Crack back into it then

Well it's been 9 weeks since I started back kayaking after 10 months off, which finally proved to be the tonic to get rid of tennis elbow  in both arms. When I started back paddling again I thought I could aim to do a race so choose the Picton Kayak Portage race as my goal, so here I am back into it. I gave myself the day off on Sunday after grinding it out at the Marathon Kayak Champs in Mana so it was back into portage training again today.
From Miramar Park one of my Portage routes is along Darlington Road and over Awa Road to Worser Bay a 15 min portage walking and once the legs get moving it should take about 9 minutes. Once on the water I headed up the Seatoun Bays across the top of Evans Bay to Freyberg beach then back again. Today I had a 25 kmh NNW breeze and about 400mm of wind swell so paddled for 90 minutes with 30 minutes of portaging.

This year I'm putting a little more effort into the training, than I did 2 years ago when I did 2 hrs 52 mins on the Primary course. This year I'll be aiming to knock at least 5 minutes off that time, for starters I'm going to be wearing light shoes while paddling and secondly I've made some wheels, which I've built using the same design I had for my K1 just over 15 years ago, and I'm definitely going to be a lot more efficient exiting and re-entering the water at the portages as well.

Why use wheels when for years everyones been carrying there kayaks over the long portages? Well for starters the long Kayak Portage races  in both Australia and South Africa have used wheels going back 30 or so years. My first NZ Kayak portage race was across the Rotorua Lakes in the late 80's and I also used a set for a Kayak portage race in Dargaville around the same period.

Work smarter not harder I say, and I'm sure ACC will be a lot happier that I'm looking after my body and saving them money!!!!!

The photos are taken on the east side of Awa Road (100 metres from Worser Bay) on the portage back home today.