Official. I am unfit

Nigel had arranged for us to go to the gym and be given a training regime by the fitness dude Stuart, designed to get us ready for the DW. And Stuart knows his stuff, he had picked out muscle groups that are worked hard while kayaking. I know that time in the kayak is the best way to focus on the correct muscle groups but getting to the gym is a lot less hassle.

I try but I can’t quite remember the names of the machines or the muscle groups we are working on at the moment, I can remember the pain though.

We worked our way through the different machines that worked various different muscle groups. One for the legs, one for the triceps one for the biceps, one for the back, one for the neck, one for the shoulders and pectorals. And then we did some simple exercises which focused on the core muscles, the plank was my personal favourite. All of it a piece of cake. Don’t get me wrong, I could feel the muscles burning afterwards, but in a good way and I felt pumped. And then we moved across to the Rowing machine.

We are going to have to spend some time on the rowing machine to build up our cardio work because I am sure that a non stop race is going to need some endurance. I have discovered to my dismay that my endurance threshold is about two minutes.

We sit down and get given the rundown on the machines. Stuart sets the rowers to 15 minutes and me and Nigel start sculling down an imaginary river. For about 30 seconds I am thinking that 15 minutes was going to be easy, half an hour would have been more of a challenge. Then after about a minute my mouth has gone dry, and I can’t seem to keep up my work rate. Suddenly the resistance on the rowing machine seems a bit high. At about two minutes I am spent and I have to stop to rest for a moment while Nigel infuriatingly keeps going. I row on and off for another five minutes but I can’t do anymore. I have no stamina. Nigel doesn’t finish the full 15 minutes either but just like the Wrekin, it is little consolation as he is going to be my crewmate for the DW. We call it a day in the gym after that and head to the swimming pool to wind down.

Stuart suggests that to improve we will need to be going through these exercises three times a week, and I have vowed to go Monday Wednesday and Friday without fail. The rowing machine is going to be my nemesis I think but it will not beat me next time.