Pete: This weekend was our first proper introduction to the training schedule laid out by the trainers at Marsports. I was pretty aprehensive anyway, having started on the core stability work down in the gym over the week. I put together a gym schedule that details what I think I need to be doing over the next month. A part of that is intensive work over the weekends (and Friday nights) in the boats so that we get the important tone, speed and cardio work as well as a chance to practice technique.
We have already had some sessions in the boats, but one of the key points we need to practice now is getting ourselves up to speed. As a result, we spent a couple of hours on Saturday and Sunday going as quickly for short periods of time as possible.
On Saturday we took out the K1s, doing 8′, 6′ and 4′ sprints. Sunday was a session of 1′ sprints with 1′ rest in between. Both were pretty exhausting. I don’t know about Toons, but I spent pretty much all of Sat and Sun evenings eating! Trying to get enough calories on-board is proving to be a constant struggle; my diet has improved immensely and I can see it working, but it’s not enough to convince me that we’re definitely going to finish. I have a massive amount of respect for folks who manage races like this, and I’m not naive enough to think that great physical condition alone will win out. We absolutely need to be in the best shape of our lives if we want to be in with a chance of finishing.
I do, however, feel good about the paddling we’re doing. Over the weekend I had a good time, we cracked some good jokes (at least they seemed funny at the time) and our technique is improving steadily. We may need to keep the the pressure on the physical stuff but our training regime doesn’t feel like it’s unsustainable, thanks largely to a healthy portion of schoolboy humour.
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