Chipper Challenge

It’s been a bit of shock returning to the UK from a sunny Chile in this weather, but this morning I gritted my teeth, donned my mitts and dug out my slalom boat from under the snow…

A few of us have started using Strava to time ourselves on sections of river, it’s great for training or just for getting a bit competitive with your mates. Today it was the Chipper-to-Bala challenge on the Tryweryn. If anything was going to motivate me to paddle fast, it was the fact that it was below freezing!

I was beginning to wonder if I’d gone insane at the put-in, but actually once I got going it was quite a pleasant temperature and kinda good fun! I think the fact I took out in my garden; returning to a nice cup of tea in front of a roaring fire probably made the experience all the better…

So, if you’re up for a challenge then 38 minutes from the Chipper to just above the bridge in Bala is the current time to beat (I suspect Pete Woods in his Dagger Green has already beaten that though). If you Strava, this is the segment: http://app.strava.com/segments/2386051. We use a smartphone in a waterproof case tucked into our buoyancy aid pocket with the Strava app running to record our run.

Happy racing!