Baked goods and boats

Ten days ago I said that Teen and I were about to do a kayak race that weekend, as the ultimate test of familial love. This was the first race of the new season, and we did it, with no arguments! Not only that but we came fourth in our division (ok, out of five...!), and due to the complicated rules for points allocations, we were the second highest points scorers in our race. Better yet, each club only gets to count their twelve highest-scoring boats for the day - and we were one of them for our club! That was rather unexpected, so we're absolutely delighted with that outcome :D

The race wasn't entirely without incident, but I won't go into that here. Suffice to say, we did our own thing, despite the efforts of one of the other teams, and although their approach was incredibly frustrating, we had a good race, made a good time, and had fun. The atmosphere overall was fantastic, and I cheered so much for the other competitors from our club that I entirely lost my voice by the end of the day!

I did extra paddling this weekend too, but with a very different focus. There's an exceptionally good bakery based in the village two locks down from the kayak club, so after some on-and-off discussions for a while, someone took the decision to arrange a 'Paddling and Pastries' session on Sunday morning. Around a dozen of us felt that this was a good enough incentive to get out and about, and off we went.

The club is at heart a racing club, so training sessions are focussed on technique and speed, with mini races a frequent feature. Of course there's never any pressure to take part in any races, and it's up to each individual how hard they want to work in training, but the aim to improve and get quicker is always there. So the idea of a gentle, entirely non-competitive, non-stressful Sunday morning paddle was very welcome, especially with the lure of fresh baked goods halfway through!

Of course, even this was useful training in its own way - the distance (a couple of miles each way) was broken down into stages, so we'd all paddle at our own pace down to the next meeting point, have a few minutes there so the slowest could catch up and still have a rest before continuing. But whereas most sessions intersperse longer efforts with short bursts of speed, this was all about finding a comfortable, sustainable pace. As one of the slower paddlers, I do find it hard sometimes to settle into my own rhythm, as I so want to be able to keep up with the others. But apparently this is where my stubborn independence comes into its own, as I remember that I just need to do my own thing, and it'll all be fine. I was so pleased that I managed to keep in touch with the group, but go at a pace that worked for me - not so slow that I wasn't putting in any effort and was getting left miles behind, but not so fast that I was exhausted and couldn't keep going.

I'm very aware that stamina is my biggest problem - so over the winter I think I need to make the effort to get to a few more midweek time trials. That's a perfect opportunity to practice paddling the full race distance (7km) with no stops, to both build up the mental and physical stamina needed. And then who knows, maybe this coming season I might even venture to a few more races...!