Back in the Boat.

I had a bit of a slump last week. If I am being honest with myself I couldn’t be arsed with the whole training thing. I came up with excuses every time I was supposed to be at the gym and instead went home to play on the Playstation. I don’t know where this low came from but I am back on track now.

Saturday I planned to have a bit of a marathon kayak but it was a bit foggy and frosty and after a half effort to load the boat onto the car in the cold I was talked out of going and I stayed at home in the warm.

But this wasn’t on and I gave myself a rather stern telling off. I had a kayak race to train for and I had planned to do this 22 mile trip to Telford in November, There was one day in the month left, Sunday and I was going to do it.

Sunday turned out to be equally grim, fog and frost and some sleet to start the day off with too. It took some fortitude to actually leave my nice warm sitting room to load my kit into the car but by about ten a.m. I was set to go.



Neoprene is brilliant. I was wearing my winter kit of wetsuit and cag and I was pretty toastie. And once I got moving on the water I warmed up nicely. In fact the cold didn’t hit me until I got to the final five or six miles and everything I was wearing was wet through.

I had arranged a few checkpoints with my shuttle bunny in case I was suffering with the cold so she could come and pick me up. The first was 7 miles down river at Atcham, A further 8 miles on was a stop in Cressage (with a few other stops mentally picked out where the road came close to the river).

I blazed through Atcham at a good speed and had no intentions of stopping. I was fit and happy and I was going to do this thing.



Somewhere between Atcham and Cressage I was starting to tire and lost concentration for a moment. I had to make a big corrective sweep stroke on my left side to save falling in, this sudden movement caused my dodgy shoulder to flare up.

By the time I had reached Cressage both of my shoulders where hurting because the wetsuit was compressing them down. I decided to press on the final 7 or so miles as I was nearly there and at least now the pain was even on both sides.

Just before you reach Ironbridge there is a long stretch where the river meanders across a flood plain. Because the river is so wide and slow at this point you really have to work hard to keep moving. I was tired, and getting cold and was a bit pissed off, it was at this point I reminded myself that this trip was only a fifth of the DW race.

I arrived at Ironbridge at a few minutes past 3pm about four and a half hours after setting off from Shrewsbury Weir.

I planned to have the satnav plot my speed, route and time but for some reason it went a bit haywire and reported that I had covered 200+ miles with an average speed of about 300mph. So instead the best I have got is an approximate average speed of 4.9mph over the 22miles. I don’t think that’s too bad for me in my little boat.

Damage report this morning. Both shoulders hurt, my stomach and sides ache from the rotation in paddling, my back aches, tops of my thighs hurt where I was gripping the boat, and my right thumb hurts. I think I should ask Fitness Stu to put some Abs exercises into the routine for me and Nigel so that we can sustain paddling for longer, the rest of the damage I think is just wear and tear.

Rest day today but back to the gym on Tuesday.