Phil kept telling me to hang on people’s washes; I couldn’t, I was no where near fast enough.  If I could over take a boat I didn’t want to slow down enough to sit on its wash – and lets face it, any boat going slower than me didn’t have a great deal of wash – and anything that came past me, as soon as I found its wash, I was straight back off it again, battling through the chop.  However, at this year’s Ross Warland I managed to successfully hang off a junior K2 for quite a while.  I don’t know who these guys were, but they made me work very hard to keep with them; harder than I was happy paddling but the gains in time were immeasurable.

We spent Thursday night trying to get from one end of the shed to the other in as few strokes as possible.  I’m sure the first year I did this it was taking me about 12.  Thursday I got it down to 7 and that was more drive than glide.  (I was doing this exercise with the lightnings over the summer and one of them figured he could get across the winding point in just one stroke – took a while and it wasn’t quite the exercise I wanted him to do, but it showed the principle quite nicely!).

Iced up

Training has been a bit thin on the ground this week too because of the frozen canal.

We were away at the weekend and I meant to go for a run but forgot my trainers so two complete days off and a fantastic Christmas meal with friends – good food, good company, good wine and rather excellent port!

By Monday I was missing not being out and doing stuff – and not sleeping very well. Kirsty, my friend and running partner did our 5 mile circuit… or would have done had we not forgotten to cross the river. We ended up crossing the next bridge (Shrewsbury has lots of bridges!) which added a good section – and a couple more hills into the middle of the course. It ended up being around 5.5 miles which we finished in 55 minutes.  I was really pleased – although as we finished, she nearly passed out and I nearly threw up. We had clearly worked hard!

I’d agreed to go out with Emlyn tonight – the rest of SHP having joined Andy in the hedgehog branch – not to be seen until the spring. The first 500m was mostly fine. Emlyn was paddling on the left (northern) side of the canal – and it was definitely colder up north as he crunched through the ice and I sailed through the water a critical metre to the south!

Then we went through the bridge. The ice got thicker and thicker. Eventually I couldn’t get enough drive through my paddle to break it and ended up nearly following my skating paddle across the ice sheet.  A nice high brace returned me upright. (A high brace – an elbow bashing high brace – in a lancer. AND I’d forgotten my spray deck… I was so proud) Fortunately the ice was thick enough that it kept the water out of my cockpit!

We did a gentle reverse (which I’m sure was at least twice as far as we’d gone in the first place) to find some water to turn around in and we tried the other way. Got to 20m from the club house – just under the A5 and hit more ice – not quite as thick, but it was only going to get worse.

We did some loops. Emlyn hates loops. But he did them anyway (thanks mate – much appreciated the company!) although he did make a couple of particularly germane points along the lines of… “you know you can do this on an ergo… in the warm… in the light…” and “I wonder how many other prats are stupid enough to be out tonight?” (Looking at UK rivers, it turns out there were quite a few!)

Wednesday’s run was also cancelled because of ice – I really didn’t fancy sliding through the quarry and either sliding into the Severn or breaking something. I managed to get out on Thursday though – 3 minute intervals of recovery, normal ‘pushed’ pace and fast over a four mile circuit. The sprints were pretty slow – I have to count paces so I know when I’ve nearly finished – otherwise it seems to take forever- usually its 180 paces but I was only managing 160. Whole thing took 37 minutes.

Went down to the canal in the evening; found the senior coach asleep in his car, woke him up, established the canal was frozen solid, and came home again.

Short run today- 3 miles easy run along the river to the Welsh Bridge and back through town. I love Shrewsbury’s street names… Mardol, Shoplatch, Wyle Cop, Dogpole…

Going away this weekend too (can’t take my k1 on the train) so I’ve packed running kit and want to go for a longer run on Sunday morning. That will require getting up BEFORE my mother-in-law gets back from church which I’m not sure I’ve ever done.

Still, a week on Sunday Kirsty and I are doing the Telford 10k road race. Its my first road race ever so I’m quite looking forward to it. I’m also looking forward to the week off from running which will follow it and training more in a boat than on my feet!

Well its the 10th of December and so far I have been in a boat precisely once this month.

Andy and I did the Ross Warland at the end of November as a K1 relay which was fun but a little parky. Actually the paddling bit was OK but the standing around waiting for the rest of our teams was flippin’ cold!

The headwind on the way back up was strong too – I’m maintaining why that’s why I was slower than Andy had been on the way out. He’s not beaten me before so it was a novel experience for both of us. He’s quite proud of that 2 minute lead!

Our normal club training nights are Tuesday and Thursday so I rocked up to the club on the following Tuesday to find the canal frozen and everyone else in hibernation.

Opting for an ergo session I discovered that the ‘good’ ergo had gone away for the week on a coaching course. One needs re stringing and I eventually found a third under a pile of boats. This was functional but isn’t fully adjustable for your below average short-arse so I set about looking for anything to wedge against the foot rest. We’re in temporary accommodation at the moment whilst the club shed gets redeveloped so until a month ago I would have had my pick of chunks of wood but the art gallery where the boats are temporarily stored has been cleaned and tidied. The senior coach’s daughter’s BA wasn’t thick enough (sorry Em – I didn’t actually try it); the cable reel was great but made of cardboard and just not roust enough – it lasted abut 2 minutes, the wave hopper seat was too curvy…

Eventually I gave up and resolved to come back with roof bars to collect and fix the broken ergo. Of course it might not make it back to the club until easter but its no use to anyone just now!

Did manage to make it out for a run though. It wasn’t very long – about 4 miles but we did hill sprints picking every path up the quarry in turn. The quarry is a large park in the loop of the river with The Dingle, Percy Thrower’s garden in the middle. It is sloped and there are a number of routes from the river at the bottom of the hill to the town at the top – each route is a different length and a different gradient which is quite challenging. The icey paths made it an even better work out – for every step up hill we took, we slid back down half a pace!

Thursdays training got lost in the debauchery of the canoe club Christmas party – good food, good wine, good company, good music… sometimes you just gotta have a night off.