Club Hare & Hounds, October

I eventually took the decision not to start off my 2017/18 Hare & Hounds campaign in the six mile event instead of the four. After a rough patch with the aftermath of the recent back injury which has resulted in missing the first H&H of the season and doing only about four outings in the boat otherwise, I decided not to inflict myself on the long suffering handicapper until I could expect to make a reasonable fist of it. 

This month I thought that at least I'd be likely to finish, so duly lined up at the four mile start time on Saturday to find that, for a change, I wasn't the 'hare'. Four others went off before me while I started in my pre-injury derived time slot with not a hope in hell of doing a compatible time with my last effort two months ago. I knew it was going to be painful, and slow, but you have to start somewhere. 

Neither had I bothered with a warm-up as I was intending taking off at a steady pace for around the first mile using that as the warm-up. Even so, within a couple of hundred yards leg and hip joints were starting to protest and cramping up. It took a few minutes of wriggling and pushing against the footrest with both feet to get comfortable.  At the first mile I was finally settling into the boat and starting to get some semblance of a stroke going, but it wasn't very pleasant or pretty to watch. The paddler who had started just two minutes ahead of me soon disappeared into the distance as I struggled to keep going.

Somewhere after the mile point the canal opens out into a large but shallow lake. Whereas the canal is generally quite sheltered between the confines of trees along both banks, the open aspect of the lake allows windy conditions a free range to do what it wants to boat and paddler. Unfortunately, Saturday also coincided with the passing through of the remains of storm Bertie. Crossing the lake was against the full frontal buffeting of gusts nudging 30 mph. Finally getting out the other side of the lake was a relief and I pushed on towards the turn at the two and a bit mile mark in fits and starts.

Within the half mile approaching the turn I was overtaken by a k2 and it became obvious that I had lost a lot of ground to those who had started ahead of me. They were coming back at me well ahead of their expected times. Clearly, I was late as I made a passable turn at the point and headed back. All semblance of rhythm and technique by this time had gone and I was just struggling to keep going. Suffice to say that I passed the finish in 59:00 minutes dead, some eight minutes slower than the previous time two months before, which I suppose justifies my caution in taking on the six mile distance.