I hated last night!

Tuesday's and Thursday's we practice at the basin.  Tuesday's are good as it's club night.  EVERYONE knows what we are up to, that we are mad, and has a comment to make.  It's great - as you paddle you get helpful comments shouted at you like 'only 430 miles to go' (thanks Matt) and 'Body Rotation' from Tom.  We can chat to Steve as he trains (sans training partner) for the DW and we shout 'coming thru' as we near the beginners group.  It's a lively friendly place, we feel athletic, slightly righteous and we know all our friends will be in the pub afterwards.  This provides us with extra right arm exercise lifting a pint.

Thursdays' are empty.  No one is there.  Sometimes one of the basin staff is about doing admin work and we can wave at them on the way in.  Occasionally there are joggers and someone doing personal training and this week the additional treat of a bloke who seemed to think that 2 girl's in a canoe would be great fun if he was in the canoe too.

Then it rained, and rained and rained, and I couldn't see out of my glasses so they went on top of my head, and it rained some more.  It was freezing rain.  Then I realised that using the reserve cag was a bad idea - it's now in the bin.  I'm not sure if I sweated outwards or the rain seeped through or both.  I was wet but didn't realise this.

I'd packed in a hurry and didn't have my gloves, or a hat but we were going to get our 20 laps done - even though we lost count at 7 and may have done 8 and 9 twice (by the timing we probably did).  When we got off I was cold.  Bad decisions 1 and 2, not paying enough attention to packing and continuing to paddle through as I got colder.

Bad decision 3 when we got off - I just wanted to get home so I just added a layer rather than having a hot shower and changing back into my work clothes.  Head to DLR and onto the tube home.  I warmed up on the tube, but by the time I was walking home I was cold.

I was lucky that Dan had been able to run a warm bath that I could walk straight into and as the layers came off I realised that the wet had soaked through from the clothes underneath to the top layer.

As an L2 coach I should be able to identify when other people are making bad decisions and have the wrong kit and call a halt to things and I think that generally I do (within reason where adults are concerned).  Clearly I need to think a bit more about looking after myself as I get cold and wet too.

After a day warming up in the office we have planned a paddle on the Medway tomorrow - 20 miles from Tonbridge to Maidstone.  We'll take the packboat on the train to Tonbridge and catch a train back from Maidstone.  It was that or Esther threatened 6 hours of paddling round in circles at the basin as the Thames is still on red boards.