BMXing

When I first decided to embark upon this epic journey to the 2016 Olympics, taking in a dozen different Olympic sports on the way, I have to be honest and say that, of those I picked, BMXing was least likely to be the sport to take me to Rio.  I’m tall (just over 5’11”) and not the skinniest nor most agile of people, so given my high centre of gravity and lack of cat-like reflexes and agility, I always feared that I would end up doing some serious damage, at the very least, to my ego.  In short, I was not looking forward to the BMXing leg of my journey with any great relish.  You can imagine my relief then, when Amos Burke, my BMX coach, texted to tell me that our first appointment would have to be postponed due to the torrential rain hitting much of the country at the end of September.  However, when two further dates were shelved for the same reason, I began to wonder if someone, somewhere, was trying to tell me something.

I decided to take my friend and brand new accomplice Hollie Vincent – also my new photographer – along to the skate & BMX park which was due to have been the venue for my comedic, two-wheeled doom.  The idea was to get a look at the venue so as to acclimatise myself, and to get a few shots.  The first thing to be said is that very sadly, it was raining.  Again.  As Hollie’s fancy camera isn't waterproof, she was reluctant to whip it out and start snapping with abandon, so the weather had foiled me yet again.  What we did manage was to get a good look at the BMX track.  Have you ever stood on the edge of a cliff and looked down?  You know the feeling you get when you feel like your legs have turned to jelly and that you’re about to overbalance and plunge over the edge?  Well that’s what I felt like looking down into the pit of the track.  We walked all the way around it, presuming that there must be some kind of slope down into it – surely nobody in their right mind would willingly launch themselves off the edge of a 15-foot high concrete bowl on a tiny, tiny bike?  There was no such slope.  One did indeed have to launch straight into the concrete pit.  And, presumably, hope and pray that your skill and agility can defeat the will of gravity.

Sadly, as my skills still require some honing, I have decided that for the good of the rest of my Olympic assault, I should postpone the BMXing until such time as a) I have bolstered my skill set a little more and b) it’s stopped raining: if there’s one thing guaranteed to hasten my death, it’s a wet track.  Hollie and I will revisit the BMX pit of death as soon as is possible so that I can at least post some pictures to prove that I'm not being a giant wuss.  Or perhaps that I am.  Either way, photographic evidence will be provided.

However I still intend to follow through on my mission; next on the agenda is archery, a far safer venture, at least for me – quite how safe others in the vicinity such as Hollie, will be is a different matter, but at least the chances of my, and therefore my Olympic mission’s survival is far greater. 

Time, date and venue are yet to be confirmed but never fear, Mission 2016 is back on (non-BMX) track and I intend to come back fighting, bow and arrow in hand.  Take cover...

Kayaking - The Judgement

So my day of judgement dawned warm and sunny.  A good omen, I thought.  At the very least, it would save me the trauma of donning the dreaded wetsuit again.  Dressed in my coolest, surfiest board shorts and 50s-style polkadot swimsuit (an odd sartorial choice, but my resources were limited), I made my way down to Rock a Nore in Hastings Old Town to meet up with Cliff and, perhaps, my destiny.  I had been blessed with a gloriously warm, late-summer’s day and the sea sparkled invitingly blue, so I was looking forward to getting into my kayak and onto the water. 

Unlike in the taster session where I was using a ‘sit-on’ kayak on the river, I was to be in a ‘sit-in’ version for the challenge.  This was longer, narrower and, consequently, slightly less stable than the former which would be a challenge in itself on the choppier open water of the sea.  Indeed, I’d barely launched myself from the beach when I had to right myself to prevent an early dunking.  However once I’d become a little more used to the way the kayak moved, I began to feel more confident.

Cliff and I paddled out clear of the beach and discussed the target.  It was to be one and a half miles out, one and a half back, the half-way point being Warrior Square in St. Leonards, to the west of the Old Town.  On the outward leg, we’d be paddling into the strengthening current which would clearly slow us down.  Indeed, Cliff suggested that we allow 40 minutes for the outward leg and 20 minutes, with the current in our favour, for the return leg. 

As we prepared, and Cliff gave me some last minute coaching reminders (Lock and load.  Core.  Legs.), I was struck by how beautiful and peaceful it was out on the sea.  Cliff had told me that when he takes groups out on the water, he often drifts off mentally, such is his state of relaxation.  I’d never really got how one could switch off when trying to control a 10’ lump of polyethylene which wants to capsize, dump you out and drift away, but at that moment, with the hills of Hastings on my right and the glimmering expanse of sea all around me, I understood.  It was relaxing and completely transporting.  Well, not completely.  I had a challenge to meet and Cliff had just checked his watch; 12.10pm.  Three miles to paddle and only an hour to do it in.

In my haste to get going from what was basically a standing start, I very nearly turfed myself out straight away, but with a shriek a six year old girl would’ve been proud of, I managed to steady the ship and was on my way.  The current was quite strong and it was tough paddling into it, but I was determined to show my Olympic mettle.  I HAD to pass this test!  With Cliff paddling around me and alternating between shouting advice, taking photos and, most humiliatingly of all, fishing (he didn’t catch anything) I was beginning to understand how very far behind his level of ability I was.  Nevertheless, I carried on and, head down, paddles whirring (or so it seemed in the inspirational musical montage that was playing in my head), I powered through. 

Slowly, agonisingly slowly, we approached Warrior Square and the half-way point.  As we turned, Cliff informed me that we’d completed the 1^st leg in 31 minutes – nine whole minutes ahead of schedule!  Now, surely, with the wind and the current in my favour, I was home and dry.  Figuratively.  Sadly, Cliff had warned me that although it would probably be quicker on the home leg, it might also be trickier to keep the kayak in a straight line.  Tricky indeed.  The bloody thing was intent on either whisking me off to France or dumping me out, as the waves grew in strength and frequency.  To counteract this, I had to paddle four times on the right side of the kayak to every once on the left just to keep it going forward, which was frustrating, as it prevented me from building up any real rhythm.

Annoyed at my inability to maintain control and build rhythm, I let out a few choice expletives.  Frustration, I found, is one of my biggest weaknesses as it fogs my concentration and as such, all technique went, for a while at least, out of the window.  Luckily I had Super Cliff alongside me and he kept up a steady stream of encouragement and so, after a more arduous than anticipated home leg, the finish line was in sight.  This time, in my head was the much talked about ‘wall of noise’ which the rowers described encountering as they entered the last 500m at Eton Dorney.  I was being swept along by that imagined wall of noise, thousands screaming for me, cheering me home!  In reality, the only sound was me grunting like Maria Sharapova as I tried to draw enough strength from my arms to drag myself home . . .

But in what time?  Coach Cliff looked at his watch as I sat slumped in my kayak, breathing ragged, arms like lead. 

“51 minutes!” came the cry.

YES!!!  Success!!!  I had successfully passed my first Olympic challenge!  The relief, the exhaustion, the, dare I say it, pride.  Small step it may well be, but I had done it.  I decided to celebrate by intentionally capsizing my kayak.  However what I had forgotten to do was to unhook my spray deck (the piece of nylon which does around you underneath your buoyancy aid and attaches to the kayak to prevent water from getting in and sinking you) before doing so, and so I found myself upside-down in the water, hanging out of the kayak and unable to get free.  Brilliant.  Luckily I stopped panicking long enough to remember that I could still pull the spray deck off of the kayak which enabled me, spluttering, to reach the surface and sweet oxygen.

So, having nearly killed myself in the pursuit of my Olympic dream, I decided that I was ready for my judgement from Cliff.  How had I done and, critically, was I going to Rio or not?

Rio or Bust?

Effort: 10/10 – impressive, although it may have been a sympathy mark for me just having nearly died.

Rio Potential: 5/10 – FIVE?!  Well, I have to say I was really expecting something more along the lines of 1/10 or 2/10, so I am incredibly happy with that!  However Cliff had one caveat to that score.

“I know you too well, you love life too much!”  I suspect he may have been alluding to the fact that he thinks I’m a giant piss-head who eats too many éclairs, but I have the rest of my life to wash pastries down with pinot grigio and only 4 years to make it to Rio.  He may yet be surprised.

However, I have another 11 Olympic sports to try out, so maybe there’s one to which I’m even more suited and which has less chance to killing me . . .  On that note,  I do hope you’ll pop back in a couple of weeks to see if I manage to die or maim myself in an hilarious BMX-related accident.  Yes, I’ll be entering the uber-cool and utterly terrifying world of Shanaze Read and Liam Phillips.  The man charged with my care is Amos Burke who’s just finished 5^th in the UK Flat Championships!  No, not sure what that means yet either, but I’ll find out.  Until then, pip pip . . . 

Kayaking - The taster.

It could have started better.  It could’ve ended better too, if I’m honest.  The morning of my first foray into Olympic greatness brought with it a grumbling sense of dread.  Not fear exactly, nor really apprehension – just a sort of ‘oh, do I have to’ reluctance to commit an entire evening to anything other than sofa warming.  Two days later and I’m crippled with a man-size cold, am full of achy, snotty yuckiness and have just eaten three chocolate éclairs to try and make myself feel better.  However, the in-between bit – the actual kayaking – was surprisingly good!

We met on a pretty stretch of the River Rother near Northiam, East Sussex on a warmish late summer’s evening.  Joining me were two young girls – Alice, 14 and Lily, 12 – who had been so inspired by their visit to the Lee Valley White Water Centre to watch Tim Bailie & Etienne Stott paddle their way to Olympic gold in the Canoe Slalom, that their parents had agreed to wander up and down a river bank for two hours while the girls had their first taste of the sport.  To see actual evidence that ‘Inspire a Generation’ translated into reality, was a genuine joy and I expect Seb Coe would’ve been relieved that London 2012 had whetted the appetites of youngsters with a hope, rather than just delusional 30-somethings with none. 

I must give full disclosure here:  I have in fact been kayaking before.  A good friend of mine, Cliff Meaden, runs a watersports company (www.epiclife.co.uk) and is a kayak/canoe coach (NOT instructor – “I don’t instruct people, I coach them”) and I have been lucky enough to have been out on his kayaks, messing around on the sea or on lakes whilst on holiday.   However I haven’t yet got to grips with anything other than basic forward propulsion, a feat which is fairly simple, even for me.  What Cliff was charged with was teaching me to take control of the 10 feet of polyethylene on which I was perched, and try to move it forward, not only at pace, but in a straight line – a feat I struggle with from time to time on dry land. 

The first task I had to overcome was that of getting the wetsuit on.  It took about 10 minutes during which there was much swearing from me and much giggling from Alice, Lily and their parents, but finally, red-faced and already breathing like I’d completed a triathlon, I was ready to don my life-preserver and attempt to bend my limbs enough to get into my kayak. 

Once on the water, Cliff sent us paddling off up river so as to gauge our abilities, then called us back for an assessment and some coaching.  The main thing, he said, was not to try to pull the paddles through the water but rather to use them as a kind of lever from which you move the boat along.  The arms, contrary to what one may assume, do only a small percentage of the muscle work – the legs and, crucially, the stomach muscles are the main performers.  As with many sports, a strong core is key to kayaking as most of the movement comes from and is centred around the core.  Cliff compared the paddle stroke to a golfer’s swing or a tennis shot; sure there is power and momentum in the arms, but the movement and the balance around which the stroke is centred comes from your core.  Also integral are the legs which, when going forward at least, should push forwards on the same side of the boat as that on which the paddle enters the water.  This, in theory at least, helps you to maintain a straight line.  Cliff demonstrated the importance of legs and core by twirling his paddle above his head and, using just stomach and legs & feet, rotated the kayak 360 degrees.

Basics mastered, he allowed us to stretch our paddles and power down the river as fast as we could, the exhilaration of which was overshadowed by the fact that I was being comfortably out-stripped by a 12 year old.  Cliff’s session was, as he had claimed, not two hours of being barked at and instructed, but a fun, interactive experience during which he offered coaching tips based on relative abilities.  Friend he may be, but he has an excellent temperament for teaching and was clearly on the same wavelength as the girls who, towards the end of the session, displayed their appreciation by engaging in a splash fight with him, from which I kept a relatively safe, dry distance.  Not that it mattered as, minutes later, he had us rolling out of our kayaks into the river and attempting to get back on.  Cue yet more giggles from Alice, Lily, mum & dad as I hauled myself over and onto my kayak with all the grace of a tranquilised whale.

This, according to Cliff, is what is great about kayaking - it genuinely does appeal to everyone.  From families with young children to thrill-seekers to top-level athletes – there’s a stretch of water and a kayak for you.  There isn’t the intimidatingly superior glow of exclusivity associated with some trendy watersports and nor is it as financially prohibitive as others.  Kayaks can be bought second hand for a couple of hundred pounds and as long as you’ve learned the basics from a qualified instructor such as Cliff and checked to see where your nearest accessible waterway is (http://www.bcu.org.uk/our-sport/getting-started/where-to-paddle/), you can jump in, do your own thing and have fun.

“Kayaking is whatever you want it to be”, says Cliff.  What about a ticket to Rio 2016, I wonder?  “Ha ha!  We’ll see!”.  Well, it wasn’t a “no”.  Not yet, anyway. 

So, I’ve sampled a bit of what kayaking has to offer but more importantly, what do I have to offer kayaking?  Well I’ve had the taster session but an Olympian needs a challenge.  This is what I shall be undertaking every month; a taster session followed by a challenge, which will enable my coach or instructor to assess my chances of making it on that plane to Rio.  My challenge from Cliff is to paddle 3 miles in less than one hour.  This doesn’t sound like very much but I’ll be in a longer, slimmer, trickier handling kayak than the one we were messing about with on the river.  We’ll also be in the open water of the English Channel which is, quite clearly, choppier than inland waterways.  Finally, when you consider that pros like him can generally only get 6mph out of their kayaks, it’s a pretty stern challenge.  Still, I shan’t be intimidated by the magnitude of the task ahead.  I am an Olympian (in mind if not in body) and must glory in these challenges and own them.  Cliff tells me I must work on my core and remember to “lock and load before firing” which means that I’m often too quick to pull through the stroke so must wait until the paddle is fully IN the water before commencing the stroke. 

I’ll be heading out into the Channel for my challenge, with Cliff and some other experienced kayakers in a few days time, so please expect my moment of judgment to appear around this time next week.  In the meantime - Core.  Lock and load.  Yeah, I’m ready. 

MOPPING UP

The space for all the stuff I couldn’t crow-bar into the main text.

First of all, the difference between a canoe and a kayak.  Well I did ask Cliff and it’s something to do with the paddle and the seating position but frankly I’ve forgotten the bulk of what he told me on the water, and most of what he said in the pub afterwards onto my dictaphone was drowned out by the noise of someone murdering the piano, so please check out this link which should clarify things - http://www.wikihow.com/Tell-the-Difference-Between-a-Kayak-and-Canoe

Secondly, if you’d like to take up kanoeing or cayaking* then your very first port of call should be Cliff’s website www.epiclife.co.uk.  After that, head over to the British Canoe Union’s site if you’re in the UK http://www.bcu.org.uk/ or that of the International Canoe Federation if you’re not http://www.canoeicf.com/icf/.  Paddle on . . .

*  Yes – I know.

Oh, don't forget to follow me on Twitter - @Bekush2016 . . . thanks!

Hitting the Road

The beautiful Olympic flame had not yet been extinguished before the spark of an idea began to ignite the flames of my imagination.  Such was the success of the games and the magnificence of the feats of athletic prowess on display, that I, like many millions of others across the globe, had been glued to the television, hungrily devouring every second of tae kwon do, archery, trap shooting and triathlon that I could.  “Inspire a Generation” was the theme of the games:  it just didn't specify which one. 

The sense of admiration I felt for all those taking part, but especially those glorious Great British gold medal winners, was almost overwhelming at times.  Admiration, pride, joy – these were emotions one would expect to feel during an event of such magnitude but what I didn’t expect was the almost irrational sense of jealousy and loss I felt.  I want what they had!  The adulation, the cheers, the experience of hearing thousands of delirious spectators cheering my name, cheer every move I make and jump and scream for joy, hugging anyone within grabbing distance at my golden, dramatic moment of victory!

I also, perversely, craved the tears of despair which marked the end of a failed journey to the pinnacle of sporting achievement.  Whether cruelly pipped at the post or dealt a hammering by the latest teenaged upstart, I felt their tears as though they were my own, as though they belonged to me and that the fallen athlete was merely a conduit of my grief to a global audience. 

Sadly, at the age of 33, with no discernible talent and zero training, practice or tuition in anything at all for the best part of two decades, I feared I may have left it a little late to represent my country in the greatest show on earth.  Then however, I was sent an email by a friend of mine who was so inspired by the feats of 36 year old Katherine Grainger on the waters of Eton Dorney, that he felt moved to write the following inspirational quote:

“Never give up, never settle for second best, never believe the doubters who say you are just not quite good enough, never allow yourself to think that your chance has passed you by. If you truly believe you are capable of reaching your goals, no matter how high they may be or how hard the task ahead may become, if you truly think that your best is yet to come and that you have what it takes to reach your glory... then go for it! Don't look back, don't doubt yourself for even one second. Stay true to your task and to your goals and one day, yes one day, your dreams will become a reality”

If, I argued to myself, she could do it, why couldn’t I?  Well, a rational person might well point to her countless years of training, her three previous Olympic silver medals, numerous world championship victories, strength, talent, commitment and dedication among many, many other things.  But what use is rationale if it quells one’s impossible dreams and foolish aspirations?  Would Kath Grainger give up?  No she would not. 

Quite undeterred by the various and numerous drawbacks, I decided to plan my Olympic journey to Rio 2016.  First thing to decide upon of course is a sport.  Now, despite Grainger’s remarkable achievement, I would be 37 – one year older than she is now – in 2016.  On that basis I decided, showing a surprising degree of reason and sense, that gymnastics, weightlifting and sprinting were just a few of the great many disciplines which I may have left too late.  However there were still a few sports which I felt, with a healthy dose of denial, wishful thinking and supreme arrogance, were within my grasp.  But so many choices . . . what’s a girl to do?  Well, try them all, of course.

Over the next year, I shall be attempting to wow the expert instructors whose unfortunate task it will be to teach me an Olympic discipline, with my hitherto undiscovered talent.  I will be asking them to rate my chances of Olympic glory out of 10 and to offer their opinion on my efforts.  I shall also be attempting to “Inspire a Generation” myself, by bringing what I hope will be an interesting insight into some of the lesser known Olympic disciplines so that, even if for some inexplicable reason I don’t make it to Rio myself, I might just inspire someone, somewhere, to take up a sport and perhaps carry the flag of the nation and the hopes and dreams of one aging blogger into an Olympic stadium. 

My first, tentative step on the road to Rio will take place on Tuesday 28^th August when I will be taking to the waters of Hastings, East Sussex, aboard a kayak and in the helpful and instructive hands of Cliff Meaden, MD of Epic Life (http://www.epiclife.co.uk/)  and  qualified Level 3 British Canoe Union (BCU) coach.  I do hope you’ll drop by next week to see how I got along and to find out what I’ll be attempting in September.  For now though, pip pip . . .