Playing with Numbers

After my initial try out on the water in late November I followed up with further Tuesday morning sessions this month each of about two miles and each with much the same result of both shoulders, arms and wrists aching for a couple of days afterwards. Pushing more than one session a week in a boat simply wasn't on as it clearly was only going to make matters worse if I persisted in doing more. In fact it got to the point that I curtailed the jogging as well and ended up doing only the minimum I needed to keep the same level of fitness. 

In the hope that it would be easier I tried out in a canoe for the last session on Tuesday of last week. The usual suspects from the club had taken themselves off to Reading for the annual exploration of the junction of the Kennet & Avon with Thames on the town's outskirts and to paddle up to Fobney lock on the K&A and back. Left to my own devices I took out one of the remaining two seater open canoes intending to take only a short paddle in the hope that the different paddling action for the canoe would be a bit easier on the various limbs. It wasn't. 

It was a struggle to single-handed get the boat to the water, even with the aid of one of the two wheeled dollies, although it was accomplished eventually. Once on the water I headed off towards the lake about a half mile from the clubhouse. I had been afraid that the main problem would be my old Nemesis the wrist-twisting J-stroke, but that didn't turn out to be the case, handling the paddle was reasonably easy. It was a pleasure to be back in a canoe and I had the canal pretty much to myself. Reaching the lake I found it to be iced up and I was soon breaking through thin sheet ice with the accompanying crackle and rattle under the boat. As I went on it was getting thicker so I turned back rather than risk taking a spill.

Back past the clubhouse I paddled up towards the Deepcut locks for almost another mile and found my shoulder muscles now getting rather tired and beginning to complain. At that point I gave it best and returned slowly to the club. It had been such a pleasure though that I was reluctant to put the boat away. Instead, I spent another half hour manoeuvring the boat around and backing up into the closed in spaces near the jetty. But all good things come to an end and after about ninety minutes I pulled the boat out of the water. The next morning though I was paying for the pleasure with stiff shoulder and neck.

Although the jogging has been partly supplanted by the boat sessions, I've still contrived to put in a couple of jogs a week, enough to about sustain the same level of fitness but with no prospect of improvement. A couple of circuits around Bushy ParkRun course which were modified to jogging the first half of each mile and an increased pace for the second half has been of some benefit. Monday's jog, the day before the outing with the canoe, went quite well with only one short walk to recover in the third mile and produced splits of :-
1)  4:26/4:18.  2). 4:38/4:17.   3. 5:00/4:16 times.  The second, on the Thursday after the canoe session, was rather harder, what with upping the pace for the second half and resulted in rather longer walks and recovery times:-  

1). 4:08/3:53.   2). 5:21/4:07.   3). 6:28/4:12. Nevertheless, the efforts overall were harder and a bit faster. 

On Saturday I presented myself for the Richmond ParkRun for only the second time in six weeks. I wasn't feeling much like it, knowing that the drop in the number of sessions and the efforts of the previous day without a rest day between wasn't going to promise any sort of an improvement in time. I was aiming for a steady, even paced run and especially an improvement in the time for the last, hilly mile. I lost the usual fifteen seconds through the start but the first two miles went okay although I faded somewhat on the last one, making heavy weather of the hills.  Even so, the times for the last three ParkRuns were roughly comparable with each other, and there's a definite improvement on the third mile and last 0.1 mile.

29/10.   1).  8:15.     2). 8:24.    3). 9:43.     4). 1:17.  (27:13)

26/11.    1).  8:31.    2). 8:34.    3). 9:23.      4). 1:19. (27:32)

  9/12.    1).  8:26.   2). 8:55.    3). 9:12.      4)  0:56. (27:33)