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Gees, two weeks in and more than a few of us are already feeling a bit like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day every time we arrive at The Swamp….different day but more of the same, different day but more of the same…
 Bill Murray - Groundhog Day
.....like Bill in the movie we have acknowledged the day-to-day ‘sameness' and, in the words of Kool & The Gang, have tried to find ways to keep it;
‘Fresh....fresh, exciting ....
She's so exciting to me!
She's fresh, fresh.....exciting
She's so inviting to me
YEAH'
It's this training that is most difficult and probably what can make training for something like The Challenge so mentally difficult for us wannabe's - however, having others to talk to helps to make this time bearable and in some cases quite enjoyable - for a couple of us late starters, however, it becomes more a case of having to listen to someone else rattle on while attempting desperately to prevent our internal organs from becoming fish food.
Depending on who is doing the talking this can turn into a bit of a bad-blind-date-situation (BBDS), you know the one, the date where your partner, who you have never met in this life or the previous one, feels so instantly connected with you that he/she unloads an overly personal and detailed verbal barrage of personal information on you without giving you a chance to respond!
ugghhhhhhhhhh
This lung in the mouth situation also makes it difficult to tell others that you may be in physical trouble or stuck in a BBDS - as a precaution we have had to develop an intricate system of hand signals to warn the others of any difficulties being experienced - rather than invent our own, we have borrowed ancient Inuit hand signals which the Eskimo's used when hunting polar bears on pack ice - the hand signals were traditionally accompanied by a guttural ugghhhhhhhhhh but this is not deemed compulsory in our case as it could just serve to expose more of the offending organ and lead to the training session being cut short.
Conversation topics while paddling are varied but have recently focused on the sporting smorgasbord that is the Beljing Olympic Games - yes, that's right, according to the embroidery on the South African outfits these were the Beljing and not Beijing Olympic Games....coupled with the green croc footwear our guys were wearing one could be forgiven for thinking that Father Torr had something to do with their outfits.
GW "It's good to be president" Bush
The games have thrown up a few unbelievable performances ..... look no further than Michael Phelps' in the pool and Usain Bolt's sprint double..... but we were unanimous in agreeing that surely the performance of the games so far has to go to all the woman beach volleyball players who manage to fit into those outfits..... while we are glad that it has led to increased exposure (for the sport), as members of the male species we can't help but feel a little used and dirty and as such have taken a collective decision to boycott the indoor and beach versions of the woman's game....unless Brazil, Italy, France, Sweden, USA or Argentina are playing....from the pic below it's seems as if George W has also developed a sudden interest in the beach version.
 It's good to be a president...
The weeks paddling seemed to inflict marginally less damage on the late starters than the first week had but it was still not Paris Hilton (easy) - we also managed to complete a few more intervals before resigning ourselves to another continuous paddle - the days seem to be getting slightly longer but it has still been cold.....Tuesday morning's session on The Swamp started in 8 degrees Celsius and coupled with the wind chill provided a potentially member threatening situation for anyone needing to relieve themselves in the open - thankfully no member had to expose his member and body parts remained intact.
Double Sessions
Tuesday's and Friday's have now become the double session days - intervals on The Swamp in the morning and then 10km time-trials in the evening - while the Tuesday time-trial is really an exercise in weed removal from The Swamp, Friday's ‘time-trial' is a sea paddle from Fish Hoek beach - the route is set depending on the wind and with the whales having returned to the bay, the sun setting and a couple of cold one's waiting in the clubhouse, there is no better way to end the week!!!!
For the weekend's sea paddle we were joined by a paddler from up country, I think from Doublesyourmonies Canoe Club, who wishes to remain anonymous due to the suspicious nature of his arrival in Cape Town - in fact if the word out there is to be believed he was not supposed to be in Cape Town at all... he had apparently left his home on Johannesburg on Friday night telling the family that he was just popping out to get some milk...he then proceeded to catch a plane to Cape Town, paddle with us in the morning, watch the Tri-nations Test match at Newlands that afternoon, and had then flown back on Sunday morning first thing delivering the milk 2 days later - to protect his identity we will just call him The Milkman or Milky.
Like the rugby that afternoon the ‘downwind' paddle turned into a bit of an anti-climax as no sooner had we left terra firma and the wind decided to die like the Springbok rugby team - the only bit of entertainment was provided courtesy of The Milkman who it seemed had failed to cover his bung hole with tape.....settle settle it's not what you think... with his vessel rapidly taking in water and becoming increasingly more unstable he spent virtually the entire paddle just trying to stay in the boat .... the result was the longest Millers Run in the history of surfski paddling.
 The Milkman Cometh
The Milkman Cometh
As proof of his appearance in Cape Town we have managed to get hold of a copy of a photo showing The Milkman's arrival on Fish Hoek beach - it is a bit grainy as we had to copy it from a picture taken from the cellphone of a Japanese tourist who, it turned out, was a photographer for the Japanese version of the well known global magazine title Active Seniors and had wanted to use Milky for the next cover.
So taken was Milky with the attention that, had he not been so exhausted from lugging a 47kg ski up the beach, he may well have consented to the man's request for a full photo shoot featuring him in a borrowed lifesaving march-past costume.....while this seemed to excite the same retirement-home body boarding club which had suffered at the hands of Father Torr the week before, it brought gasps of horror from the remaining beachgoers....it was only when Milky was seen leaving the car park chased by his newly acquired bevy of floral capped body boarders that the rest of the beachgoers seemed to relax.
The one thing we've realized is that we can't do this without having a sense of humor - thankfully for us there are more than a few guys who can be counted on to provide this just by pitching up to paddle.....so as we head into another week, a week closer to 6 December, we look forward to more of the same, more of the same and hopefully a healthy dose of humor thrown in to keep us sane!!!
A special thank you
Lastly, a special thank you to the 2 readers who posted a response to the previous post - Father Torr was particularly flattered by the designation assigned to him by Parksy and, while he understands that it's probably a result of Parksy feeling inadequate and threatened by his physical presence, he is encouraging him to perhaps join a self help group to talk about these things and not to keep it bottled up.
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Regarding father Torr news from a couple of mates who came to watch the second walloping he has had to be crow barred out of the nest recently and be given some stern words about his nocturnal activities.
Brother TorrI am fast approaching racing snake status and shocked at youur reference to the bottle you know we only drink coupious amounts of draught this not after training twice a day.