People keep asking us if our rowing race preparations are going well! It really does not bother me what people call what we are doing as i like humor however i have now become to believe that the hardened kayakers out there take offense to calling it rowing as it is in-fact called paddling. All i know is that every time the oar dips in and out of the water the huge toothpick moves forward and as we are the masters of the worst technique in the business it truly is a case of “Run, Walk or Crawl – Your still covering ground!”

Tonight’s training was always going to be on the chilly side, in-fact i actually decided to go down to our worst kept ‘secret training facility’ to undress our boat in the daylight so it would be ready for when the dark and frost arrived! Our last session on Saturday ended with the pair of us  nearly washing down a weir and the boat staying on the bank the other side of it! After that episode we got back to the boat yard pretty deflated and questioned  everything…. In truth i think that we just felt sorry for ourselves.

Well that was then and this is now and tonight dropping our boat in beside this ‘Isle of Man Fight & Spirit’ Atlantic Rowing boat we noticed sketched on the side were the words, kilometers to go: 1500km being crossed all the way down in 100km increments to the words: destination arrived! Seeing those words meant that 1.5hr paddle on the safe haven of the ‘River Stour’ tonight did not feel that bad after all, especially as we stayed dry!

Posted by: AF

So im no way an Olympic coach or anything even similar. The closest i ever got to achieving a sporting qualification was when i studied A-Level Sports Studies and was told by my encouraging teacher to; “stop messing about with bikes as they will get you no-where”,.

Well tonight my cutting edge design skills shone thru and have helped me create this guide to the weekends planned action! No spin classes, body pump in the mirror or ab fab classes. Training commences tomorrow morning and as always its outside with a banana and a bottle of water and none of that dry plaster looking stuff that the bucket it comes in is as massive as the bloke in the shop that tried to sell it to me tonight!

The weekend has landed!

Posted by: AF

After a day on consistent horrible weather i never new that it would end like this! Well as usual certain parts of ‘The New Forest’ truly do seem to have its own climate. All of a sudden the sun broke through this evening completely out of no-where!! Now all that needs to happen is for it to stay for a bit, plllllllease!!!!

Posted by: AF

Needs must in a time of pain…. This weeks training has been at an all time low. Maybe we are worn out, maybe sick of the sight of one another or maybe just getting whalloped into a brick wall by a car did not help things!

Either way, this afternoon i spent with my head in what felt like it was stuck down a hole in the back of a sofa with a random hero simply beating my back up. Funny enough thou things feel a little straighter and maybe i can stick to just the chocolate from now on, i hope so as these pills are costing a fortune!

Posted by: AF

So tonight a huge thanks goes out to the very kind motorist who decided that they did not want to sit in the traffic jam any longer so should undertake a three point turn without the need to look in their mirrors and to spice things up only turn on their indicators a fraction of a milli-second before pulling out! I mean i know it was an pain that you had to end your ‘hands free’ call prematurely but it is also quite a pain that you have left in my shoulder from when i hit the wall straight on after you decided that you would re-align my road positioning with your bumper!

I guess the pros are that at least in the ambulance i got a bit of a mini medical examination and told that my shoulder will swell lots and i should not to anything physical for a bit!!! The police kindly informed me that my new aero shaped frame and fork set-up with the steeper head angle do not really look best suited for road riding anymore!

Oh how thankful i am…. Tonight the DW could truly have been over in an instant before it even began or just made it a dam long paddle for one!!!!

Posted by: AF

Im all up for an adventure but seriously today was hard on the water, a lot harder than i expected that it would be! Ice hard infact!

When the ducks and rats are running across the canal, the ice is well over 5x thicker than the material your boat is made from and using your paddles as sledgehammers still do not smash through to the wet stuff you soon begin to realize that you should have maybe just stayed in bed had a ‘Rest day’. Oh no…… lets try to smash our way through and paddle, try again, try again, again and again and then just choose the “lets shoulder the boat and run as its only 4 miles” approach.

In the end we had a 26mile day out, 21 miles paddling and 4miles running/slipping/sliding/tripping our way along the towpath. The start was ‘Wootton Rivers’ to the destination of a very welcomed ammmmazing dinner at the ‘Rowbarge Pub’ in ‘Woolhampton’ after we undertook a striptease in the chilly carpark.

Along the way we learnt how NOT!!!! to portage, how thinking that we can go under a bridge (a very low bridge infact) and what happens when we are nowhere even close due to our height, what it may feel like to try and paddle in thick soup and also how to balance a k2 on our shoulders and make it hurt more than anything else in the world!

Horrible, hard, tuff….Then add into the mix the fact that there was ‘Waterside C’ race on part of the same stretch of water that we were covering created  people to think that we were racing (and winning) as we were out front, little did they know we set off well before the whistle for our own adventure and in turn were just foolish ice breakers being hunted down by the pros!

Once again massive thanks to Pam and Vic for the food, drink and support along the way and to David for spending the day watching and advising us with his years of experience as ours can be counted in weeks and the learning curve seems to be very S-T-E-E-P (Just like the river bank where it all nearly went very wrong today!!)

Posted by: AF

It all seems to be non stop at the moment! Today feels like and entire days worth of prep has gone into tomorrow’s 25 mile training paddle. A 9.00am start from ‘Wootton Rivers’ to a destination of ‘Woolhampton’.

 If you need to talk to us in the afternoon we will be in the riverside ‘Rowbarge Pub’ in Woolhampton, oh yes bring on the roast!!!!!

Posted by: AF

Yesterday afternoon we went out and had a great paddle in Christchurch harbour to spend some valuable time in the boat on local waters. This allowed us to tweak/faff/further prep the boat to the adventure that lays ahead.

As the sun made a welcomed appearance we managed to brave paddling without a ground sheet wrapped between us and the boat and thus really began to feel more free and one with the boat. The only big con was that we started to fill up at a ‘rapido’ rate when we hit some choppy waters. The solution was to finally fit a foot water pump that http://www.extreme-g.co.uk very kindly has supplied us with as Matt said “you WILL need to fit this!”.

Well Matt was infact very correct and today we got it pumping and squirting in the garden, tomorrow we will find out how far we can shoot canal water, so if you are on the towpaths in the morning prepare to get a good soaking as early indications are that this thing works ammmmmazinly!!!!

Posted by : AF

Mountain biking is great!

Washing your mountain bike is never as much  fun!

Today we done both alongside a good ankle to knee deep trek thrown in for good measure …. Oh how we love the New Forest!

Posted by: AF

Here is a shot with out great new supporter ‘Katie Martin’ from ‘BBC Radio Solent’ when she had us both in to talk to us about the DW challenge live on air on yesterday.

If you missed the program fear not as go to BBC iplayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p014scvk More and listen from 1.34hr

Posted by: AF

A MASSIVE huge huge thanks to goes out to ‘Katie Martin’ for inviting us in to her show for our very own air time on BBC Radio Solent this afternoon to talk about the DW challenge for ‘ParkinsonUK’.

If you missed the program fear not as go to BBC iplayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p014scvk More and listen from 1.34hr

Please also remember what this challenge is all about and support us as much as you can as it is very much appreciated and truly is our hardest undertaking ever to date!

GO HERE TO FIND OUT MORE….

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=tsul

Posted by: AF

Its on, or should that be we are on….. Tune into ‘BBC Radio Solent’ this Friday 1st March (No its not 1^st April) as we will be having our voices heard on the ‘Katie Martin Show’ . Katie’s show starts in the afternoon at  1pm and we should be on from about 2.30pm.

In Katie’s very own words, the show is all about: “Loving life in the south with great music and special guests.”

In our words: We will be talking about ParkinsonsUK, ‘Devizes to Westminster’ kayak race and other adventures and challenges that ‘The Stiff upper Lip’ have planned!

Posted by : AF

It is now official; we have entered the ‘Devizes to Westminster 2013 125mile international canoe race’. We realised that we were training , getting everything ready and truly starting to faff for the adventure but seemed to be missing one crucial link, our slot in the race! Well trying to get out of the race is now a thing of the past as its official, we have our race number and the countdown is truly now on!!

To find out more about what we are letting ourselves in for click here:http://www.dwrace.org.uk/ 

Posted by: AF

Well yesterday was a rather interesting works lunch, only a large American corporate could roll out 44 large Domino pizzas like it was nothing special!!!! Well I happily stood upto the mark and swallowed up a complete one moments before i then ate my normal lunch! The result….. I ran my fastest 10 mile run ever last night! It must be the food of champions!

Either way Bailey was not very impressed as he just wanted to go for a walk!

Posted by: AF