Huntspil River

The best river I have paddled on and it's only 30 mins from home. This has meant Ant and I have been able to go paddling every day to make sure we are staying upright well and truly before winter sets in. I think this river is also a rowers dream. Maybe City of Bristol should have a training day here! No ferries, no barges, no speed boats, only 1 or 2 swans, the odd leaf, the odd fisherman. All that is there is flat wide river - fantastic!

These are photos taken yesterday where we had our longest session in our K1's yet.

A swans nest saved my life! (kind of)

Training as everyone knows has it’s up’s and downs. A couple of weeks ago was a particular low point for me, with the trees shedding leaves like they are in a hurry for winter to come and constantly getting caught on the stern of my boat and an obvious drop in temperature, falling out of our K1’s has become even more unpleasant than it was before.

We were doing a sprint session and for the first four efforts my boat had been picking up leaves like it was designed for it, producing a sluggish pace rather than a flat out one minute sprint, and to top it off Antonia’s boat didn’t appear to be collecting half as much debris. By the fifth effort this was more than testing my patience and a few too many aggressive strokes in my unforgiving Nelo, landed me in the cold water, gasping.

We were on a more flat scenic part of the river rather than the busy docs and there wasn’t anywhere obvious to get out. Luckily I spotted a swans nest and swam over to it. The angry swan to whom we had the delight of meeting earlier was no where to be seen but even so Antonia was on vicious Swan watch while I hauled myself onto the bed of grass. As you might be able to imagine it’s quite hard to boat from a nest and it took 2 attempts to finely leave the unusual landing stage. That was the end of that session even though we had quite a while to paddle home I couldn’t get warm which infuriated me even more as I hate cutting any training session short but made up for it in a weights session later. At the time I was not amused, Antonia was trying to have her concerned voice on but actually thought it was hilarious.

Swans will always be a pain to paddlers because of their territorial nature but for just that session I was extremely grateful.

Endeavour's Canoe Challenge

This weekend Antonia and I competed in our first k2 race in the Endeavour's Canoe Challenge. It’s a grueling 50 mile relay-style competition from Market Drayton to Great Haywood in Shropshire. Twelve teams of consisting of 6-10 people entered the event.

The Canoe Challenge is a fund-raising event, aiming to raise valuable funds for Endeavour's youth development projects throughout the
country.

Teams of all levels of experience take part in this unique team-building event. Each section of the canal is taken in turns by team members to paddle as hard as they can, usually until a portage is reached then have to jump out, run with the boat and hand over to the next canoeists in the team. A vital support crew follow in a mini bus driving as fast as the speed limits allows to ensure they meet the paddlers racing at the decided point and swap team members as quickly as possible.

Not only did Bristol come away with first prize but all the teams together also raised over £13,000 to support Endeavour's work with young people.

First Class Gym/Cider Cellar

Here is a sample of some of our weights!

Chins

Bench Pull

High Pulls
Bench Press

A Woman is not finished when she’s deflated; she’s finished when she quits

If ever there was a true test so see if you can push your self on your own for me that is now. In the beautiful surrounds of Somerset which use to be associated with a place of relaxation and eating lots it’s now a training zone.

Coming back from Nottingham without a boat, paddle, gym, a coach and more importantly an accessible river close by, the decision to carry on Kayaking and training to eventually compete at such a high level was quite a challenge to say the least. But with such good people in the world we now have all of the above and we couldn’t have got this far without:

Andy Maycock: New coach (previously competed at the Worlds, loads of experience, drive and actually trains with us instead of shouting from a car through a megaphone) He also found us our wonderful speedy racing boats.

Granny: For letting us turn her Cider Cellar into a 1^st class gym (my sister has had to get over her spider phobia, as they come back as fast as we get rid of them!)

Dad: For having a rugby pitch right opposite our house to do circuit training on but has yet to join us for a session (Dad, just because you scored a fluke try last week doesn’t mean that training is obviously not needed, we know you just don’t want to be 5 laps behind your two daughters!)

Mum: For reminding us to stretch all the time, cooking and doing 4 loads of washing a day! (Mum I will cut the hedges very soon I promise!)

Simon: For building us a chin up bar in the Garden.

Last but not least thank you very much to Jihan, Sarah, Alisdair, Neil, Diego, Dee, Gidas and Lauren for your letting us stay over in Bristol so we can get all the water sessions we can on one tank of petrol. Jimmy, Christi and others who I have not approached yet can we stay at yours at some point?

So training has taken a turn but for the better, we can run and cycle in one of the most beautiful parts of England, actually meet other canoeists instead of being refined to Holm Pirrepont and Antonia can work for Dad at the Farm, one of her dreams come true . . . not quite, but it has it’s pluses - free Chicken, wuhoo.

Kayaking World Championships Video by Naomi, Viki and Julia

Minor set back!

OK so testing took a turn of events.

The lunch before the dreaded 4k run test, the girls and I reveled to each other we all had been having dodgy stomachs all weekend and it wasn't just nerves! With none of us wanting to have excuses for the coach to why we maybe shouldn't do the run we just got on with it. I took 67 seconds off my last time which I was thrilled with. Straight after word had got to the coach that we had all been a bit ill so we were told if we had been to the toilet more than 5 times that day, we had to go on gut rest and was only aloud fizzy drinks! This seemed a pretty harsh way to celebrate after the run but a speedy recovery was of the essence so orders must be carried out! So then testing had to be put on hold for everyone, slowly normal training resumed and the only other test to be carried out was water on the Friday morning of reviews!

My best 500m time improved by 16 seconds from the last lot of testing and I felt I paddled as well as my technique allowed me to at this stage.

Reviews were . . . disappointing to put mildly. Both my sister and I aren't being offered the funding we hoped for. Apparently we aren't as technically advanced as the others despite all going at a similar speed! If I had written on here on Friday night it might have gone something like 'the BCU (British Canoe Union) can go to hell' but I love kayaking now and greatful for being introduced to it.

After such an amazing experience I'm not ready to give up that easily. I have been shown the goal in life I want to ac hive and believe I have the will power to take me there (technical issues can be iron out - I have only been paddling for 8 weeks!) Now I am better off because I am surrounded by a supportive family and the best friends in the world. Plus I have twice as much incentive to beat the girls who have stayed on the programme! (girls if you read this I mean that in a healthy competitive way!) One of the girls who has stayed on (who would kill me if I mentioned her name) has particularly inspired me with her positivity and you can achieve anything you want attitude. If you can't push your self on your own then you wont make 2012 anyway.

I know it will be hard but that's all part of the challenge and I have to give it a shot.