Shake, Rattle & no Roll...

My little leggie's just gone midnight at 00:13 Saturday morning!


There was a young man from Twickenham
Who wore bigger shoes to be sick in them
His Mum thought how odd
His Dad opened his gob
And said, 'Well if it makes you go quick in them.'


So, I made it to the weekend....just about! My kayaking roll course on Thursday...(unfortunately Ros, I did not become a fully qualified eskimo.....read below;)...went alright, although the next day my left shoulder was hurting and my inner thighs too.....but it was last nights bike ride with Lee & Ian that nearly sent me to my grave! I crashed no less than three times, and all three times I was very lucky not do myself a mischief! We all fell off as it goes. Our excuse being that it was pitch black & freezing cold, very very damp under tyre and we were all aching quite a bit from the kayaking the night before! My arm was killing me and my shoulder wasn't quite normal. My ankles on the other hand (foot?) were great to me and felt strong (quite remarkable considering they were as restless as a couple of snakes on speed in bed the night before), although the ulcer that has erupted on the side of my tongue made me frown the whole time!
My worst crash (my first of the evening) was caused by aquiring a double puncture blasting down a particularly fast bit of singletrack running alongside Wolverns Lane, with high edges forcing you into the quite rocky & very narrow middle! On the right side you have very thick brambles and half foot wide wooden posts and on the left the same, with a barbed wire fence on the otherside of the brambles separating a herd of cows from the looney cyclists that frequent this part of the countryside. So there I was first in line and wallop!....My tyre has gone all squadgy and throws me off line, up the right side edge and naturally I lean to the left but it is useless as I try and stay up right. I end up in the brambles on my left side narrowly missing the barbed wire and the wooden post! It was a relatively soft landing except the brambles that acted as my bed for the next 20 seconds managed to strangle various parts of my body....seven in all! And I had two holes in my innertube to fix. Lee & Ian did most of that for me as I recovered from my fall and noticed we had an audience! Right up against and peering through the darkness over the wire fence were a bunch of cows...the black & white kind...and were probably saying to each other 'The last lot of idiot mountain bikers to fall off there didn't make as much noise!' The other two falls were pretty small and slow moving and Lee & Ian's falls weren't bad either. Ians was pretty cool though! Lee & I took him to this quite technical downhill section halfway up Leith Hill and he came off and somehow managed to unclip his feet from his pedals, jump over his handle bars and catch his bike too! Then yours truly got us lost again looking for this poxy quarry and somehow managed to cycle right round the thing completely missing it! It was dark after all......& we were tired and achey and hurting remember?.....not my fault;) We got back to the car at 11pm with a 20 mile drive home to Teddington. It was however a brilliant ride of only 11.58 miles that lasted 2hrs 25mins. Good stuff......so on to Thursdays kayak rolling course....

Fancy a roll? Mmmmm! Sounds nice eh? A nice bread roll.....white & perhaps a little crusty, a little butter (real butter....slightly salted), your favorite filling...maybe coronation chicken or some tuna or egg mayonaise (not mine)......perhaps even a bit of chicken breast and salad or my favorite.....grated cheese & chopped red onions? It's your choice bloggers & bloggettes.
But that ain't the kind of roll I am talking about! Oh no! The sort I am talking about is a rather different kind of roll altogether. For a start it is as soggy as a recently beached childs teddy bear and not anywhere near as upsetting. Also, this kind of roll has a completely different kind of filling too.....the filling in of forms in case I end up dead....Questions like; Do you suffer from diabetes? No! Do you suffer from epilepsy? No! Do you suffer from asthma? No!........What kind of roll is this! Do you suffer from angina? No! Have you ever had a stroke or heart attack? Not as far as I can remember (although I do like to stroke myself sometimes;)! Have I any allergies? No, but I would almost certainly sneeze if you through pepper in my face! Are you prone to blackouts or fainting? No, but if you punched me too hard or showed me a woman with three breasts I would quite happily blackout or indeed faint! Have you ever had any shoulder injuries? No! (Completely ignoring the several quite heavy crash landings I have had from cycling like a nutcase through Richmond Park over the last year). Have you ever suffered from a bad back or neck? No! Fitness wise how would you describe yourself? Unfit?....Average?....fit? Well, technically I am above average in fitness but due to my knackered ankle joints and dickie right elbow, I am going to put down average! Are you on any medication? er......I think I am going to put down....No! I just can't be bothered with writing all those funny names that mostly end in VIR! Is there any other medical condition or disability, which could affect your ability to partake in the kayaking course that you are booked for? er.....well.....apart from an injury to my right arm years ago.....No.....None! I thought I had better put down the right elbow thing in case he saw how different my arm looked compared to my left arm......which he did during the course....just an injury I said, but it does mean that it is much weaker than my other arm and will affect how I perform kayak rolls.........I didn't manage one.....yet! Damn! I was looking forward to becoming a fully fledged eskimo;)
Kayak Rolls! Oh.....so it is that kind of roll? I still wouldn't mind my cheese & onion roll please:)
So there we were in Gurnell Leisure Centre in Ealing, pool side at 9pm Thursday night, dragging our kayaks to the waters edge. Absolutely loads of other kayakers there too......not in our course....just four in our course and our instructor Carl who is a very good kayaker. bit of a surfer dude....very nice chap. He did his best to teach Lee & I to roll a kayak on our own but after an hour and a half spent mostly upside down, the elusive roll was nowhere to be seen. It looks easy.....but easy it ain't! The rest of the 20 odd kayakers were their just to muck around, practice rolls, various stunts they have learnt over the last god knows how many years & even partake in a little kayak polo with a football. Ian, a friend of Lee & I turned up unexpectedly with his kayak too....& he was part of the four man course that Lee & I were in.....how spooky is that! Apart from the expected failure to produce an unassissted roll we did learn a whole lot more stuff besides. So after stuffing my ear pugs in, my nose clip on, putting on my goggles & stretching my splash deck over my cockpit, paddle in hand, Lee, Ian & I launched straight into the water from the pools edge (which was great fun). Then Lee & I, with instruction from Carl, learned to rescue each other, which we had never tried before. Basically one of us capsizes and once completely upside down (which happens in a split second) you signal to your buddy to come rescue you by slapping your palms on the bottom of the kayak (just about where ones ares might be), sweeping them backwards and forwards feeling for the nose end of your buddy's boat as he positions it right by your hands. Then I grab hold of the nose and pull myself upright using my hip & torso to help flick the boat upright.....hey presto! Saved and didn't even get my legs wet! In fact I didn't get my legs wet for the entire length of the course, and I must have capsized (all self-induced of course) about 50 times. But what I did find is that whoever rescues me must come to my left hand (the one with my watch strapped around it) or I just wouldn't have the strength to right myself. Fortunately I can hold my breath for quite a long time from all the cycling I do. I think my right arm was hampering me quite a bit too when I was trying proper rolls using the paddle! I shall just have to go back and try again.
Either way, I & Lee shall definitely be going back for more tutoring or even just an hour and a halfs mucking around once a week. Beats going to the gym and soooo much warmer than the river Thames at the moment too. I do need the upper body strength that kayaking gives you and will stand me in good stead for the (hopefully) vast amount of kayaking I will be getting up to this year. Cycling doesn't seem to give your upper body much of a workout.....but I bet it does considering how much my arm hurts during and particularly after a good ride! But not enough.
There is definitely something very appealing about paddling your own kayak in a nice warm swimming pool. The lights shine down on you all, making your kayak look even more colourful than it is. The beautiful clear water......no current.....no tide....no dead fish.....no moody fishermen.....no gigantic pleasure cruisers making two foot high waves at you, no wind, and if it rains.......you're indoors. I liked it....a lot! But not as much as a nice clear lake in North Wales or Lulworth Cove on a calm day. But while I am at least a 2hr drive from a decent bit of coast or a snazzy lake......a swimming pool and the Thames will have to do.



Jason

P.s. Happy Birthday Ros:)






(C) JPT 2007.........845.64 miles.