Oxford to Reading and racing

So its Saturday again and we are up at 6am on our way to Oxford.  We have a campsite booked 35 ish miles down the river and then plan to carry on to Marlow tomorrow.

After a taxi ride to Paddington, a train ride and then a short walk from the station to the canal side we are putting the boat together.  On top of paddling  all of our paddles start and end with us lugging the boat and our kit on public transport and then with the unpacking and building or dismantling and packing of the boat.  The boat weighs 23kg and then add on tents, sleeping bags etc so just getting on the water is no mean feat.

Oxford Locks

We paddled north up Oxford Canal and then along Duke's cut and south back through town on the Thames.  This is almost all of the Oxford Loop, what I used to consider a short days paddle at 6 miles - now its a tag on to what would otherwise have been too short a day!

Heading down through Christchurch meadow we are held up by the university's rowing race and had to stop twice and wait for the river to clear.

We passed Abbingdon and lots of other places that we simply can't remember.  The countryside was lush and green and the weather was very hot.  On the down side there was NO flow so it was a hard slog.

Towards the end of the day we passed this bridge by Days Lock.  This is where they hold the annual poo sticks championships,  Now I think the woods that followed looked mightily like the kind of place you would find Eyeore hanging out.

Benson Lock was our last lock before the campsite and as it was after 6pm it was self service.  The locks are easy to operate and push button so we always do this when we can as it avoids a portage.

After a nights camping in Wallington (and a classy dinner at the Hungry Horse) we were on the water by 8.30 and paddling towards Reading.  It was hot, there was no flow and spirits were not high.

By the time we got to reading there was a Hasler race in full progress lots of FAST kayaks wizzing past.

We were clapped as we reached the finish line - and got to chat with Martin who used to be in our club and had been competing.  He had been in the lead with his K2 paddling partner but they had broken their rudder and retired to sit in the sun.  It was good to see a friendly face.

As we reached central Reading we worked out that at 2pm we were 5 hours from Marlow.  With taking the boat down this meant that the earliest train out of Marlow would have been after 8pm putting us home close to 11pm.

In the absence of a handy middle station we decided it was packing up time.  51/2 hours is a short day on the water but we couldn't cope with getting back so late so we called it a day, packed the boat, had a picnic and caught the train home.

On getting home Sarah was ecstatic.  Whilst she had been training Dan had been on a shopping mission to the sake at Vivian of Holloway and had returned with 4 new 50's reproduction dresses for her featuring full circle skirts, spots and flowers.  What a star.  As a reward I took him paddling on Monday around Wargrave which is on the route from Reading to Henley.

This weekend it's Reading to Kew again and the last of our 2 day paddles as after this we need to start with the packing.

We are paddling, we are paddling

So, after the lovely mileometer I have our first training session down as Tuesday 15th January.

Since then, we have paddled for 2 1/2 hours on almost every Tuesday and Thursday.

Day one we didn't paddle many times around our beloved basin in a couple of hours (you just ask Sarah!). We now paddle between 22-28 times around in circles, depending on the boat we are using. So, in excess of 7.7 miles with 9 right-angled turns to be taken in one circuit.

We now have a stroke rate of 60-70 strokes per minute and can keep that up for 10 hours. We can hut (swap side for the non-canoeists) like a very well-oiled machine. In fact, I even experimented with a napping stroke while paddling last weekend. Sarah never noticed!

In terms of hours -  I have that as about 200 which also covers approximately 3000 mouthfuls of food for me. Sarah eats much less, though much faster, so I reckon, in total, we have shovelled 5000 spoonfuls down, all while still in the canoe.

I'm getting slightly maudline already as all I can think of is how much more training we could have done. Maybe started 10 hour days a month earlier and not had any life at all (sorry Dan!). However, Sarah and I might have got grumpy earlier instead of just these last couple of weeks....and at least we are now on the up as paddling Fifty around the basin always has a frisson of excitment about it! (I haven't capsized us for weeks!!)

Least we are on our last two full day paddles this weekend. Reading to Kew again.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are all in Fifty now, it is just a bit more fun as we navigate around our club beginners group and kayak rescues. We can always look and coo at the baby coots and swans or watch the swan and white duck soap opera!

A lovely drift down the Thames

Saturday am we were up at 6am and on the 7am train to Reading.  We were on the water around 08.30 and at the first lock soon struggling to get through as my brain wasn't quite following the instructions.  Before 9am the locks are self service so luckily before we got to the next one the lock keepers had come on duty.

It was a beautiful day as we charged our way 35 miles to Old Windsor Lock.  We saw lots of rowers out and about, gin palaces and canal barges - the busiest day on the river so far.

Our first point of interest was just outside Reading when we passed Marsport where we got taught and bought our paddled.  We then saw one of our canoe club members taking part in a running race - he even took time out to call us.

We revisited St Patricks Stream avoiding duck and goose babies.

We saw the sights - in the run up to Henley they are starting to set up for the Henley Regatta at the start of July (or that's what I assumed as all of the lanes were not set out when we were last on this stretch.

It was sunny yet no sign of Paul Daniels this time (he must have done a magic disappearing act).  We didn't like that a lot.

In Marlow we came across jacko.  He is the coach who took my BCU 2 and 3* canoe, my 4* training and my L2.  Seems that he must need to take some of the blame for this malarkey and it seems somewhat poetic that we sped past him as he did a leisurely trip.

On past Marlow, which we once thought was the getting off point after starting at Reading.

Through Maidenhead and we got to listen to an 80's music festival at Cookham (Erika next year leave the baby with your Dan and we hire a barge to sleep on and go to this).  We sped past Bray and the Fat Duck with it's egg and bacon ice cream.  Past Windsor racecourse and the castle was in clear view.

We just caught the lockeepers in action at Romney Lock before they clocked off for the night and we were onto the home stretch to our home for the night.

Saturday night we camped at Windsor Old Lock thanks to the Lock keeper.  An amazing spot which we loved and we must have been tired as even the weir didn't cause several middle of the night toilet trips.

We wandered to a local Toby Calvary for dinner and completely misjudged how hungry we were - eating less than half of the food we had piled on our plates (oops).  Then it was back to the tents, without dessert, a quick trip to the very clean facilities and sleep in about 10 seconds flat.

We woke early (planes and light) and made breakfast and readied ourselves for the day ahead.

Esther got a bit confused and thought we were on a nice camping trip and made use of the patio table and chairs for brekkie.

Back on the water we had slightly less miles to do aiming for Kew.  As we started the boat just would not keep a line.  We moved us, we moved bags and we were peed off.

We then applied a bit of logic and realised our stroke rate had gone absolutely bananas.  We usually hit around 70 strokes a minute and we were over 100.  We slowed it down and immediately could hit a straight line - phew - could have been an annoying day.

Today locks were our friends.  We have developed a system which means that they are where we eat and drink.  They come up every hour and so as we are waiting for the water to go down we shovel in food and some nice lock keepers even offer to fill up our water bottles.  A useful point is that in general there are loos at the Thames locks.

We had to share quite a lot though and some were jam packed with us nestling between cruisers.

To finish off the day we came across some officious little girls in a safety boat telling us that they were about to have a rowing race and could we pull off.  It was the university Bumps.

The PLA manages navigation on the tidal Thames and they had it listed as an even that would not effect navigation.  It did.  

We were asked to move off the river - we wouldn't as there was no closure notice and we were asked to move across to the wrong side of the river for navigation - which we did (mainly as we were almost off and that was the side we needed to be on).   Luckily the gents further down the river knew that they had no river closure.  We stayed well out of the way and watched the fancy dress fun

At the end of the day we were tired, hot and then had a nightmare journey home using a total of 3 buses and one train, as there were works on the usual railway.  By backside ached but seemed to go off with painkillers.  I never expected that the worst thing to get used to would be the sitting.

Oh well - something similar for the next 2 weekends and maybe the ass ache will wear off.

Electrical shocks and then training

If only this was our secret recipie for success!

Instead, it was my cooker earthing itself via me on Thursday evening. Who knew electricity could throw me three feet across the room and really hurt!!! I didn't.

Anyhow, it was really quite painful throughout Friday, especially my upper chest muscles, so I was a bit worried about our long training weekend. I couldn't cry off as I'm be hurting before Carmacks so thought it'd be a good test...

So, muscle rub and painkillers got me through the first few hours of Saturday. Lovely scenery, nice paddling, loads of baby ducks and Sarah's singing got me through the rest of the 10 hours.

In fact, it turned out to be a good training session. I'd have been hurting regardless of the electrical shock so hey ho really!!

Turns our Double Deckers are my thing, will be importing many of these to Canada!

Water, Water everywhere

It's 44 days to go and the river is frozen - this was yesterday lunchtime.



Fingers crossed it defrosts in time.

With all that ice we are currently trying to work out how much water we need - guesses on a postcard!

Training, training and more training

As Sarah has handily pointed out, it is 45 days to race day!!

I am pretty sure that means I am allowed to be a wee bit terrified of what we have blithely signed up to do.

Racing 444 miles in 3 days with only 10 hours rest.

We have been training since early January, through ice, snow, rain, swimming tests, a little bit of sunshine, canals, rivers, canoe chutes, lock portages (hate them!), good days, bad days, singing (from the back of the boat - I only know 10 green bottles), food testing, map reading, distance planning, and counting every 15 strokes almost all this time - now this drives me mad although it's an oddly addictive pastime!

So, what else do we have to do? Well, the answer to that seems endless right now. I currently have a spreadsheet for all the gear we need. Another document that tells me what final details and documents I have to check (oops, must remember some dollars). Then there is the maps, I still need to write timings on, laminate and then spiral bind. I've now started another checklist for the food which, to be honest, could be another post in and of itself.

Although, I've been told that carbo loading for ultra marathons (yes, the YRQ is classed as an ultra marathon - who knew) doesn't work if you start over a month before the start date - darn shame!

Yesterday's training run down the Thames, just over 30 miles, wasn't fantastic as we are both a bit tired and weary of canoeing. But, it wasn't awful despite the wind making it tricky keeping the power on and the boat straight. So, I've decided that is a positive - even though the thought of having to paddle in hard winds across Lake Laberge is worrying me - what if we don't make it?

Sarah and I have had out discussions about what we are doing if we feel tired, cold, grumpy etc and I'm pretty hopful that if one of us absolutely wants to stop we will - at least for 20 minutes while brewing up a lovely cup of tea and having a choccie biscuit!!

But not until we've passed the rapid! I wonder which flow level we will be lucky enough to have ...

Probably not this one!

Part of me wants the 26th June midday to be here already. I know we still have some intensive training to do and that, in some ways, this is the most important training we will do. But also, I'm tired of training - I want to race down the Yukon!

 

Busy Thursdays

The sun is here as the basin has got busy.  After a fibreglass repair that has taken weeks we have fifty back on the water (now 51 shades if blue).  She's taking a bit of getting used to again.

Now its sunny the Basin are running kids sailing lessons on Thursday evenings - it adds to the fun, last week Paul and Will did exercises on the pontoon to give us something to watch as we went past - not sure why but it livened things up.

This week there were more sailing boats and they had the safety power boat out and were using it to create waves.  Now imagine the 2 of us slightly wobbly in the very tippy boat.  Then imagine the waves coming at us beam ends on.  We survive that and then the waves bounce back of the edges, bigger.

We paddled and we giggled (ok mainly Sarah) and we kept paddling (and in Sarah's case giggling) and then we did an excellent half roll.

After attempting to climb back in (a bad idea the boat is kinda fragile and bends) we swam the boat to the steps got back in and as that was the 2nd swim and the waves were staying we swapped to a more stable boat (to be honest a slipper is more like an old town than a IC2).  Round and round a few more times.  Esther had lead arms this evening but Sarah was nasty and would not let her get out of the boat.  They were slow laps but we put the time in.

One thing we notice now is how cold we get when we stop paddling so wet as well it was a quick dash to the showers

We're off to France this weekend on a club paddling trip on the Canche - hopefully fun sun and good red wine.