Below the staircase at the clubhouse is a single kayak ergometer. Kayaking can truly be a mental thing when you’re glaring into a wall while grinding along. It’s just you, your tired old body and this caveman painting, which I suspect some jester put up. Compared to an hour of paddling below this staircase, an 80km day in a sea kayak in flat conditions feels like going to the circus.
Morten being all mental
One of the first thing you notice when you get on a kayak ergometer is the absence of wind. No wind means no cooling effect means you’ll soon be sweating like a pig. Now place two kayak ergometers in a small stuffy room along with 14 rowers on their Concept2 contraptions, engaged in some inhuman training program frequently requiring incomprehensible commands to be called out. The ventilation is insufficient and below each ergometer pools of sweat are spreading. In the background you have the inevitable techno music of German origin droning on and on. I did burn my own CD (Kayak Training – Hell above Water – You need this to be hip!) but you don’t just switch music. First come first serve. They never pick my CD. Only Morten is loyal and acknowledge my CD as the best.
Then there’re all the mental games you have to play to keep going – at all costs the speed must be above 12km/h during the intervals. My favorite program goes like: 1-2-3-3-2-1(1 min easy paddling between intervals) + 3 minutes break between sets.
The human mind is fantastic naive – or perhaps it’s just me. The first 20 seconds of each interval is easy. The speed lingers around 13km/h and for a brief moment I really believe this interval is going to be a walkover. Then fatigue strikes and only moments later the clock grinds to an almost halt. The seconds counter was going 12..16..20 and then suddenly it goes 25..25..26..26… Now 3 minutes feels like an eternity. However as soon as you get to the break, the clock accelerates and there’s barely time for catching your breath and a quick insult “You know what you are? No? You’re that tiny dot far behind me.”.
Another set, another battle. Try to focus on the speed, the music, the female rowers, the reflection in the mirror, the forward stroke, the pumping legs – anything but the time. There passed another 10 seconds.
At last we get to the next break – “Let’s say I’m Eirik next round and you can be Peter, you know the second fastest paddler in the world”.
And so on and on. Four sets is a good session, three is ok.
Finally we’re through and it’s time to hit the showers and get on the rusty old weight which looks like it was designed for cattle. You pretty much always weight the same, which by definition isn’t enough(80kg again? What’s up with this?). In our parallel universe it’s all about getting faster, bigger and stronger. That’s why we like good little boys&girls drink our whey protein mixture with fake chocolate taste. We don’t need our moms to tell us to eat to grow.
If it isn’t obvious from the above description, everybody really is having one heck of a time. Meanwhile we all long for the water.
Children at the indoor championship
Indoor kayak ergometer training isn’t by any measure a big thing. The rowing world’s indoor culture is way more established. Still there are some competitions like the recently held Danish championship and the open Hungarian championship.
I would have liked to participate in Copenhagen. However while I don’t mind taking a good beating(more like a public humiliation in this case), driving for 3 hours only to be knocked out in round one of a 1000m sprint competition is a bit much.
Sunday there’s another (outdoor) 10km race. I hope everybody else have been slacking off
The unusual amount of rain during this autumn like winter, has caused a flooding at our training facilities. The place has been shut down as there’s now 10 cm water inside the building. Compare the photo below with the one at the official homepage. We’ll have to continue our training at the regular clubhouse for the time being.
Wearing waders I was barely able to get to our kayak dock
The photos from our new year rolling session at the sea kayak club has been published. Now while this whole rolling thing is slowly but surely getting a bit old, Niels our photographer did a good job. Compared to last year the number of Tuiliks in the club has doubled. If this trend continues, earth’s entire population will wear tuiliks in 20 years…
Speaking of which, I got Harvey Golden’s new Kayaks of Greenland book for Christmas. While I was never into the whole Qajaq/Greenland culture worshiping thing, I figured it would be interesting to learn about the origin of our sport. I was not disappointed and have nothing but praise for the book. For once there’s actually a book on kayaking which rises above the level of banality.
I remember Martin Nissen once told me about qajaqs with the characteristics(beam/speed/tippiness) of modern days race kayaks. Now I know what he meant. Some of the qajaqs described in the book(37cm beam!) has far more in common with ICF racers than your typical sea kayak barge. And why not? The hunters were professional paddlers hitting the water as often as possible. This is not unlike race paddlers who train every day(twice a day for the national team paddlers). Not that this really is related to the typical modern day incarnation of the qajaq culture…
I got another book for Christmas which I can’t praise as much – Sea Kayak by Gordon Brown. I wanted the book on the premise that it had something for ‘advanced sea kayakers’ as the publisher writes. The book is actually OK, but I fail to see how this book is any noticeable improvement over the tons of Hutchinson and wannabes instruction books. Yes the author devotes a chapter to steering strokes and the BCU crowd goes wild. How about a chapter on the forward stroke – the stroke people both use and more often than not are terrible at? I will however not diss the book on the somewhat curious paragraphs related to qajaq gear. Parts of the Internet(!) qajaq culture reacted in such an over-the-top and self-righteous way that I tend to agree with the author – yes you guys are irrelevant to modern day kayaking.
I put up a first version of a small video we made during the winter race before Christmas. I promised Morten my training mate to write that he’s the one leading the pack in the K1 race. I guess he wants to prove something because I beat him at Tour de Gudenå… or perhaps because his father was behind the camera? Unfortunately he’s quicker than me these days – which I entirely blame on his cool 8kg Nelo Vanquish cheater kayak…
The ICF congress yesterday approved a new set of rules for ocean racing.
As for single sea kayaks (S1) the requirements boil down to:
must at least be 400cm long.
must weight at least 13 kg.
must have front and aft bulkheads.
the waterproof compartments must be accessible through hatches.
deck lines with a diameter of at least 5mm is mandatory.
a tow line must be attached to the kayak.
Get the rules here. The rules are expected to be revised in November 2008.
My first observation was that the Nelo Moskito FW2000 and the Sipre Katabatic Master kayaks don’t pass the bulkhead/hatches requirements. Neither do a number of so called multisport kayaks.
Time will tell to what degree these rules will find use in less official races. While the national kayak federations will have to use the rules, private race organizations don’t. I guess some races will introduce additional requirements for dividing the sea kayaks into more classes.
Division Racing in Denmark:
Danish Design:
Surfer in a Surf Kayak:
Kattegat x2:
Tour de Gudenaa 2007, Saturday: