DW Final Blog

Today is Easter Monday and we thought we should complete our blog for the weekend. We didn't manage to post a Day 3 blog so here is the final instalment to cover Day 3 and Day 4.

Day 3 was Easter Sunday and as our last blog said we had made a plan at the end of Day 2 to complete the 38 miles in under 7 hours. We started at 7.15am and set off on a mission of 6 miles per hour. Our support crew of Tom and Phil were on form to keep us motivated and on time - and they did a cracking job! - thanks boys :-)

We paddled the first 6 miles in under an hour, and by 3 hours of paddling we were 20 minutes ahead of schedule. We had a few mad moments including an interesting approach to the rollers at Sunbury Lock which resulted in an almost, but not quite, capsize which even the supporters classed as a "good recovery".

Phil produced the best motivator call from the bank of "Go Girlfriend" which made the lady in the Mr Whippy van next to him smile and made us laugh for quite sometime!

By 30 miles in we had overtaken all the other crews who had set off before us on Sunday morning, meaning we had to keep our stroke rate up on our own without the motivation of chasing anyone down. We have to admit to reverting to a bit of a sing song to keep us going "there were ten in the bed " proved quite inspiring in terms of keeping our stroke rate up and we even found ourselves singing the "12 days of christmas" to the people taking their Easter Sunday stroll by the river!

We crossed the finish line first of the day in a time of 6 hours 52 minutes.

That meant our time to Teddington was 21 hours 40 minutes and we were lying 7th in the Senior K2 Endeavour category.

Day 4 was always our biggest concern. We are not the most stable of paddlers and the tideway is very fast flowing and can be really difficult to paddle. We were worried and slept pretty rubbishly on Sunday evening especially as we had to get up at 3.45am with no breakfast! We were on the water by 5.45 in the dark but we managed through some low points in moral to get to Battersea Power Station with relative ease. Time seemed to go very slowly this morning even though the water was flowing very fast. We approached the finish line with the Houses of Parliament on the left and Big Ben chiming 8am. We were home and dry - literally!

I have to admit to hugging the man who placed the medal round my neck - I think I was the only person to do that as he looked quite surprised!! Our overall time was 23 hours and 56 minutes and we are vey proud. We hope we might inspire you to take a challenge and Challenge your Positivity!

It only remains for us to say a big thank you to everyone for their support and encouragement and all your wonderful donations. We have successfully raise £2155 for the oncology ward at Queens - if you wish to add a donation there is still time - visit our justgiving page at www.justgiving/Claire-Lis. Thanks for reading!

Claire and Liz signing off xx

Day 2 - It Goes On........

So we set off this morning at 7.45am from Newbury, today we had 36 miles and 26 portages to complete. We had made a pact last night that if we improved our speed on the portages we could be home and in the bath half an hour quicker - so we were on a mission!

We were delighted to see some friends of ours at the first support point. Paul and Harriet are amazing paddlers who have the DW record for a mixed K2 over the none stop 24hour race. They ran a tag team support with us along the tow path for 11 miles, keeping us going, and providing us with some great tips and hints along the way. They did a sterling job of feeding us malt loaf, bananas, and jelly babies, sometimes all at the same time!! As a consequence we managed to paddle further today in less time - hooray!!!

Today passed without incident with the exception of the attacking swan at Reading. We are channeling our positivity brilliantly and we have a plan to go even faster tomorrow! We are AMAZING!!!

Day 1 - It Begins........

5.30am and a hard frost welcomed us this morning as we gathered our kit ready for the start. 34 miles from Devizes to Newbury awaited.

As the mercury rose above -5C crews arrived for registration and kit check in the car park of Devizes Wharf. And then all of a sudden we were on the start line...and off.

The first 17miles were incident free. As we neared our nemesis the .... tunnel (where we had fallen in during our last race on this section of the canal) a narrow boat entered the tunnel and all approaching crews were forced to wait so we decided to get out and run.

Fatigue was starting to rear its head now and our portages began to draw out, but we kept up the same paddling pace on the water throughout the day covering around 6miles per hour excluding time on land.

Newbury was a welcome site and the end of Day 1 was quickly followed by a long shower and quick snooze before refuelling ready for an even better day tomorrow.

The Calm Before the Storm

D-Day appears to be upon us! We have our many bags packed, out boat polished and more frusli bars than you would ever want to eat. We leave for Devizes today and start our paddle-fest tomorrow!

Having had sleet, snow and howling winds yesterday we have fingers, toes, arms and legs crossed that we see no more arctic weather till we are home safe and sound!

A HUGE thank you to everyone for their generous donations on our JustGiving page and for all the good wishes. We have topped the £2,000 mark which is just fantastic!! Keep logging on as we will be posting a daily update on how our challenge is going. So off we go singing "row, row, row your kayak gently down 125 of stream, merrily merrily merrily merrily not swimming is our dream"! X

Tapering and Planning - The Countdown Begins!

Having managed through our heavy training week ending with Waterside C on 12 March, our training has certainly changed pace. Whether it is ideal or not the last 10 days have seen us out in our boat only twice due to my work and family commitments (sorry Liz!). It just goes to show that even when you sign up to do something like this you still have to back peddle sometimes.

We have been spending our time doing some well needed land based preparations and guess what, that has even involved some retail therapy! Having received our registration details we found a list of kit which we are required to carry in our boat at all times, if we don't and we fail a kit inspection we get a time penalty! The list includes some logical things like spare food and drink, but also some slightly more worrying things like a survival bag, whistle and torch - incase we get lost!!!

We have less than 2 weeks before we head off so we are really winding down on the miles and winding up on our portage revision! Speaking to the "wise heads" at the Nottingham Kayak Club we should spend our last 7 days doing nothing but eating carbohydrates and sleeping - wouldn't that be a nice thought, nobody has told them that the last 7 days is the first week of the Easter holidays and with 6 children between us to entertain, feed and referee I can't see that happening!

Thanks for reading, don't forget to pop back and see how our last 2 weeks progress and then make a regular trip to the Channeling Positivity site during the event as Justine will be uploading a daily report through Tom and Phil our vital support crew.

Sink or Swim?

Last week we entered into our biggest training week since we set off on our challenge. In April we will be paddling approximately 35 miles for 3 consecutive days with the final day of 17 miles down the Thames tideway. This week we completed 3 consecutive days of 20 miles per day - the longest we have ever paddled for and we did it without too many aches and pains!

Friday involved paddling on the canal going up, down and up again! We added some interesting portages in to keep our legs working and experienced our first "bush wee"! Unfortunately at 15 miles we realised we were 5 miles from home and only had 1 hour before school pick up so had to get a shimmy on to make

sure we fulfilled our responsibilities as mothers and not just our need to paddle!

Saturday saw 18 miles on the Trent and canal avoiding the rowers who seemed to be out in force with the sunshine. Justine had left me in the early hours of Saturday morning with "don't forget Claire, there is never a traffic jam on the extra mile". Liz and I pondered this over our 4hours on Saturday but still weren't sure we understood th

e relevance - any suggestions gratefully received!!

Sunday we went to Pewsey and raced in Waterside C. 23 miles on the Kennnet and Avon canal. The event is part of a series of 4 races on parts of the Devizesto Westminster course. Along side the 23 miles we had a total of 35 portages to complete - that is not a typo, the challenge of the course, so I am told, is the 35 locks you have to portage round, so our portage practice on the canal was invaluable.

What we had not factored into our training was kayaking through a tunnel. On the course there is a 516 meter tunnel - how hard can it be we thought?

Well the answer was VERY!

We entered the tunnel with the marshal shouting to inform us there were "swimmers in the tunnel". Up until that moment it hadn't entered my head that you might fall in in the tunnel! With that thought looming in our minds and the threat of a fast k2 immediately behind us, the dark and narrowness of the tunnel got the better of us and we too became "swimmers in the tunnel"!

So there we were, wet, in the dark and looking at either end of the tunnel thinking which end was closer to swim to - thankfully my brain was still working and as I looked backwards, which was slightly closer, I remembered that if we swam back to the start we would still need to paddle through it again - forwards it was then! Our hero, Jack, came to rescue us in his Canadian canoe and while Liz climbed in I continued to walk through the tunnel with the boat. 20 minutes later we arrived back in the sunlight! Once we climbed back into our boat and paddled on we decided that nothing else that day could be as bad so although we were colder we were invincible!!

We completed our 23 miles including our tunnel swim in 5hours 20 minutes. Not the fastest time on record but we finished! Both Liz and I managed to end up in the water at other points in our journey. For Liz, much to the amusement of a balcony full of people enjoying a Sunday lunchtime pint in the sunshine - the man who took that video needs to donate his £250 from "You've been framed" to Teenage Cancer Trust!!

So, our big weekend of preparation was completed- not without drama and certainly not without enjoyment! We learned a lot to help us in 4 week's time, least of all don't capsize in a tunnel.

Don't forget to visit our justgiving page, see the link just to the right, and make sure you keep our spirits high by donating anything you can.

Two Ladies, one kayak and 125 miles!

The Channeling Positivity Foundation is hopefully is on its way to being a fully fledged and official foundation. Hooray! And of course the fundraising efforts still continue; Claire and Liz have bravely taken on the next challenge to help raise the profile of Channeling Positivity and raise some much needed funds to help us to "inspire young people to lead positive lives". Hopefully over the next few months we will have an official and rather swanky looking web site and of course Claire and Liz's blog about their mamouth kayak race of 125 miles......ouch!!!! So stay in touch and I hand you over to Mrs Claire Kay......................

Last year I watched Justine and Kate plough through their long, gruelling and at times ridiculous training regime to prepare for their amazing channel swim. I followed, supported and help them in their fund raising efforts. One morning walking home with Justine from the school drop off, she had been talking me through the training for the week and recounting how much weed she and Kate had washed out of their cozzies after swimming in the Trent. As normal I laughed a lot and told her she was mad. Then she asked me if there was any sporting challenge I had ever wanted to do. Not me, I do that sort of thing, but I recounted a gruelling kayaking challenge that some friends had undertaken the year before, the Devizes to Westminster kayak race - 125 miles, "well" she said, "you should do it." Despite my protests she left me saying "you should Claire, why not?." "Perhaps I will" was my response.

Perhaps I will - what was thinking! To Justine my armour had cracked, I had signed my contract, she had her next challenge for Channelling Positivity, whether I liked it or not! That was in June last year so what have I been doing? Kayaking, running, oh yes and a bit more kayaking!

I plied my friend Liz with wine one evening and she agreed to join me in a K2. In August we thought we should probably learn to kayak, good idea if we intended to do that for 125 miles! We had both done a bit of paddling with our kids at Nottingham Kayak Club but I think we definitely wore the label, novice!

Now it is March and we are 5 weeks away from our challenge. Unfortunately as the Channelling Positivity Foundation is not yet off the ground we have been unable to fund raise for the Foundation, but are fund raising for the Teenage Cancer Trust and hoping that in the last five weeks we can raise the profile of Channelling Positivity and see if we can help find a benefactor or two to get this charity off the ground.

The inspiration of watching others succeed is very powerful. Experiencing success for yourself can be life changing.

Our challenge may not be as intense as Justine and Kate's channel swim, but for Liz and I it has already pushed us further physically and mentally than we ever expected. We are not as fit or as dedicated to our training as the girls were, and we started from a lower base but we still intend to achieve our goal as "anything is possible if you have courage", so Justine tells me!

Over the next 5 weeks we will keep you up to date with how we are dealing with our preparations. If we can help inspire others to give a challenge a go, we can show that the fundamental aspiration of the Channeling Positivity Foundation is sound and worth supporting.

We're back and looking good!

So it's a new year and I guess that means a new start. Kate and I have been ticking over since the big channel crossing in July, well that is if you consider Kate's evil swim sessions as "just ticking over!!!" Anyway, we haven't decided on another challenge yet but we do have one immediate goal and that's to get our Channeling Positivity Foundation off the ground. So we are in search of a benefactor or benefactors that would be willing to invest some money into the foundation and help us "to inspire young people to lead positive lives".

Having spent some considerable time working on an application to the Charities Commission they promptly rejected my plea for Foundation status as we could not demonstrate financial independence, despite having raised nearly £13,000 for charity. Therefore in order to get their golden handshake we need a minimum of £5000 in the bank......... ....red tape and hoops ring any bells!!!

So I guess Kate and I are just wondering whether any budding philanthropists out there would like to get behind the Channeling Positivity Foundation? If so, get in touch with me - justine.drury@tigersolutions.co.uk

So that's all for now but we are back on track and ready for action!