How to Cook a Frog?
The good weather continues and so does the training. Over the last four weeks, the duration of each training session has increased gradually. The focus has been and continues to be building up strength and endurance.
Last week, time spent training totalled 10 ½ hours and this week’s total will be 12 ¼ hours. Next week (week 6), my total training time reaches 12 ½ hours before dropping down to 6 ½ in week 8. Why the drop? The body needs a chance to rest and recover (or in my case catch up with some gardening!) so it is important to have easier weeks. Week 8 will bring stage one of my program to a close. I’m not sure how Stage 2 looks as I have not received it yet.
So can I feel my strength and endurance building up? Stopping to think about it right now, the answer has to be yes. In just one month, regular kayaking and cycling has improved my endurance (and hopefully technique). I reckon that because the progress is gradual, one does not notice it. It’s not really an ‘Eureka’ moment but more of a ‘cooking a frog in slowly heated water’ process. Strangely enough though, cycling 2 ½ km to work seems harder than going out for a 40 km ride in the hills! Any ideas why?
The last couple of weekends have been dry, sunny and warm. In particular, the last one was gorgeous and was certainly not a weekend for being indoors. Ange and I had a really enjoyable paddle, on the Waimakariri on Sunday afternoon. To lengthen the trip, we put the kayaks in 4 or 5 km further upstream. The river had a good strong flow (Spring is here so this is partly due to snow melt from the mountains) so I was slightly concerned that Ange may have a few moments! As it turned out she was fine and enjoyed the stronger flows, choppy water and wave chains. It was so much more enjoyable than my experience out on the estuary during low tide, the weekend before. Having to climb out of the kayak to drag it over mud bars to a deeper channel is not fun when you are almost knee deep in stinking mud!
Here’s to another good weather of weather.
Last week, time spent training totalled 10 ½ hours and this week’s total will be 12 ¼ hours. Next week (week 6), my total training time reaches 12 ½ hours before dropping down to 6 ½ in week 8. Why the drop? The body needs a chance to rest and recover (or in my case catch up with some gardening!) so it is important to have easier weeks. Week 8 will bring stage one of my program to a close. I’m not sure how Stage 2 looks as I have not received it yet.
So can I feel my strength and endurance building up? Stopping to think about it right now, the answer has to be yes. In just one month, regular kayaking and cycling has improved my endurance (and hopefully technique). I reckon that because the progress is gradual, one does not notice it. It’s not really an ‘Eureka’ moment but more of a ‘cooking a frog in slowly heated water’ process. Strangely enough though, cycling 2 ½ km to work seems harder than going out for a 40 km ride in the hills! Any ideas why?
The last couple of weekends have been dry, sunny and warm. In particular, the last one was gorgeous and was certainly not a weekend for being indoors. Ange and I had a really enjoyable paddle, on the Waimakariri on Sunday afternoon. To lengthen the trip, we put the kayaks in 4 or 5 km further upstream. The river had a good strong flow (Spring is here so this is partly due to snow melt from the mountains) so I was slightly concerned that Ange may have a few moments! As it turned out she was fine and enjoyed the stronger flows, choppy water and wave chains. It was so much more enjoyable than my experience out on the estuary during low tide, the weekend before. Having to climb out of the kayak to drag it over mud bars to a deeper channel is not fun when you are almost knee deep in stinking mud!
Here’s to another good weather of weather.
posted by pandc at
15.9.09
1 Comments:
Good luck with all this training malakey. We are seriously questioning your sanity. It will be an excellent acheivement if you do it and live to tell the tale.
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Tina, at Sunday, September 20, 2009 9:51:00 pm
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