3rd Official Training Day - 29th March

For the third official training we were planning on taking on the river Misbourne until we found out it was little more than a stream with a less than 2 foot bridge to go under and loads of sharp snappy branches. We therefore headed back to an old hunting ground - the Grand Union Canal (where we first trialled the inflatable kayaks).





The only issue was that we only brought 2 boats for 4 of us and one of the boats had severe punctures. So we had to go back and get the substitute boat which meant we started 2 hours later than planned....

Once we got on the canal we made up for the delays with gusto, hitting 7.2 miles in a matter of 2.15 hours. We then headed back the way we came at a more leisurely pace taking in the sites of Cowley, Uxbridge & Harefield before ending back at the Coy Carp.

All in all it was a productive day (14.5 miles) but a very tiring session.

2nd Official Training Day - 22nd March

Our second training day took in the sights of Guildford as we took on the river Wye. We improved our best blowing up time with a new record of 15 minutes and were on our way by 10.30am. We hit the first couple of miles in 45 minutes but then due to leakages and aches our pace gradually slowed.....

By lunchtime we had reached Weybridge and had turned round to paddle back up the river. We had done 5 miles in 2 hours 30 minutes which wasn't great and much slower than we anticipated. After we got some pub grub in us the river was no match for us as we managed 4 miles in 1 hour 30 minutes, clocking up a total of 9 miles for the day.

It is a long way off our 28 mile a day average but we were pleased with our efforts (although very exhausted) and plan to hit 15-20 miles next weekend, fingers crossed.

1st Official Training Day - 16th March

So although we have been testing our skills on proper kayaks we have not up until this point tried our hand at kayaking on inflatables...

Our first official training session was interesting. We spent the first half an hour with the seats and rudder round the wrong way and so when we were paddling we kept going in different directions.

Once we got that sorted we made steady progress although found that inflatable kayaks are a lot slower than normal kayaks which is not good news when you have to kayak 30 miles in a day.  Hoping to have more luck in the next training session. Over and out.