On Saturday last I set about this month's 42 and the deficit of 22miles from the previous two months. The club had a paddle scheduled that was going to take in a long section of the river Wey. Unfortunately that's still in a high spate and and unusable by human powered craft. A certain amount of juggling was done by the trip leader and the route devolved back to the good old standby of the Wey navigation.
The start was moved to the garden of a pub that faces onto the water of the Wey and the route extended up to Walsham Gates and then back to the pub at Pyrford for a mid paddle coffee and cake. We were to finish off with lunch at the pub where we started. You can probably see a pattern forming here, and no one can say that the club doesn't get its priorities right. Eight of us set off initially from the pub garden including one in a canoe who was intending to paddle back to the clubhouse via the Thames. We were joined after a couple of miles by three others who were going to do a shorter trip.
The weather is starting to show a little promise as the last three days have been mostly rain free and periods of sun and blue skies have been a welcome difference. During the trip it became warm enough for various paddlers to start shedding cags, pogies and beanies and enjoying the sunshine. For me, sweating under a thermal and a non breathable cag, things were becoming hot and uncomfortable and I was glad to get to the coffee stop to strip off the wet underclothing and change for a tee shirt. The second half of the trip, which was now into a mileage that I haven't done for some months, was a bit fraught.
By eight miles the field had become a bit strung out and everything had gone a bit quiet at the back. I passed the three that pulled out at their short stop which left me following the canoe who had started off from the coffee stop early. I pulled into the pub garden at the finish point while he carried on into the sunset. It was not a good paddle as I struggled with the mileage at the end but it's further than I've gone for a long time so it wasn't surprising that I was going to have a difficult time of it. But I finished.
Today I went for a reprise of the five miles to Pyrford. Still sore from Saturday's exertions that didn't go particularly well either. It was a long slow paddle to Pyrford but a little faster on the way back. In total I've put in fifteen slow miles at the start of the month.
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