Time trial and trying my new skirt

Chris had to work this morning so unfortunately that meant that I couldn't paddle (maybe in 10 years time I will be able to leave the boys on their own.....then again make that never). Anyway he was meant to be home by early afternoon, but he ended up having to work back (grrrr, the poor thing ended up working pretty much a full day) and got home pretty late. I called Anton and said that I'd be at the river around 4pm, but due to other circumstances he couldn't paddle then so I was on my own.

I thought...ok then I'll do a warm-up to the bridge and then try and do a time trial from the bridge back to the boat ramp. Remember that I fell in last time I tried this. I figured it would probably be best doing this on my own anyway, and the river conditions were perfect for it. Calm water with a bit of outflow (going with me). I was mentally up for it, and very keen to see how I would go.

The warm up went well. I felt good and my balance felt ok. In the meantime Anton had ridden down and met me at the bridge. I said to him..."Do you reckon you could beat me back to the boat ramp" figuring that he could definately ride there in under 8 minutes. I had my watch on me anyway, and at 4:13:40 pm I headed off from a rolling start. I started off at a moderate pace and fell into a nice rhythm. As usual, every time I tried to go harder I started to lose my balance, but I was going pretty hard anyway. About half way through I heard Anton call out from the road, and I lost my concentration and balance a bit, but managed to get back on track. The last 400m were a bit 'all over the place', but I finished the 1.5km at 4:21:27. As soon as I worked out that my time was 7:47 I was stoked! The fastest I'd previously done was 8:07 in the club K1 and I think 7:57 in the Van Dusen K1. So it confirmed my thoughts...I can paddle the Sladecraft quicker than the Van Dusen. Now I'm not saying that the Sladecraft IS quicker than the Van Dusen...just that I can paddle it quicker, and therefor it's a quicker kayak for me. I can't wait to see what I can do in it with some decent training and with better balance.

By now it was dusk, and I decided to spend the rest of the session trying out my new sprayskirt. I'd stumbled across it on ebay and geartrade. For only $45 I figured that I wasn't going to find a K1 sprayskirt for anywhere near that price and so the remainder of my spendable "Ruddy Money" went on that. It arrived a couple of days ago, and looked awesome so I was keen to try it out. My only concern was if I fell in, that I would be stuck dangling around upside down under the water trying to remove myself (and skirt) from the kayak. But as soon as I had it on, I could see that it would pop off easily (probably before my body hit the water). So I went for a short paddle and it was great. My legs were dry and 'toasty', and the water just beaded off it. I actually delberately threw heaps of water on it, and it still just beaded off. Cooooool!!! And I didn't fall in.

It was getting dark by now, so I called it quits (after Anton had taken some photos with his mobile phone). He reckons that I should say that the blurry one is because I was going so fast...yep, I'll go with that!
So eventhough it was a short session, it was very effective and productive.

The dream - lyrics

The song that I've got first on my playlist at the moment is called "The dream" by Irene Cara. There's a bit of background to it...A friend once lent me a tape (yes old casette tape) that was produced for one of the Olympics, and another with other motivational songs on it. I can't remember which tape this song was on, but I've always liked it and think it's relevant to most athletes. Anyway, it's always had an effect on me. So here are the lyrics...

I’ve been chasing dreams for so long
Just one step behind and then they’re gone
Illusions of love would come and go
I guess you have to hurt before you grow
And everybody knows
Never let go of the, never let go of the dream

I always seem to lose what I thought was mine
And many times I tried to leave it behind
Deep inside, hope was still alive
Deep inside, dreams will never die
That is why we’re movin’ closer to the truth

It’s really great for me to be here
I’ve won over the pain and the fear
It’s been so very hard through the years
Been looking through a rainbow of tears
And still I never really let go of the dream

Sometimes I saw my life just falling apart
And all the rejection tearing at my heart
Deep inside, hope was still alive
Deep inside, dreams will never die
If you try there’ll be so much more for you

It’s really great for me to be here
I’ve won over the pain and the fear
It’s been so very hard through the years
Been looking through a rainbow of tears
And still I never really let go of the dream

We can all be free, we hold the key
If we can see what we wanna be
Life’s never easy, you get no guarantees
Why not give your all and see what you can find?

World Masters Games...Here I come.

I've done it. I completed and paid for my entry this morning. It feels great to finally have made that step. Hopefully I'll win one of those 'Skins' prizes for entering before the end of May. Yeh, right. Anyway, after a lot of grovelling to Mick, I've convinced him to do the sprints with me as well. I really wanted to do them, but wasn't really keen on doing them on my own. Now that I've convinced him to do the K2 sprints with me I'm so excited about that too. So my events are...
Womens 35+ Marathon K1
Mixed 35+ Marathon K2 (with Mick)
Mixed 35+ Sprint K2 200m
Mixed 35+ Sprint K2 500m
Mixed 35+ Sprint K2 1000m

Heavy schedule, but it should be sooooo much fun!

Finally, another jog

After several plans to do another jog this week, and several things happening to prevent me, I finally got out this morning to do one. I pushed both boys in the double pram and wow - are they getting heavy to push. It's so much harder running and pushing a pram with over 30kg in it. Not to mention the constant referreeing and negotiating (and occassional yelling) that I have to do as well. Anyway, I ran to the end of the path and back, and felt pretty good. I'll have to start running further with the double pram now that I can do this distance ok.

A monday aftenoon jog.

After much deliberation and discussion, Mum and I decided to go out for a jog this afternoon. I pushed Clayton in the pram and Connor rode his bike. My legs still felt fatigued after my longer run on the weekend, and the going was slow, but I felt generally ok. We jogged to the end of the path and half-way back, and then walked the rest. Mum can't run too much at the moment due to an injury. We then watched the boys playing in the park afterwards for a while. All in all...a pleasant run, and I'm glad we made ourselves go.

A great paddle

Chris's soccer was on, then it was off, then it was on but at a different time and place, then it was off, then it was on at the original time and venue, and then no-one seemed to know...
So I arranged to meet Anton at 7:30am for a quick paddle to get back in time for Chris's possible game of Soccer. It was windy, but not as bad as yesterday. I was very nervous in the K1 and was so confident about staying upright that I wore my wetsuit top! Anton was in his TK1.
We started by heading to the bridge and I was feeling pretty good, when on the return trip....who should we see.....but "Oh no, it's that f**king idiot again", as I called out to Anton. It was the guy in the boat who was responsible for me falling out last week. Goody, goody I thought...now he'll have a hat-trick". I immediately started to feel tippy and had to do some brace strokes, but maybe he heard me (whoops) or maybe he actually had a brain in his head today, but he stopped his boat and waited until we were past until he headed off again. Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou!!!!
Anyway, we continued up to the lake, briefly saw Greg outside his house, and it was getting progressively windier and choppier up towards the top. However I still felt pretty good. I turned around at the beach at the point (no way I was tackling the markers in that weather) and we headed back. We came across a few other boats going in the opposite direction, but their minimal wash wasn't a problem. We got back to the boat ramp without any dramas and I was extremely pleased that I hadn't fallen out.
I went to the car to check my mobile phone and there was a message from Chris saying that Soccer was on in the afternoon and I didn't have to rush home now. Woo Hoo. So Anton convinced me to do a couple of sprints with him. We headed up just past the 200m mark and did a couple of moderate paced efforts. I found I couldn't pt too much effort because the kayak started to bob, and I felt too unstable. This got better as we did a few more. I decided to try a couple of sprints where I stayed behind Anton practiced dealing with wash. I managed better than I thought. On the final one I practiced wash-riding and again coped better than I though.
All in all a great paddle. It was a huge confidence booster and I can't wait to get out in the K1 again.

Running again

Since I missed my paddle this morning due to the weather (and my wussiness, hehehe), Chris kindly offered for me to go for a run this afternoon. I said we could all go together, but he said that he would look after the boys so I could have a break and enjoy a run on my own. What a man!!!
So I drove to the lake and with MP3 player in hand started doing my usual warm-up walk, when I suddenly had the desire to turn around and go the other direction for today. I normally don't go the other way because even though the path is excellent, it is windy (as in curves around too much) and it's a pain trying to run with the pram whilst turning corners all the time. However on my own it was lovely. The music was pumping, I felt great and decided at the turn around time..to just keep running a bit further. I had planned to run 10 minutes and turn around for a 20 minute total run. But I decided to turn around after 15 minutes and did a 30 minute run. I felt great the whole way and could have run further.
Now, I know this distance isn't anything special, but for me it was. I haven't run 30 minutes since before state when I got injured. So this was my longest run in a while. I now feel like I'm running properly again.