I need to quantify any difference that the training may be making to my performance and to be able to decide what works and what doesn't so that I can dump the time wasting exercises and concentrate more on the useful. I've decided to include an end of the month Time Trial as a yardstick to see if what I'm doing is actually making any sort of difference. Since my regular paddle is almost exactly five miles along a fairly straight course, that seems to be a convenient measure to adopt.
As the last day of the month came along yesterday I tried the idea out. Now I've paddled this route many many times and know it backwards. I've never actually tried to push hard all the way to get an overall fast time but on a good day I can clip along it in about an hour, twelve. When I'm not feeling so good it's around an hour eighteen, but there's a lot of factors that can vary the time. Yesterday there was a great deal of weed fouling paddle and prow, there was also quite a few houseboats getting in the way.
Since I hadn't been in a boat since Saturday I was rested and pushing along the first dead straight mile felt pretty good. The rest of the way up to the turnaround was good and it generally felt as if I was moving well. Coming back I had slight assistance from the small amount of flow and I had to overtake a houseboat on a straight. As it turned out the return was faster. At the finish I'd clocked an overall time, including the turn, of 1:04:25, which is some eight minutes better than my previous best. That's also given me an average paddle speed of 4.7 mph, not quite the five miles per hour I'd like, but very close. The mile splits also show the final two miles both under twelve minutes.
All in all that's a result I'm really pleased with as I hadn't for a moment thought that I'd be that fast. Just now, and for the first time, this thing really feels as if it's do-able.
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