No Richard, therefore, it was either kidnap or opt for paddling K1. I opted for my K1
This morning I was in two minds as to paddle TS1. When we left Buckinghamshire this morning it was snowing. In Berkshire the weather got better but it was raining on and off. It was also cold in my book, I'm not sure how cold that means mortals find it
In the end I decided to paddle. Apart from yesterday, it was quite some time since I had paddled my Epsilon. Until Theale I was going OK but was having problems with some of the chop especially the back wash in narrow sections. I decided to move my seat back a click at Theale to keep my tail down and the rudder in the water- note to self; move the foot plate back if I move the seat back and don't do it during a race!
The portage at Fobney amazes me, why am I the only one to use the easy route?
At county I tried an early get in as an experiment to see what would happen. The current from the recirculation off the tow back was so great that I couldn't get any speed up and it just turned me around. Deciding that this was a bad idea I went for the normal put in. Unfortunately a ladies K1 capsized, therefore, getting her safe was far more important than any race. A mens K2 crew sorted out her boat and I got her out. This was her 5th swim of the day, she was cold, tired and had no support and was looking for her team mates or coach. They were nowhere to be seen. This was a good (or bad) example of someone in the wrong boat and the boat was in a poor condition (At the end we were going to speak sternly to her coach- there was no need for this she was more than capable herself!).
Overall I was pleased with my finish and overall race. I did comment that it was a personal best for me.
When we got back to Remko's he went on line to look at the times.
Without subtracting time for the rescue I was still shocked-
I was expecting to be over three hours. This took over 30 minutes of my previous PB and I was within 1 hour of the winning VK1 boat all be it 59 min 58secs. I will do a timing from the video to give myself a corrected time. Not to try and get my time changed just for my own reference.
How did I manage to take such a large amount of time off my PB? Easy, I got Paul Ralf (and Craig) to do some work on my technique. The lesson for everyone, look at yourself on video and get some critical analysis to see where you could improve.
I'm a very, very happy teddy bear! Many thanks to Paul, Craig and Remko.
Tom [I will put up video this week]
Looking loads better Tom - Disappointed you didn't get in facing upstream at County and surf the wave before carrying on - as you did at Boulters with Jake many years ago....
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