Packing the night before, although fairly simple, felt like a mini rite of passage for me. Unlike Sarah, I have not done a full day (for example) of canoe paddling at a speed above group slowness of 1.5-2miles/hr - and certainly not one that didn't allow an hour for lunch!! So, I kept jumping between deciding how many layers I needed for -1 degree and gusts <38 mph, how much food will I be need to eat (usually a lot), and packing it small enough to make my 8am cycle ride up Holloway Hill bearable.
We took the Pakboat on the bus and unpacked it at the side of a canal and jumped in. As of then, the trousers were still there (as you were wondering) despite over an hour of pulling and pushing the fabric of the Pakboat over the two ends. Honestly, I reckon that was more of a strain than paddling afterwards! Sarah and I are not two weaklings but still, better wrist and thumb muscles would have been very handy!
(Sarah looking ready to fix a car rather than paddle)
However, we quickly discovered, unfortunately for Sarah's view when steering, that my dry trousers did not come high enough on my waist, and my yellow thermal and cag have a tendency to ride upwards! Especially noticable when windy or when a duck flies up next to us and splashes me.
It starts like this
So, only resolution was to tuck everything back in each time we portaged a lock (and there were a few!). Although Sarah did get a break when I was practising my steering at the back!
and then goes a bit like this.
Overall, we spent 5 hours from start to finish on the water. With 10 lock portages at around 5-8 minutes each, with one being 10-12 mins cos it was very tricky and we needed to eat (cheese and jam sandwiches, yum yum)! I'm estimating we spend 4 hours paddling, almost twice as long as a Tues & Thurs evening so I'm quite pleased with that. But also, quite terrified by how much further we have to go in just under 5 months.
We've marked a big blue line so you can follow our route below:
View Training run no 1 in a larger map
Excited but a wee bit scared of the task ahead so I'm just taking it a couple of weeks at a time. I've wanted to do this race for years, it is why I learnt to canoe and kayak so maybe taking the training step by step is a good idea!?
Enjoying your blog. You are doing great! Annie and I both said we have trouble sometime thinking of the effort to put the canoe on the car and drive to the bay, and there you two are packing a boat on the bus in winter! Wow!
ReplyDeleteIt is of course hard to know wether you have what it takes to finish the YRQ because it is beyond anything that most people have ever done. Practice, stay fit, don't get injured and you will do it. You should try to get your constant forward speed during your longer times out at 6 KPH on water without current. This is the magic speed that combined with the average river speed will get you into Dawson City in 60 hours, give or take an hour. With the river speed you should do 12 KPH average (the lake will drop this way down until you rejoin the river). If the river is slower, or you need a longer break, you still have 74 hours to complete the course.
Thanks Ryerson & Annie - we'll get working on our boat speed as we are now practising going in circles as interval training. First 1/3 mile standard temp which is about 3 mph (4.8 kph) and then the second third as fast as is comfortable...we have to time it next time to see how fast that is.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see how your ascent of Mt Kilimanjaro via your stairs goes. Good luck!