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Cape Town, 15 April 2008: In one week I've gone from being depressed about my state of fitness to confident in my ability at least to finish Molokai.
 Bay Crossing - our GPS track (I forgot to switch the GPS off!)
Overdoing the gym training
Ten days ago I did a training paddle with Dawid Mocke, Peter Cole and his fiancée Alexa Lombard, all of whom are coming to Molokai. We went from Buffels Bay into a moderate southeaster for six kilometres to Cape Point where we turned downwind to paddle to Fish Hoek, some 24km away.
My training for the week before had consisted of gym training - we have a corporate account at a gym two blocks from the office and a genial giant of an instructor puts us through our paces on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
The workout usually lasts an hour and is all about core training. A typical session looks like:
- 3-4 exercises x 2 sets on machines or free weights for upper body or legs e.g. dumbbell curls, lat pulldowns, upright rowing, bench press, chest press, shoulder press, leg extensions, squats, leg curls etc
Or
- 3-4 exercises on abs e.g. crunches, full sit-ups, side to side ankle taps, bicycle crunches
Interspersed with 3-5 minutes on treadmill, rowing machine, cross trainer or stationary bicycle.
For whatever reason, I decided to add 25% onto each set of repetitions - so that instead of doing 12 reps, I was doing 15 or even 20.
The result was that by Saturday morning my entire body was a mass of aching, quivering jelly. And by the end of the 30km paddle I was deeply depressed about my paddling ability - was it because of the gym sessions, or was I really much less fit than I thought?
Discussing it with Dawid & Pete after the paddle, I was told in no uncertain terms that gym is a secondary activity to paddling. If I could get to water, I was to paddle - only if I had no choice was I to resort to gym training. For the top guys of course it's different - they're gymming, paddling, running, the works. But if you have limited time - paddling comes first.
The southeasters keep blowing
At this time of year, here in Cape Town, we should be having damp, foggy mornings with little wind during the day. Every so often we should be seeing wintery cold fronts beginning to make landfall with their associated nor'westers and rain.
Thanks perhaps to global warming though, last week saw almost constant southerly winds - we were able to do Millers Runs (my favourite 12km downwind run) on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
Bay Crossing
On Saturday we planned to do a Bay Crossing - 48km across False Bay from Pringle Bay to Fish Hoek. This is a fabulous deep water paddle that takes you some 15km offshore at the furthest point...
A couple of weeks ago I did it in about 3:45; this time I'd teamed up with Charles Brand who'd never done it - or even a paddle this distance - before so I knew we'd take a little longer.
We had a team of videographers along for the ride - they'd heard about the trip and reckoned it was worth a documentary. They'd brought a big, powerful jetski equipped with a seat and camera stabiliser on the back...
The wind wasn't ideal, having a significant southerly component (the ideal wind for the run is ESE) so we'd been warned to aim at Cape Point "as long as possible" before turning downwind towards Fish Hoek.
As we launched, a set of waves arrived, breaking with impressive force about 100m out to sea. On my helmet cam I caught Daantjie Malan mistiming the wave with spectacular precision and having to punch through it.
I launched and did exactly the same thing - hesitating, paddling, hesitating and then realising that the next wave was going to dump right on top of me. At the last moment I committed, accelerating to meet the wave, positioning my paddle at my side and ducking in the approved manner to break through to the other side. I was soaked to the skin by the 14C water and the video requires some bleeps to be added to the soundtrack as a result...
Punching through the refreshingly crisp wave off Pringle Bay
Dawid and Pete rapidly overtook us and disappeared over the horizon, followed by the pair of Jamii Hamlin and Daantjie. The three of us, Charles, Paul Lee and me, settled down to enjoy the run. For the first ten minutes or so the waves were small, but they soon built up to the point where we were catching runs at will, the challenge becoming that of trying to extend each run as long as possible.
Paul was on a Fenn Millennium - and soon found it quite a handful as the waves became more confused. I blessed my new waterproof waistcoat gadget as I kept stopping to wait for the other two - without it I'd have been much colder after each pause. On the other hand it proved a bit of a liability on the occasional wave - more than once as I was bracing on one side half way down a wave, a flap of cloth scooped up a bucket full of water and shunted it down my back... aaaargh.
After about two hours we realised that we were heading far south, and we turned towards Fish Hoek; immediately the runs became easier - but Charles had torn off one of the side cushions in his V10 Sport and, now being someone lopsided, fell off a couple more times!
The next hour was purgatory - the waves were less regular and more broken by side chop and Paul was becoming more fatigued, wasting energy staying upright.
Eventually as the Roman Rock lighthouse hove into view, we veered south to get closer to the line of the Millers Run. Ten kilometres from home I left the other two to their own devices and took off to enjoy what had become classic Millers Run conditions.
After having done the crossing in 3:45 a couple of weeks ago, I did this one in about 4:20! But I consoled myself that a) it was a good length of time to be in the ski and b) that I'd felt strong paddling that last 10km.
Double Millers Run
On Sunday morning I was feeling the crossing, no doubt, but the wind was still blowing briskly at about 25kts so there was no way we could resist the temptation to do another Millers Run. Conditions were perfect - not too big, but there were the occasional drops, but it was fairly confused, giving us the kind of challenging seas that I've been lead to expect at Molokai.
And when we got to the finish - there was one of our buddies who'd missed out on the first run. Would we like to do another one? Does a duck swim?
I did the second one twenty seconds faster than the first.
Which explains why I'm feeling a lot happier about my fitness and paddling ability right now.
But, which ski to use for Molokai?
Kenny Howell's excellent article on Molokai, and specifically the paragraph where he advocates using a stable ski, got me thinking.
My maniacal New York adventure writer friend Joe Glickman had used a V10 Sport for his last Molo (and improved his time by a huge margin), and I've also seen an email from an acquaintance in Hong Kong lamenting the fact that he hadn't used a Sport in the last race.
I've been using a Red7 Surf70 Pro for the last couple of months on the Millers Run (and on my previous Bay Crossing) and I've been extremely happy in it - and achieved my personal best time of 45:25 for the Millers Run using it. However, I do rate it as slightly less stable - particularly in cross chop - than my Fenn Mako6.
And now I've been presented with strong advice from a number of people whom I respect that I should consider using a more stable ski for Molokai.
I'm told that:
- The sea becomes ever more confused as you approach Oahu...
- The runs are hectic - in that you have to work hard to get on the big sea swells i.e. you will be fatigued by the time you get to China Walls...
Have I done hectic downwind runs for four hours? Well, no, so I don't know how I'll handle a ski like the Red7 in confused big seas when I'm really tired.
I do know that the V10 Sport feels as stable as an armchair in almost all conditions. I also have my second and third best times on the Millers Run in the Sport. And since I put the big elliptical rudder on the boat, it handles very nicely on the waves.
I do suffer from the perception that the Sport is a beginner's ski: will my ego allow me to paddle it in Hawaii?!
So - Red7 Surf70 Pro or V10 Sport? I have to make up my mind real soon now...
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