K2 to Sonning Lock return

A very fresh start leaving home just after 06:00 followed by a quick chat with Matt in the boat house (Matt incedentally was looking resplendent in his new goretex fronted Craft (tm) paddling attire. The Condor was readied with a bike light on the back to comply with the navigation rules in the half light of the dawn and we got ready to push off downstream.

Matt tore down his leggings to reveal a very wild pair of shorts, it looked as though his winter coat was beginning to grow and he said that he did not feel the cold as much as me. For my part the bio mechanical Skin (tm) base layer was doing the trick, if only I could breathe! I look quite similar now to Robbie Farah the West Tigers Hooker except without the ball!















The boat ran quite well to Reading lock but set off after the portage below the lock in an unsteady fashion, gradually we got going in the centre of the river which seemed very fast flowing, we barrelled on down and put a turn in well up from the lock cut and tucked in uder the far bank at Sonning to avoid the flow as much as we could. We passed a fleet of canoeists heading down from the Watersport centre, after exchanging greetings we cracked on, the portage was not too bad and we pushed hard back to teh club, finishing in 1 hour and 1 minute, Paul at the club commented how much steam was emanating from us as we sat alongside the club dock in the boat getting our breath back and working out what we can do to go faster, for we must if we are to stand a chance of beating our target.



We have agreed that we are going to spend more time focusing on pyriamid training intervals, pushing in each effort phase to our max stroke rate /speed from 1 minute up to 5 minutes then back to one minute with a rest phase of 1 minute between efforts so a total work out of 33 minutes but at very high intensity, I now just have to work out how to program my Garmin to bleep at us at the appropriate time...................................

It's all about the science............

Very little in the way of wildlife spots apart from another kamikazi Grebe who we nearly decapitated and a good Kingfisher spot. The morning mist cleared to leave the river looking stunning in the sunshine.