Tempus Fugit

'Before you get on the water you must have a training plan. If you have no training goal then the chances are you'll find an excuse not to train at all.'

So says my guru Brian Greenaway in the DW bible. And of course he's right, it's all too easy to get sidetracked or let things slide and hope that you'll catch up... later. Up till now The plan, such as it is, has been a loose regime of paddling that's geared to getting a fair mileage in by the end of the year, then reviewing whatever fitness I have to see if another three months with more intensive training will see me through the DW. At the moment that 'fair mileage' target is the BCU 500 mile 'gold' award, and I'm well within that target before the end of the year.

With any luck and the wind in the right direction, I might just get to that mileage by the end of August. But what does try to sidetrack me a bit is that another club member, one of those that's proposing to try the DW next year, seems to regard himself as in a race with me to clock the highest mileage for the end of the year club mileage award. By my calculation he's already at over 600 miles so it's unlikely I'd be able to overhaul him before the end of the year. Nevertheless, the urge is strong to go out and just put in a few more miles to get back in contention.

The temptation is there to just rack up miles, but of course that would be suicide for any hope of me completing the DW. In fact I do try to include a bit of quality in each run, either by using the Bungee or time on the Ergo or a half hearted attempt at intervals, all of which do seem to be paying off in terms of speed and endurance. To simply plough a furrow over the same old 5/10 mile courses might earn a putty medal, but I doubt will bring me much closer to the Westminster finish line.

So, with the end of the first phase In the offing and having seen some of the sporadic efforts of the other DW wannabes, it looks as though it would be better to set my stall out a lot earlier than I thought necessary. Leaving training in earnest until the three worst months of the year is probably not wise. Having left things late on the last two years I need a proper plan that's going to get the bulk of the training in before Christmas to settle the go/no go matter once and for all... Tempus fugit.