Swimming with the Van Dusan and getting chased by a man with a fish

Jack and Jen joined me for an early morning paddle on Sunday morning. They were trying out a Sladecraft Supersonic and this was my first session back in the Van Dusan after paddling the Struer for a few weeks and at State. Wow...how quickly you lose the feel for a tippy K1. I was all over the place. I think the problem was that I was trying to do the same good technique that I used in the Struer (more rotation, straighter arms, more length at the catch, higher top hand), and in the Van Dusan my balance wasn't quite good enough to do it.

It was all quite funny really, with Jack calling out every km or so "Ahhh, Jen...what are you doing?" as they were trying to get used to the tippier double, and me calling out Aaaarrrghhhh, and $hit etc every couple of hundred metres as I had to do a brace stroke or lost my technique. Anyway, up near the lake a boat came past us (same direction) and the tiny ripples were enough to land me in the drink. De-ja-vue from State. So it looks like I'm back to swimming in the Van Dusan again. I guess it'll take me a few weeks to get back to the level I was at before I switched to the Struer. But it will be worth it...if I can master the Van Dusan by World Masters I will fly in it!

After the usual re-entry (which I'm getting rather good at now), I felt slow and asked Jack what speed he thought we were doing. With his reply of 10.5-11km/hr I felt much better. Seems I'm paddling better than I thought after all.

We headed back to the boat ramp and Greg Slade paddled from his house and met us there. I had to leave to go to another children's Birthday Party, and Anton and Greg were joining Jack and Jen to head back out into the lake. As Greg and I were standing knee deep at the waters edge he noticed a large fish "doing a handstand" in the water near us. It didn't look too well, and with a huge bite already out of it Greg set about catching it. What a sight...with Greg running through the water holding and using his paddle like a spear taking occasional whacks and scoops at the fish. After a while and with a shout of "I've got it" he brought it over on his paddle to show us. My comment was "eeeuuuuwwwww,yuk" and so for the next minute he chased after me with the fish on the paddle. I ran to grab my paddle and used it to defend myself with Greg pretending to throw the fish at me. Sooooo funny.

The fish was then returned to the water and Jack and Jen, Anton and Greg headed off towards the lake.

The club race and swim

Well here's my eagerly awaited race report. All went well with the morning preperations (ie. getting myself, 2 children, and husband to the race on time). We were running a bit late, but not so late that I was stressing out too much. We got the K1 off the car roof, Connor paid the money and chose my race number, and I had about 15 minutes to prepare before I had to be on the water.

The club races use a handicap system with the aim of everyone getting to the finish line around 10:30am. So for the usual summer distance of 11.35km people start anywhere between 9:00am and 9:35am. My start was at 9:16 with another club paddler Max who was racing his newly aquired K1 for the first time. Instead of his race number he had an 'L' plate (Learner Plate) in his number mount. I loved the idea! After a bit of a shaky start (lots of bracing), I was off and quickly moved ahead of Max. About 200m into the race a motor boat came in the opposite direction, so I just turned into the wash head on. No real worries. I was feeling strong and confident, when about 400m into the race another motor boat came by. This time unfortunately it was heading in the same direction as us and since Max and I were on different sides of the river, it had to pass between us. Even more unfortunately, the #$*# idiots decided to pass about 7 metres away from me. I didn't know which way to turn, to make the wash more K1 friendly, but I really didn't have a hope. In I went with a "bugger" (didn't even swear), popped my paddle in the kayak and swam for shore. Thank goodness it happened in a spot where I could easily get back in. So after emptying it out, I was soon back into it and paddling again. No idea how much time I lost, but it took me all the way up to the turn-around point to catch Max again...so I'm guessing about 3-5 minutes. Anyway, I was still feeling strong and managed to cope with several other boats going past without any dramas. I was going hard, but not full race-pace. After successfully making the turn around out at the river/lake junction, I headed back with a bit more effort. I managed to drop the paddlers that were paddling with me and was soon passing some more people that had either started before me, or passed me whilst I was swimming. I gradually increased the effort as I got closer to the finish and was feeling tired but good, when lo and behold a voice calls out from behind me. Now Mark if you're reading this, you can correct me on the exact words, but it was something along the lines of "C'mon Cassie, pick it up". Damn, now I had to go harder. I did my best but Mark passed me just before the finish line and beat me by 3 seconds. I had nothing left in me - I was stuffed. I crossed the line 4th in a time of 1:11:47. So just over the time I had hoped to achieve. Now I reckon, with a swim that's a pretty good effort. I definately would have gone under 1:10 if I hadn't gone in. So all in all I was pretty happy with my result.

One interesting point about the race, was the fact that I was not so tired fitness-wise, but balance-wise. At one point I felt myself "losing the plot" a little bit, and feeling a bit zoned-out. I was finding it hard to keep my focus, and kept losing concentration, having to correct my balance and technique too often. This is definately something I have to work on, and I guess race practice is probably one of the best ways.

The other interesting point was how poorly I coped with boat wash when the boat was travelling in the same direction as me. I'm going well with wash that I can turn into head on (or at least on some angle), but I have a lot of trouble (obviously) with wash that comes from behind, travelling in the same direction as me. I have to definately practice this more. I'm not quite sure of the best way to deal with this kind of wash, so any tips from others would be greatly appreciated!

Dodging boats and water bombs

Aaaaah, Australia Day. Chris kindly offered me the opportunity to go for a paddle this afternoon, so against the complaints of my shoulder I decided to go. Anton (in his Mirage) was also keen, so we met down at the usual spot around 3pm. He tells me that it's tradition on Australia day for eggs, flour bombs, and water bombs to be thrown at anyone passing along the river. It was chockers! There were soooo many motorboats, boats towing things, kids on boogey boards, waterbomb throwers and swimmers it was amazing. Trying to paddle a K1 amongst all that boat wash, with the occasional ambush by water bombs was great balance practice. One group even had a huge elastic slingshot they were using to launch them. A waterbomb even whizzed over our heads and hit the far side of the river! At another place there was a kid who saw us coming and started paddling towards me on his boogey board. He was about 1 metre away and was reaching out to tip me in...at which point I looked him in the eye and said "If you tip me in I'll smack you with my paddle" (which of course I would never do), but it worked and he obviously thought better of it. I can't believe we did a whole lap without falling in or getting hit by something!

My shoulder was very sore. At the start it hurt so much that I thought I wouldn't be able to paddle at all, but I paddled faster and altered my technique a bit and it was a lot better. The 1 lap was certainly enough for it today though. I gave Anton my GPS to put on his Mirage so that we could get an idea of our speed. Whenever he looked at it we were doing above 9km/h and often almost 10km/h. Though this is not fast enough for race speed, I was going very easy and I was amazed that we were going so fast for how easy it felt. I really am getting better in the K1. In fact, this is the best I have EVER felt in a K1.

A Crappy Run and A Windy Paddle

A Crappy Run
This morning I thought I'd attempt to do a modified run (shuffle). My 3.5yr old wanted to ride his bike, so I pushed my 2yr old in the pram. I thought I'd just do a short one and surely be able to keep pace with Connor on the bike. Well it pretty much ended up being a 5 min walk, 5 min shuffle, 1 min walk, 5 min shuffle, 2 min walk, 4 min shuffle, 5min walk and long sit down whilst the children played in the park. I guess it was probably too soon to start back running. It's so annoying though, just when I get my fitness back and start to feel ok running again, then I get sick and go backwards again. I might leave the running now until the weekend and make sure I'm fully well before I try again.

A Windy Paddle
Chris was kind enough to 'let' me go for a paddle again today. 2 weekdays is really a treat for me. When I say 'let' I mean that he looks after the boys, which really is quite a job. He has to cook dinner, feed them, bath them, and get them ready for bed, all the while I get to go paddle and come back to 2 clean, fed, and ready for bed boys, with a nice dinner ready for me too. It's a pretty good deal I've got going I reckon. And I'm just lucky I've got such a supportive husband.

Anyway, when Anton and I met down the river, the wind was getting interesting. Mark and Mick had just finished their paddle and said how windy it was up the point (where the river meets the lake). Now Anton and I had planned an interval paddle and he was going to paddle his Mirage with me in the K1, but he decided to bring his K1 instead. He's gamer than me I tell you. You wouldn't catch me paddling such a tippy kayak up to the point in such windy conditions. Really, it took me at least a year of paddling K1's before I would have paddled a tippy one in those conditions at all. Yet, off he goes, less than 10 sessions in a K1 and he's paddling a very tippy one up the river in windy conditions. Now, the chop on the water wasn't too bad considering the amount of wind. I expected it to be wavier (is that a word?). But it was the wind gusts that gave us such trouble. It would grab the paddle and put you off balance in a split second. I gave up on the idea of intervals, it just wasn't feasible in those conditions (well maybe for a better paddler than me, but not when I'm only just back into K1's). But we made it up to the point ok,had a quick rest and stretch and started heading back. Now we thought this would be easier considering we were heading with the wind (with it on our backs), but alas, we now had the sun in our eyes and it was glaring off the water right where we had to look. It makes you realise how important your vision is to your balance. And now the wind was throwing gusts from the side too. Without being able to see properly, it threw us both off (and Anton took a swim). Wow - he is human. I think I'm only 100 or so swims up on him now! Somehow I don't think he'll ever swim as much as I've done. Anyway, we did about 6km, which feels like nothing now. I can't wait to get some more distance under my belt. We're hoping to do a longer paddle in our Mirages on Saturday. But somehow, 8km in the K1 feels the same as 16 in the Mirage. I guess it's all that stabilising that wears me out.

Balance and technique session - Look at me, I'm standing up!

I had hoped I'd feel well enough to do my planned run this morning, but I didn't. I also didn't want to risk making myself sicker and missing even more sessions. In the afternoon I was feeling a little better and I had the opportunity to go for a paddle. I still didn't feel up to a training session but thought I'd go and do some balance and technique drills. So I called Anton and he was keen to do some balance stuff in his K1. I got there a bit earlier to started with the following drills.

1) Balance with paddle overhead
2) Balance whilst rotating paddle overhead
3) Left and Right leans and bracing
4) Left and Right Draw stokes
5) Backwards paddling
6) Balance with eyes closed (still bracing)
7) Balance with eyes closed (paddle out of water)
8) Paddling with eyes closed

Then Anton arrived and while he was tentatively paddling around and getting used to his K1 again, I did some more of the drills. Now here's a little bit of background info. Anton has only just started paddling a K1. He normally paddles a Mirage, and that's what most of our training together has been - both paddling our Mirages to prepare for the Hawkesbury Classic. Well after the Classic we both decided we'd try K1's. Now previously he'd bought (and briefly tried) a very tippy K1. It's at least as tippy as a Van Dusen and lies on it's side when you put it in the water. Well - there's nothing like starting with that kind of K1! I remember transferring from a more stable K1 into my Van Dusen Hawk and doing a lot of swimming. Now - Anton is just a natural - he makes me sick. After only a couple of sessions paddling around our launching spot - he decided to try paddling up the river with a sandbag in. It took me months to try and do this kind of thing in a more stable K1. Anyway, tonight the plan was to just stick to our launching spot and just do some drills, but after a while Anton starts heading up the river, without a sandbag in. Mind you it's been 3 weeks since he last paddled the K1 at all (our session up the river with sandbag in). So with the lack of a turnaround spot, we ended up paddling right up to the lake (about 2.5km). And after a brief rest paddled back again. So I used this opportunity to do some technique drills...

1) 3 stroke pause (ie 1,2,3,pause with paddle ready to catch for as long as possible) and keep repeating
2) Concentrating on arm angles (top arm relatively fixed but rotating with body, and bottom arm almost straight for as long as possible)
3) Lengthening catch (paddle in as far forward as possible)
4) Working on rotation

Then for the last 1km back we both paddled hard. I felt pretty good, and Anton paddled it continuously without having to seriously brace. I think it's amazing that he can paddle that kind of K1 hard so quickly after starting to paddle K1's at all! When we got back I thought I'd try standing up in mine. I've done it before , but wanted photo evidence. After a few step outs, and some serious bracing I did it, and even held the paddle up horizontally at shoulder height. I couldn't manage to paddle standing up though, and I believe it can be done. That's my next challenge.

Photos: 1) Bracing 2)On my way in.....and 3) Look - no hands!