The hard fight

I've had quite a shock recently, despite paddling at least 3 times a week and doing alternative exercise I have not even cracked the D-grade this season. At least my performance increased by about 8% in the last race, so hopefully I'll be at 60% tomorrow, lets see! Operation B-grade is gone, that will have to wait for the new year, I'd be happy with a C.

How rapidly does one lose fitness?

Having recently started paddling again, with the last time I paddled regularly (3+ times a week) being in February, I have started to wonder how much fitness one loses after such a long break.

My last paddles have been in the region of 6km each, about half an hour, and I was pretty tired at the end of it. Given that my goal is the Cape Point Challenge, a whopping 56km, I have a long way to go. I have to be fitter than 56km come December, since I believe one must always have a little extra in case things go wrong (e.g. a head wind, very choppy seas, swimming to shore). I'm looking forward to all the training, the time I spend on the ocean is always worth it, and it always makes whatever I may be worrying about look insignificant afterwards.

To get back to the topic, I think fitness dissipates pretty quickly, is dissipate the right word? My guess, if I had to put a figure to it, is 50% per month. So if you could paddle 20km, then do nothing for a month, you'll be able to do 10km, then after another month of no paddling, you'll be down to 5km which is pretty much rock bottom. Will consult scientific authorities when I have the time.

Operation B-grade and Some Surf Then Cape Point

After a month or more of no paddling I've lost just about all my fitness, could probably do 10km but would be nackered after that. Having just read all the articles about the recent ARB World Cup, and knowing that I can't go on like this, I have made up my mind, its time to launch Operation B-grade and Some Surf Then Cape Point. B-grade comes first since I am convinced that without that level of fitness the Cape Point Challenge, which I did not do last time despite just barely qualifying, will only be painfull. Some Surf, and by that I mean riding proper waves like at Muizenberg or Big Bay, comes next since I need to be able to handle getting out in big surf. The last time I saw big surf was at the Knysna Sedgefield 2006. That was horrific, I wasn't fit enough, didn't have enough juice, and just made it to the massive backline. Once I let the first wave slide ahead I made my move and I will never forget seeing the monster that took me out, I was later told that my ski shot up into the air on impact while I got taken in by wave after wave.

Anyways, from next week I'm paddling at least twice a week during the week and once on weekend. That will be untill the end of July. Then things will build up every month with intensified effort in August. Life is too short to not paddle!

Surfing the net after surfing the swells

I've been paddling for about 4 years now and in that time have lined up my favourite paddling spots.
I have also started my own business specializing in wireless Internet hotspots - RedButton (www.redbutton.co.za) - and being connected to the Internet has become important to me. Ideally I would want to go to the club house outside of rush hour (to save time), do some work online, go for a paddle, do some work online & drink a coke, have a beer, then head home after rush hour. Problem is none of my favourite paddling spots have hotspots. I could get iBurst, Sentech or 3G but don't want to fork out R2000+ when I could be using one of our hotspots at next to nothing. So, the plan is to get my favourite places connected with hotspots, then share the love by giving all paddlers in the Discovery Men's Health Series free vouchers in October. Time to give something back to the paddling community (and of course shamelessly promote my company).

Haven't been paddling much lately, doing about one a week, without that one paddle I would probably have had a bout of road rage by now as stress levels are high. Time to hit the ocean, no matter what happens there is no excuse, life is too short. As a related side watched Million Dollar Baby the other night, what a tear jerker (even for a hard paddling man like myself)!

Back in the saddle

Had my surfski repaired after a disastrous attempt at taking on the Peninsula Marathon. Withdrew from day 1 of the Peninsula after discovering that my home-made effort of bending my rudder back into shape did not work out so well. I struggled to make 10km/hr in flat conditions and was dead last, then got milked in the surf and my boat started taking water. My ski was in bad shape. I had rammed my rudder on two occasions, both times I had forgotten that I had a near 7m rocket on the roof of my car. The ski also had cracks from the horrifying experience of the mother of all waves taking me out at the last Knysna Sedgefield race.

Well I'm back now, new rudder, new cables and perhaps even an improved engine. I'm taking Creatine now to see if it will help give me more power when sprinting to catch runs. Today won't be a paddling day as I had my bachelors last night, what I day and night! We played paintball during the day and I took a beating of note in the last game when the-bachelor-never-dies rule was introduced, meaning that I could get machine gunned after being hit (normally you only get shot once then a team mate tags you back into the game). It didn't help my cause when I ran away in a straight line after being caught in a bad spot, my back now has a couple a welts on it thanks to that bad move. The night got wild, an experience I'll never forget, it's incredible what you can get away with in public as the bachelor. The lads tasked me with all kinds of potentially embarrassing requests to the public and all gladly participated.

Well hopefully I'll have a double ski in a couple of months, I spend a lot of time on the water and want to take my fiancée out with me on weekends. It wont be a fast ski, probably a Bayrunner (made by Brian's Kayaks) which looks more like a sea kayak. Can't wait to get it, plan to get into the kelp and then do some snorkeling using the Bayrunner, then go into secluded spots and braai whatever I've taken out.

No paddle = fattening & irritible Nico

Due to work pressure I have failed to paddle for over a week now. Its terrible. I feel like I'm growing a boep (beer belly) and am growing irritable, sending snappy emails and barking when I shouldn't. I'm almost thinking that not doing exercise is irresponsible when under pressure. Time to hit the water!

Pencil Flares - Playing Hard To Get

Schlepped to three different stores and called another to get myself a new set of pencil flares today (having fired my last set at the Total Sports Challenge). Without them I'm probably not going to be allowed to race in tomorrow's Discovery Men's Health race, given the near death of a paddler in the last race.

Here are the Saturday morning results:

- Brian's Kayaks, Paarden Eiland: closed (astonishing that they were closed on a Saturday morning).
- Waterworld, Paarden Eiland: no pencil flares in appropriate paddler-friendly casing, only one-time smoke flares (no good).
- Kazkazi Kayaks, Three Anchor Bay: no flares, sold out due to rush from surfski paddlers.
- Paddlers.co.za (phoned them), Simon's Town: one set in stock, but got a hold of them too late. Simon's Town is also a 80km round trip to my place.

After driving around Cape Town for flares I settled on doing some carbo-loading at home with my first ever Japanese beer and roll-your-own sushi.