What a month! 2 training weekends in one month which included snow (no change there then), the Youth and Junior Raft Race at Lee Valley, international ladies teams training together, 2 different venues, 1 flip and EVERYONE swimming!
One of the teams getting a good wash!!
The British Raft Race series were holding a Youth and Junior event at the Lee Valley one very cold weekend in February, so we joined in too to share our experience with the teams, do some coaching, and get some training in ourselves. The fab thing was that the ladies teams from Holland and Belgium joined in so we could get some race practice under real conditions and perfect our start line ‘trash talking’.
The youth races went really well, and despite the cold a great time was had by all. The results of the event were
1st place – Hertford Mariners – 937 points
2nd place – Clueless Six – 859 points
3rd place – Riverside Rafters- 844 points
4th place – Paddle Pirates – 734 points
5th place -Hereford Academy- 706 points
The Youth and Junior Teams learning Slalom, or poll dodging.
and hopefully we will have even more Youth and Junior teams turn up for the selections in May to see who will be eligible to join the senior teams in New Zealand!
Our training that weekend was mixed, mainly because, in the first session of day one we flipped. Serves us right for practicing some hard slalom moves! But the water was freezing and I’m sure we all just looked like deer caught in headlights as we floated silently down the rest of the course pretty much paralysed with cold. But to make matters worse, and because Georgie hadn’t been on the raft for that run, clearly she had to get a bit wet too! and we ended up almost flipping AGAIN but instead ditching Georgie and Bryony out of the raft!
The raft minus Georgie and Bry. The horror!
Oh dear, oh dear. Everyone is allowed a bad day right?
Our Nottingham Weekend 2 weeks later was much more successful, but no less hard. We had Coach Dave back with us who set us some awesome Slalom sessions. It is great when you finish a session achieving something that on the first run down had seemed impossible!
Coach put us through our paces on the Saturday night in a circuits session which included pressups (do-able), tricep dips (painful), running (standard), burpies (ugh!!), dragon walks (what!?), lunges and a whole host of other painful exercises ( I’m pretty sure it is his way of punishing us for making him stand in the cold and snow all day). These are the only photos we could show of that session…pretty sure you don’t want to see our sweaty horrible faces, and we certainly don’t want you to!
Phew at least you cant see our faces!!
Bry and Suze pressing up.
Lots of running, because rafting is all in the legs!!!
The weekend was awesome and after our endurance session we came away seeing how far we have come, our fitness has improved amazingly and, thanks to Nezza’s new Workout Plan, we are going to be a slick machine!!
Talking of Nezza, Its interview time!!
Nerys Blue sits Back Right of the raft and is our Welsh Wonder Woman!
Nezza you must be one of the busiest members of the team, being a teacher, a mum of 2 very cute kids, on the GBR Rafting Team and a fitness guru all at the same time. How do you fit it all in?
I must admit some weeks are pretty manic, it means training early in the morning, lunch time, straight after work or late in the evening once the little ones have gone to bed. It does help being married to Matt who is on the men’s team as motivation in our house is at an all time high so if the time of the session is not the best we will still get the sessions in. We have various cardio machines in the house and garage, pull up bars, a dip machine, fitball and weights which makes training at home easy, then we live 2 minutes away from a leisure centre and Crossfit Carmarthen which we can use free of charge. I tend to work smart and many of my sessions only last 30 minutes but they are high intensity, with about 2-3 of my sessions lasting an hour or more. Being focused and organised with kit to train early in the morning or straight after work helps prevent any time wasting.
You were on the team for a long time before you had the kids, what drew you back after that break?
I love rafting, challenges, being part of a team and being at the top end. I also enjoy training and competing.
We are all in awe of the training plans you create for us, where did you learn the knowledge of putting these training programs together?
My background of slalom racing for which I would have monthly and weekly training programmes. Speaking to lots of people about what sort of training is best for the sport of rafting. We are required to have a good endurance base but without compromising our speed for the sprint and slalom disciplines.
What is your most memorable rafting experience ?
Being picked up by the American’s men team at my first Rafting World Championships in S. Africa in 1999 – after being catapulted out of the raft in a massive stopper. Okay on a more serious note winning my first gold medal in the head to head at the 2008 Euro’s at receiving a standing ovation and a roar of clapping by all nations as we walked into the presentation tent (Men’s GB team having done the same). But if I had to pick a different one to the captain, winning our first ever medal at the Korean World Championships in 2007, disbelief as the NZ girls congratulated us for our bronze medal in the slalom, we had to go and see the result board for ourselves. It’s so difficult not to mention our best overall achievement ever at the R4 World Championships in Dutch Water Dream, finishing 3rd (1st,3rd,8th,2nd).
What is your most memorable moment with the team?
Would have to be my rafting Hen Do in Austria, was definitely an adventurous evening, followed by asking to stop the minibus on route to the Europeans the next day because I wasn’t feeling too well.
Brilliant, so what is the best thing anout being on the team?
Friendship
and finally the worst thing?
Mixing up our kit as we now have a lot the same. This is also brilliant at the same time.
Thanks Nez!
Our next weekend training is in Wales, lets hope the snow has melted by then and it is a bit warmer!!
This weekend we gathered at my home spot for the Dee River Festival in Llangollen, North Wales.
Surflines- The Palm Store - http://thepalmstore.co.uk/ joined the rest of the guys from Palm to show off our 2013 range of kit along with as many Dagger Demos as we could fit in the van.
We were incredibly fortunate that the rain Gods shone on us and brought the river up to a playful 5 meaning some sporty lines downriver and a nice little play wave at the bottom of the Mill section.
The event is all about getting as many paddlers on the water as possible, having a good time, trying out all the latest boats and generally enjoying an iconic Welsh river together.
There were many different activities and coaching clinics going on for all styles of paddler. We had creekers, freestylers, SUP’ers, rafters, open canoeists and every type of paddler in between. All enjoying the (mostly) good weather, paddling together and joining in the many clinics.
Palm’s Cheesy & G17′s Simon even turned there hand to Open Canoeing, the results however weren’t as pretty as the drysuits that kept them toasty and dry. They were last spotted swimming off towards Chester when it all went wrong at Town Falls…
We had all three sizes of Dagger’s new Jitsu playboat for people to try. Having being one of the main testers it’s a boat im passionate about. It’s great to see paddlers of all abilities hopping into them and loving how they’re paddling. It was very satisfying seeing people’s grins as they were surfing up the mighty bottom wave.
Katya & myself made the most of the good levels and had a good session in the sun in our Jitsu’s followed by a blast down the river in the Dagger Greens. Now if you ever get a chance to try one of the Green boats I highly recommend it, surprisingly whenever you get to a rapid they really come to life, great fun! You can’t help but sprint in them though
Thanks to everyone who came and said hello, if you were there check the gallery below to see if you got snapped by us
This month I’m going to show you how to Loop in shallow holes.
Being from the UK, one of the first obstacles I had to overcome was how to do the moves in shallow features. It’s an invaluable skill to have for many reasons.
Getting normal loops is relatively easy in modern short boats but many people still struggle when the holes aren’t very deep.
Ordinarily on the loop you stamp down hard, get the boat as deep as possible and then jump up with your arms to get the height and go as big as you can.
Shallow spots require a very different approach however.
Step One: In a shallow hole, you take as little speed as possible going into the seam line.
Step Two: When the nose touches the seam try and catch as small amount of water as you can whilst still getting vertical.
To do this back paddle and use your core stomach muscles to keep the boat straight as you approach the seam line and then continue these little micro strokes to maintain control whilst initiating the bow in the green water.
Step Three: Once vertical you want to effectively do a flat-water loop but in the hole. Push down as hard and snappily as you can with the back of both paddle blades.
Step Four: When you’re body is as far forwards as it can go, grab the water with the power face of your paddle blades and open your body out like the opposite of a sit up as snappily & aggressively as you can.
This will kick your feet out in front of you and push the nose of the boat back into a front surf.
Tips & Tricks
You can practice this motion on dry land by lying on your back with your legs in the air then try and kick out as hard as you can. On dry land the idea is just to get a feel of this movement.
Spending some time perfecting your flat-water loops will help you with these skills too.
When you have this shallow hole looping technique perfected, the way you finish the loop by grabbing the water and kicking out can also be applied to finishing Phonic’s and Mc’Nastys and is a very very good way of forcing the boat to keep straight, and retaining the feature. For competing this skill is invaluable as it enables you to force moves to keep straight when the pressure is on.
How the gear I use helps me…
Out with my Dad on the Washburn in my beloved Jitsu, toasty warm in my Palm Spark suit. Life is good!
What’s also going to help your freestyle progression is using the right tools for the job.
I’m very fortunate to be using what I consider the best equipment possible for what I do so I’d like to give some of the stuff I use a little shout out!
I use Dagger’s new Jitsu kayak that I was involved in the design process of, so it’s pretty much my dream boat. One of the reasons is its slicy ends. It makes it easy to initiate the nose and cut it in to the water whilst keeping a volumous poppy centre that give you that much needed lift to get big air. Having precise but short back end gives you the freedom to play in shallow features without hitting the bottom on the landings and pull stuff though quicker and easier in normal holes.
Being a very cold winter for play boating I’ve managed to paddle the whole winter through thanks to having my Palm Spark suit to wear, it’s much lighter and less restrictive than ordinary dry suits and feels a lot like wearing a top deck only much warmer with great freedom of movement!
Good luck trying this one out, and enjoy the coming spring!
As always, the beginning of March marked one of the highlights of the student paddling year, with the now legendary National Student Rodeo once again arriving in town. Held every year at Nottingham’s whitewater course, the NSR offers the chance for paddlers of all abilities to compete, paddle and party, for prizes, for honour, but most of all, for fun.
Since its early years as a relatively small freestyle kayaking competition, the event has grown and now has more of a festival feel about it, with the kayaking now accompanied by music, commentary, games, coaching, and other activities taking place throughout the weekend. Each year university canoe clubs try their best to out do each other both on and off the water, and a mention must go to Birmingham Uni this year, who all dressed as clowns for the whole weekend, as well as bringing a homemade circus tent, custom decorated kayaks, and even a candy floss machine!
The biggest crowd pleaser events are probably the Old Skool and Topo duo events, notorious for carnage, but always spectacular. The Old Skool catergory featured a selection of kayaks from history (none below 3.5m in length), with neon kit galore, and was once again dominated (3rd time now?) by Dave Burne, whose combinations of pop outs and paddle twirls had the crowd going wild.
One of my personal highlights is always the women’s novice final event, in which points are awarded primarily for crowd pleasing and originality. This year saw circus tricks, wipeouts galore, and a cheeky cider based bribe thrown to the judges mid ride.
Palm Equipment proudly support the safety team with the provision of throwbags, who once again did sterling work pulling countless paddlers and items of gear out of the course, allowing the event to run smoothly and safely for all.
At the end of the event each year, the grand prize of a custom made Dagger Kayak is awarded to the University who earn the most points overall. Below you’ll see the full line up of custom NSR Kayaks, from 2009 to the present day. Which is your favourite? Congratulations to Nottingham Uni this year, who took home the victory and the boat, a spectacular spotty clown flavoured creation.
A huge thanks to all at Leeds Uni who put in so much work to this event every year, and to every student who came along and got involved with our excellent sport!
To find out more about the event, and for a full results list visit www.nationalstudentrodeo.org.uk.
This last two weeks I joined up with Adventurer Richard Matheson Harphram to explore Morocco by bike, taking in as much of the country as we could in our two-week stay.
I know this is a kayaking blog and this was a cycling trip but growing up kayaking everyday has given me a big love of two things: Adventure & Pushing myself. Trying something new like this was a chance to push myself onwards and get myself in the right frame of mind and physical shape for the Kayak season ahead.
Our final route was from Marrakech over Col du Tichka to Ouarzazate, then onto Merzouga. We hopped on a bus to skip the long boring Desert road taking us back to Ouarzazate. Then back on bikes over Col du Tichka again, across and up the Ourika Valley and finally back to Marrakech. See our loop here: Our Route
For the trip Palm supplied me with dry-bags to keep all my important stuff safe & intact as you can see on the front of my bike below & the very useful Tsangpo one piece thermal suit to keep me warm at night!
Personal Highlights
Climbing up the 2260m Col du Tichka pass, (60 miles of very steep climbing): It was so hard work on our 40kg+ laden bikes, but at the same time the way you seemed to get higher & higher without really noticing and the feeling of satisfaction once at the top made the previous 60 miles of slogging worthwhile.
Cycling 96.5miles on day 5 and realising my legs could keep going on and on, I felt super human that day.
The first “hardest” day, going towards the turnaround point of Merzouga (where the Sand Dunes are), darkness falling, no town in sight, and a ferocious head wind for the last 30 mile. Realising you just need to grit your teeth together and keep pedalling.
Cycling back over Col du Tichka, we were cheered on by thousands of French students taking part in a Renault 4 rally as we climbed to the din of honking of horns, shouts of ‘bon courage’ and ‘respect’ then after we celebrated again at the summit we found this camp spot almost at the summit. I walked up to the ridge to see what was on the other side and the view just dropped away a sheer 1000ft or more to the empty valley below. I felt so alive & in touch with the world peering out into the wind.
The second “hardest” day, after camping at the paradise camp spot mentioned above. During the night we got nailed by heavy wind all night then in the morning we awoke to find snow, sleet and hail. Nothing we could do other than cycle lower down until it warmed up, we had all the clothes we had with us on, but our hands in little cycle mitts and my knees in skimpy cycle shorts were in bits as the hail & snow slashed them on the way down. When we found the cafe and warmed up a bit it was one of the fondest moments of the trip as Rich sobbed about his Chilblains and I huddled with my knees tucked up under my coat drinking mint tea.
Seeing a country by bike I really appreciated the distances between the landmarks, noticed all the details, how friendly the locals were & the way personalities changed region by region and also the sheer variety of different landscapes here was unreal. Spectacular was a word I said far too much on this trip:-)
Hospitality: One of the best bits was our second to last day. We were cycling along and loads of amazing metal sculptures caught my attention. The artist Abdullah (sorry if I spelt your name wrong) invited us to stay at his. So we cycled on, uphill another 15 miles then freewheeled all the way back to his gallery where he shoved us and our bikes into his van and took us to his home. We spent the night getting recounted many stories from his fascinating life. From trekking through the jungle to get into Burkina Faso to evade the border check to his 7 month project of revamping a old VW surf bus shell to a pristine model and many hilarious Arab jokes. In the morning he took us to the local market and bought us breakfast before sending us on our way back to Marrakech!
Off-Road trails: We actually did have a great time riding down some of the trails just off the road. The bikes came into their own off the road, even if they were an absolute bitch slogging along on the tarmac
Camels: They are such a good creatures, watching them eat with their funky gurns and expressions is like watching a great comedy, i loved socialising with them.
Desert: I’ve never seen such beautiful sunrises or such a surreal landscape. (Or more frustrating cycling).
People we met: So many intriguing people we met along the way.
Wild Camping: We stayed in some magnificent spots! Sleeping out under the stars, in often remote spots, lying next to the ground often felt me better than when we were in Hotels, (apart from the lack of shower). You sleep so good outside.
Overall the trip pushed me harder than I expected, threw up experiences I never anticipated, showed me a new culture and a amazing country and I got to really push myself. Together with Rich I feel like we saw & did an incredible amount in only 13 days.
Realisations/ Lessons Learnt
After slogging hard for a few hours when you stop & eat just a simple Orange, Mango or an Avocado, it tastes sensational. All your senses are enhanced when your working hard.
Simple things like sitting down for a few moments or sleeping in a real bed for a night sometimes feel exquisite.
When you think you can go no more, just stay in the moment, you can always do one more push as it turns out. Everything passes.
When everything goes tits up, laugh about it. Everything fixes itself sooner or later.
I really felt sometimes like my body was singing, you can push so much harder than you thought you could when your really in tune.
Intuition: Always listen what your heart tells you, it is never wrong. Particularly when I didn’t follow rich on the trail that led to him getting 15 punctures in one go
All hard exercise is a purifier, you feel so good, clean & happy when your work hard with your body. I will keep this up for sure. Life is dull & blunt when you don’t physically push yourself.
Finish! Going Home!
Joke of the trip
From Abdullah the Scupltor/ Artist, translated from Arabic:
An old man is writing to his son in prison, “Son you know how I love growing tomatoes, but now i’m getting old I’m not sure I can dig the field well enough this year to plant any, I wish you weren’t in prison, I hope you get out soon so that we can have our beautiful fresh tomatoes every year…”
The son writes back “Dad, shhh, don’t dig the field up that’s where I buried all the bodies…”
The next day the field is thoroughly dug up and ploughed by a group of Police searching for bodies after a tip-off from the Prison Guards…;-)
We had originally aimed to cover 1000miles, however we’d taken ‘Fat Bikes” with massive tires in the hope we’d be able to ride on the Sand and hadn’t taken into account the weight or resistance of these bikes. So our 1000miles soon got turned into a shorter loop on 525miles giving us time to see more and spend more time off-road.
Our final route was from Marrakech over Col du Tichka to Ouarzazate, then onto Merzouga. We hopped on a bus to skip the long boring Desert road taking us back to Ouarzazate. Then back on bikes over Col du Tichka again, across and up the Ourika Valley and finally back to Marrakech. Our Route
Thanks to my personal sponsors:
Palm Equipment, Teva Shoes, Dagger Kayaks & AT paddles along with Salsa for the loan bike for the trip.
