Category: Kayaking

Last year, my last paddle of the season was on November 30th, and it was extremely cold. Today exactly the same group of people as that time met at Black Creek, which is a few miles upstream from GWC. It was a lot nicer this time – it was in the low to middle 50s instead of the high 30s like that time and the sun was shining, and while there was a slight breeze, I was comfortable with my wet suit and long sleeve shirt. No long underwear, no toque, no pogies.

We did long intervals – 1 mile at about 80% effort, with 8 minutes rest each time. We did four sets at about 8:15 per mile. I rode wash most of the time. Jim was paddling this down river racing boat that threw off a really good wake, and it was easier to ride than Dan’s sprint boat.

Unfortunately there isn’t going to be any more video this year – I dropped my camera in the canal on Sunday and it sunk like a stone. Next year I’m probably going to buy a Flip Ultra HD and a replacement for the mount and the waterproof bag, although I’m going to be a lot more careful about making sure the camera is attached to the boat with a rope in the future.

Update It’s not often I get to update a 13 year old blog post, but somebody wrote me to say that the link to the Flip Ultra HD was dead because Flip went out of business. He sent me a link to his guide talking about what happened to Flip.

I’ve been suffering from a sort of mild stuffiness for several weeks now. I don’t know if it’s an allergy or what, but it’s really sapped my endurance. I haven’t been paddling much, and when I do I seem to conk out after five or six miles. Yesterday, Dan and I tried to push that a bit. Well, a lot really. We ended up going 11.47 miles. We kept it slow with our heart rates down in zone 2. Or at least Dan did – my heart rate monitor didn’t work – I think the battery is dead.

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Along the way we did some technique video. My Thunderbolt isn’t as good a camera platform as the Looksha, for many of the same reasons why it’s a much better boat to paddle – it rocks more from side to side, and the cockpit is so long that the camera isn’t near me and I keep banging it with my paddle. But in spite of that, I think we both look pretty good, except for the tendency to drop our chins.

On the way back, I felt a bit cold, and the tape was coming of one of my paddle grips, which was uncomfortable. I put on one of my pogies to warm up a bit – I didn’t put on both of them because I’m too clumsy to get the second one on once one hand is covered in pogie. It did help a bit. But I wish I had a proper paddling jacket.

I did fade a bit, but by riding in Dans wake I managed to finish with a pretty steady 6mph for the last three miles. So all in all, a pretty good day out. Except it’s now 18 hours later and my muscles are still sore.

Last night was the paddle team end of season party. It was great time, not least because there were some of the members of the team who haven’t been paddling much or at all with us since the Long Lake race and it was good to see them again.

Last year there was a bunch of awards, mostly gag awards but some serious. This year there was just one award – I was given an award for “Most Improved Paddler”. That was very touching, if a little embarrassing to be singled out like that. It’s a great award – I’l have to scan it and post it here soon. But earlier, I got a better award.

I was paddling with Dan, Stephen, Mike and Frank, and Dan said to me that next year I’m going to have to do the Rochester Open Water Challenge in my Thunderbolt. And I said I’d have to get a lot of practice in the waves before hand. And Dan said “See, last year you would have said NO WAY”. He’s right. After this year, I’m starting to believe that anything he says is possible if I just work hard enough at it. And that’s a great gift – confidence in myself. And it’s a gift that was given to me by myself, but forged at the hands of Dan and the rest of the team.

When Mike says that next year we’re going to have to do 7mph instead of 6.5, I think of how we’re going to have to add more interval workouts to our training. When Doug says that I could do the 90 Miler next year instead of in a few if I put my mind to it, I think about what that means in terms of training volume. When Bill says I should do the Gananoque race, I say … ok, I say “not without a surf ski” because I don’t want to dump out in the St. Lawrence in a boat I can’t get back into. And when Dan says I could be paddling challenging waves in this incredibly tippy boat, I remember how tippy the Looksha felt this spring and how now it’s a stable old barge.

So to everybody on the team, I say thanks. Thanks for a great season, and thanks for the gift of confidence.

This time I was the camera man filming Dan and Stephen. I kept the camera at the front of my cockpit, which enabled me to reposition it as needed, but it also meant that my paddle and arm sometimes occlude the image. It’s a trade-off.

There was a fourth person along for the paddle whom you may glimpse once in a while, but he may or may not have been playing hooky from work so we won’t mention him.

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Yesterday I went with Dan and Stephen to Baycreek so that Stephen could try out the new Epic V12 that just came in. It’s one of the specially decorated ones that was provided to the Dutch team in the US versus Holland challenge in last weekend’s Mayors Cup kayak race. Baycreek also got the one that Greg Barton himself paddled for the US team, but that one is already spoken for. I noticed with some amusement that Greg, who is one of the two designers for Epic Kayaks, gave himself a weed guard on his rudder but didn’t give one to the Dutch rival.

Because we were on the bay instead of on a canal or river, I wasn’t so concerned about picking up leaves so I was able to get back into my wonderful Thunderbolt. I also brought the video camera and put it on Dan’s boat. In the following video, I shot a couple of minutes of Dan from the front, and a bunch more where we turned the camera sideways to shoot myself and Stephen. I have to say, I’m really pleased with how good my technique looks. Everybody on the team has been telling me my technique is good, but it’s really cool to see it from another perspective.

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