Molokai
By jim on Monday, May 3, 2010 - Related Tags:- dream, will
13 April, 2010
It’s been a while since my last update. My Molokai dream is only 4 and a bit weeks away and I am starting to get very excited.
I started training with Tim Jacob’s squad as they are also getting set for the Molokai. I get on the water at Camp Cove and paddle over to Balmoral to meet them. I have improved my paddling out of sight, simply by training with the best paddlers. Just watching how they go about their training and trying desperately to hang onto a wash throughout the sessions has made me tougher and faster. I am currently doing 3 paddles in the week of approximately 20km’s each and then a long one on Saturdays. It is amazing how much weight you lose doing the long paddles. I am down to 77kg. I am eating everything in sight!!
My last race was the Bridge to Beach race on Sydney Harbour. It is only 11 km’s so I paddled over from Rose Bay to Blues Point for the start and paddled back to Rose Bay from Manly after the race. A 25km round trip. I exceeded my expectations by finishing 13th overall, amazing, so happy! The looks I received you could tell they were saying to themselves, ‘either I am going badly or he has really improved’. All the hard work, the early dark mornings, lack of sleep is worth it at that point. I find the hardest thing to do after a good result is train hard again, you have reached a short term goal and so it is a bit deflating to get back into paddling again. I always reward myself with a few beers and a couple of days off to enjoy and re-assess for the next challenge.
So it is back to the Molokai training. I thought I was going ok in the runners, until a couple of Saturday’s ago. I paddled over from Camp Cove to Manly to meet Dean Gardiner and Tim Jacob’s groups. They get on the water at 6am so I had to leave at 5.20am to get over there in time. It was nearing the end of daylight savings so it was pitch black! I won’t do that again, paddle out through the heads of Sydney in the dark, too dangerous. The runs and wind were slight but from the south so a little bit there. The mob paddled back to North Head and then turned to catch the runners back to Manly. I thought I was surfing well, taking off surfing across to the biggest part of the swell, turning again, looking at my garmin, I was going really fast. After about 2 minutes I looked up and Dean Gardiner and Mark (Ando) Anderson had put about 75 meters into me. Dean and Ando are way better paddlers than me, but 75 meters in 2 minutes!! I was shell shocked and demoralized. What were they doing that I wasn’t?
I had a lesson with Jimmy, one on one out off Bondi catching runners. He opened my eyes to exactly what I was doing wrong. My timing was out. I was paddling hard when I should have been resting and resting when I should have been paddling hard. All of a sudden I was flying like never before with less effort!! Excitement is back again and I am desparate to get out in the runners whenever they are up.
4 more weeks of hard training and catching runners, can’t wait to race now.
Catch you out in the ocean.
Will