Back in the Boat

It has been an extremely long time since my last post. So much has happened in last few months but most of it has happened of the water rather than on and for that reason I have not made any posts. I have not been in my boat much at all since August and am feeling a major case of Olympic fever after watching SA canoeing’s rock star Bridgitte Hartley win a medal in London. It is time for me to get back into a boat and into racing mode.

I have the feeling it is going to be a lot tougher than I remember, over the past few months I have become a dad, moved to Johannesburg and taken on a full time job as a junior engineer. I have set my sights on racing the Lowveld Croc in my home town on the 22nd and 23rd of September. I dived straight into my 31 day training program yesterday afternoon with 30 push up and 30 pull ups. I thought that if I started really small I would avoid getting stiff, I was wrong! It is astounding how much training conditions your body.

I have a joined at the local club http://www.dabulamanzi.co.za/ which happens to be on the way to and on the way home from work which will hopefully make it a lot easier to fit in my sessions. It is going to be a tough road to get my body back into kind of condition required to serve my passion of racing to the best of my ability. I am hoping that a 57km river race is going to serve as motivation to get this show on the road.

You could say I am now a full time athlete with a daily 9 hour distraction.

The pic is of Mark Smith dominating on the Lowveld Croc. His dad Trevor, is a previous winner of the prestigious race which is now celebrating it's 50th year. Watch out for Mark as he aims to follow in his fathers footsteps.