Untitled by cthastings at Garmin Connect - Details

Untitled by cthastings at Garmin Connect - Details

GOSH Round Ibiza Day 1 Long wrong hill

GOSH Round Ibiza Day2 Long Route

Started the measurement a little late and paused at lunch

Support Crew Training DW

A very rough cut of the video we made for support crew who will not be able to train with us before the day to give them a vague idea of what happens at a lock.

Do different types of paddles make a difference?

The choice of paddles is a difficult one, lots of people favour wings which have a different paddling technique to asymmetrics. However we have gone for two pairs (one paddle with a blade on each end is a pair) of Streamlyte Visage Assymetric Racing - Carbon shaft Carbon Blade paddles. They are so much lighter than our original paddles. On our trip from Reading to Old Windsor I had a very sore ligament area on the thumb side on top of my forearm. This was probably caused by a combination of poor technique and heavy paddles. Since we have been using our new paddles this has disappeared so something is obviously working. Check out the before and after videos, they are a little bit un-representative as one is a the end of a 34 mile stretch in -5 and the other is at the beginning of a session in bright sunshine.

Lent the Countdown to Easter

The more we train over longer distances the more we realise that the support crew is vital to finishing the race. As we try to fill in our spreadsheets with more information to work out what time we should leave Devizes we start to plan our food stops. More of this in the coming weeks. We are trialing everything from gels to bars to shot blocks, carb drinks, no carb drinks, protein shakes, pasta and pork pies. We will let you know what works for us. We will also try out various hydration units to see what works best.It is all down to personal choice but there are some great products out there which will help power us through.

The end of the river and the tideway

The ice has gone the sun is out so it is time to crank up the training, this was our first fully supported outing, fast support at the locks from Old Windsor to Teddington and then onto the tideway. We made good time down the river and then rehearsed night time drills at Teddington along with a feed stop. The promised massive swell of tide did not appear and led to a slog to Putney! Hopefully the tide on the day will be a bit fuller and give us a bit more of a nudge!

Pewsey Wharf to Newbury

We started early and were waved off by Nick, although without the inflatable roof bars the logistics got difficult quickly. We paddled through the canal which was mainly clear of ice, though this was replaced by hundreds of fishermen. We long portaged around some bits and then got to the famous Bruce Tunnel which we got through without any mishaps, up the Crofton flight and then lots of locks to Newbury. It was a very different experience to what we were used to, not staying in the boat for long and lots of running.22.8miles in 05:04 so an average of 4.5mph. The GPS watch decided to turn itself off as it thought it was indoors after the tunnel.
View DEVIZES TO WESTMINSTER in a larger map

The first long trip on the course - Accompanied by star support crew Craig

To go this far you need support, especially when everywhere around you is still covered in snow and the lock cuts are iced. We made good progress with some longer portages due to ice and met up with Craig after four hours. He fed us well at Marlow, ignoring small and often to our peril! We had been kept going on Ben bars and gels, more concentrated ones than the go ones which need 400ml of water each time so we also got refills of our water bladders with more Nuun at the first stop. Some pictures and video to follow but the most glorious moment was hot pasta Craig had cooked in the carpark with very sweet tea. We would not have finished today without our excellent support crew and his high vis orange hat. It showed us the importance of doing the whole course before the race and checking out all the lock support points.
"Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted"

Nutritional advice from an expert

Nick Gracie of powerthemachine.com very kindly gave me great advice about fuelling ourselves for the race. We have put in a big order with him to try out a wide variety of gels, bars and drinks to see what keeps us going. We are looking forward to trying some out. He stressed the importance of little and often for eating and drinking, easier said than done when paddling! Good luck in Patagonia Nick!

Our First experience of solid ice, please excuse the language.

An edited version of our first experience of very thick ice.

Ben Bars

Ben kindly made us some energy bars, here is what he did;

Ingredients

3-1/2 cups rolled oats

3/4 cup light syrup

2 scoops protein powder 

1-1/2 cups nonfat dry milk

1 tbsp cinnamon

2 egg whites

1/4 cup juice

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup chopped dates

1-1/2 bananas, mashed

Thoroughly mix all ingredients in a large bowl, pour into a deep baking tray

Bake at 325°F for approximately 25 minutes or until the bottoms of your bars are golden brown

turn out onto a wire rack and cut into squares

Wrap in foil for handy snack sized bars

Round trip from Lechlade

We are now starting to rack up the miles and find out plenty about what we will need to do to complete the DW. We set off for our longest training session to see how far we could go in four hours. We stocked up with ben bars (home made energy bars made by Ben, recipe to follow) and nuun tablets in our camelbacks stored in our buoyancy vests. The bars kept us going along with a couple of GO energy gels but we did not drink enough, lots to learn. We need to get our drinking and general nutrition on the go sorted.

We have gone a long way

I have been rather remiss with updates but we have been training hard, we have a new boat courtesy of Justin W and Charlie S-E which has put us back on course to completing the DW2012. We have taken our blue boat to it's limits and realised it would not take us to where we needed to go. Justin and Charlie completed the DW in 2009 in "Big Red" so it has pedigree and they got it from the Wiltshire fire brigade so it has been doing Kayak marathons, Bristol to Windsor and DW since 1982. It was built in the 70's by Kirton Kayaks and is just the boat we need to get us through.