Whumping

A bit of a nice quiet day today. Well quiet on the sports side of things anyway, in terms of my day job it has been rather long and more eventful.

No coaching for me today, but I have managed to do a bit of exercise. Training today was made up of a paddle of the SUP this morning and I will be trying t jump on the bike for a spin tonight.

The SUP paddle was quite a lovely affair. For the first time I met up with some other paddlers and had a bit of a play with them. Fair to say they whumped me. Well, perhaps not a full blown whumping, but they showed me that I am definitely a better triathlete than I am a standup paddle boarder. They had faster boards than me for sure though, which is almost certainly the reason why they beat me...

Spoken like a true triathlete.

Still on the flip side, I have been very happy with how the standup paddle boarding has been progressing. Being a triathlete I can't help but measure and appraise myself, so I have been tracking my paddles on my Garmin. Over the few weeks that I have been paddling I have gained about 1.5km/hour, which is significant when you are talking about a max speed of about 10km/h. It is very refreshing to be in the rapid improvement phase of a sport again. With Triathlon I reached a plateau long ago and so for years I have been working in the space of incremental, gradual gains. Tweaking training routine, recovery habits, gear etc, looking for those little things that are going to gain you 1% here and 1% there. That wasn't a bad thing though, in fact I loved the challenge of trying to constantly look for improvements, but it nice to be doing something where the gains come easily and quickly. It can't last forever, but I am planning on enjoying it while I can.

Doing some paddling with others was a bit of fun too. Over the years of triathlon I have come to enjoy training by myself and I have always enjoyed being out on the river solo, which I find very peaceful, but it was fun to do a bit of work with other people today. I have found that while training with others isn't necessary all the time, having a group to push you can be an important tool for driving improvement. It is always easier to push that little bit harder when are chasing somebody. Today was no different.

I look forward to many more whumpings to come.