Changes

I was already aware of most of the info imparted by the club's racing coach on the recent four week course. I have, after all, thought long and hard about my failings when trying to wield a paddle. The main trouble has always been to get all the facets of paddle technique working as one to produce the desired effect. Occasionally, very occasionally, it does all come together and suddenly I'm clipping along at a fair pace. Catch near the feet, power through the torso, exit at the waist and recovery arms at eye level, with legs working and balance just so, all comes good, but it's only usually for seconds or maybe a minute, then some part of it comes unglued and the brakes come back on.

The last few weeks since the abortive Hasler I've concentrated on extending the length of time I can keep the continuous paddling action going and have slowed the stroke rate to get all parts of it together. This of course means a slower speed but it gives time to get the whole thing together. Consequently I've spent time on my favourite stretches of water doing the exercises given on the technique course. The one causing the most grief is doing ten strokes on one side and then ten on the other, repeated several times. It has found the weak spot on the left hand stroke. While the right side is okay-ish the left is very clumsy and needs a lot more thought.

One thing that has been suggested before is that the seat in the Laance is very low to enable stability, and that a higher seat might bring a more vertical paddle entry at the catch. It's about as stable as a k1 can get with a wobble factor of nine so I think I ca afford to experiment a bit. The nice people at Marsport obtained a new seat for me which raises my sitting position about an inch. That doesn't sound a lot but on the first try-out there was a discernible difference with the feeling of security I paddled gingerly away from New Haw lock. By the time that I'd done my usual five miles I'd settled into the new seat and it felt much the same as the old one. The jury's out on how much difference it's making to the stroke but it does feel as if it's cleaner.

The Laance does make quite a bit of wash as it moves along displacing a large volume of water and often I can hear it breaking against the canal banks behind me as I'm pushing it. Buoyed up by my minor success with the seat stability I've also taken out one of the club Hobbys a couple of times which has a wobble factor of eight. Despite the higher wobble factor it felt about the same as the Laance with the high seat, but the difference to the amount of wash was quite significant and nothing like as much. This tends to indicate that the Hobby might be a bit faster and I might give it a try it in one of the H&Hs when I get a bit more used to it.

Technique is one thing, but the strength to keep paddling without stopping is another. Initially any improvement in times is going to come from just being able to 'keep going' like everyone else. Several of the five mile paddles I've managed to keep at a steady state by resorting back to my old method of counting strokes. Mostly it's multiples of 60 taken from approximately the number of strokes per minute. Otherwise it's just going known, half mile stretches at medium to hard pace.  It's a very slow build up to just getting back to where I was before.