What follows is a transcript of Trevor’s Radio Five Live interview with Nick and Caroline…
Nick “So! Hi Trevor from Richmond Canoe Club…hows the rowing??”

Tevor “I’ve no idea”

Nick “Great!! Er..what is it you do down there”

Trevor: “Tea drinking, some paddling, that kind of thing..”

Nick “Fab, fab..now I hear you’re out on the river a lot, is that right?”

Trevor “Yes, we’re a canoe club…on the Thames”

Nick “Wonderful, I imagine getting wet is all part of the fun!!!”

Trevor: “No, it isn’t”

Caroline: “So how do the starts work, what happens..y’know, in races?”

Trevor “I Shout ‘GO’”

Nick “Really? Fascinating…very, and do the girls and boys enjoy that kind of thing?”

Trevor “Oh yes, they love it”

Caroline “I hear it’s an Olympic sport, that must be terribly exciting?”

Trevor “Sometimes”

Caroline “It must be great having Steve Redgrave as an ambassador to the sport?”

Trevor “Oh yes, he’s a great canoeist”

Caroline “I think you’ll find he’s a rower?”

Trevor “You’re the expert”

Nick “Great, great.. thanks Trevor, must try some rowing myself…now over to Caroline who thinks she may have some news about David Beckham’s socks..Caroline?”

I find myself, on ‘World Canoeing Day’, canoeing. Which is nice. Now, the Royal Canoe Club Marathon is just up river so there’s no excuse. I had one last year but ‘the dog ate my canoe’ is wearing thin so it was with no hesitation did I agree to Graham’s invite to ‘do a K2 at Royal’. How hard can it be, 4 miles bit of a lark, nice sunny day..home for the Tennis. We talked about ‘training’ but there didn’t seem much point, we did some last year and that’d be enough wouldn’t it? Switched the phone off, went back to what I do best…sleeping. Had odd dream about some being ‘not quite right’ but other than that..a successful friday afternoon snooze.

Y’see, and this is important, what I’d failed to understand is that Graham is in Div 5 and he’s not allowed to muck around in the lower divisions, 7 - 9, where racing 4 miles is considered ‘quite some way’. Guess which division I currently languish in? Hastily look up past racing glorious in vain attempt at finding any event where I’d gone more than 4 miles without stopping. None or ‘zero’ if you like. The club 10K is my only (irregular) attempt at any kind of ‘racing’ and that stops at 6 miles. Divs 4,5 & 6 do eight miles. EIGHT miles! I’m generally very tired after six, I’m going to be dead after eight. EIGHT!

Which is why I stopped at four pints of very strong lager on Saturday night and why Graham went to a Church Fete on Sat morning. Neither of us wanting to ruin our chances (of actually finishing) by doing anything stupid and, the fete excepted, I think it was a good strategy.

Anyway, it’s sunny and the river seems flat enough. I pass Richmonds secret weapon around, wine gums. If only Stella made sweets. We’re in Grahams Viper, I do like the imagery, sort of coiled ready for action type of thing. Smells a bit tho’. Much banter before the start and there’s four boats from Richmond in Div 5/6 making 8 in total. Naturally we decline to make it easy for ourselves by discussing any sort of strategy or by getting close to the fast line near the bank. No, we’re still diss’ing each other and making childish remarks and therefore miss the “5 seconds” warning. Everyone, that is, apart from Graham who’s off like a startled hare and even more suprisingly we’re playing hardball with the Wey/Elmbridge contingent who have clearly being talking tactics and form a mathmatically precise diamond before you can say ‘thats nice’. Undaunted Graham dodges and weaves around searching out a wash that’ll suit us and we do hang on for about a 1000m before we burn out.

Peter and Tim, having taken it easy, catch us up and we stroll, purposefully you understand, towards Hampton Court. We catch John a Richmond Div 3 paddler who it turns out later, misses the turn above the lock and does a couple of K further than is Div colleagues. We do make it hard for ourselves. Anyway we get caught by a Div 5 K1 and Peter (with Tim) seeing his chance leaps on her wash and we do the same. Hampton Ct bridge is a Triumph of ‘turning’ and we charge after the K1..which is pink. Much to’ing and fro’ing with the washes with the K1 driver’s coach shouting, from the bank, exhortations for us to do more work! Thats not really us and Peter gives up the chase. Graham is made of sterner stuff and anyway he likes pink so he ups the pace until we’re back on the wash. If we’re not careful we’ll come fifth. Big battle continues through Kingston Bridge and we grit out teeth to take the line. From our 12 year old adversary. Pah! Nobody underestmates ‘The Viper’ Hsssssssss. etc. etc.
Graham is inexplicably tired after all this while I’m feeling quite fresh. I can only put that down to superior fitness and natural speed of recovery but he seems keen to put it down to lack of effort on my part. The cheek! Thats the last time I let him have any of my wine gums. Strangely I even have enough energy to walk home across the park, perhaps he’s right…I should have at least taken my paddles with me…

Karl rings: “Fancy doing the 10K in a K2?”. And so it begins…
Hang around on bank waiting for K to arrive, advise Trevor not to ink us in until we’re actually on the start line. Amazingly Karl arrives with time to spare (no really he did) and we get a boat out .

We chat to other 10K’ers for 15 mins then with 90 secs to go throw boat in water and leap in. Foot rest is broken, fish boat out sling it on a rack get another one, chuck it in water 20 seconds to go. “K2, 5 seconds, Goweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee”

Karl is pumped up and the first thirty seconds involves a flailing rate of 120 strokes/min. Well that was the front of the boat, the back (me) was going at something less than that. I’m in lactic acid territory before we’re past the bottom of glovers and more or less exhausted by the time we round the top. Karl slows to 119 spm which although twice what Im doing seems to suit us perfectly…Lap one passes without major incident tho’ the boat is bucking and rolling like rollercoaster on acid. Nettie doesn’t care what style we’re using and jumps on our, not inconsiderable, wash. Lap two gets more exciting as Stu passes us with Mr Wells glued to his side. Karl ups the rate again and we’re soon in my ‘not feeling very good’ zone. This is quickly followed by the ‘can’t feel arms zone’ as Karl gets on Stu’s wash. We fall off with ’steering issues’ then hang around for Nettie to catch up as we’ve lost her doing out washing machine impression.

Lap three and we’ve settled into a nice boat leveling compromise of Karl leaning to the left and me to the right with Nettie clipping my paddles occasionally just to let us know shes still there. Richmond bridge looms which seems to light Karl’s touchpaper, mines a bit damp and it a few seconds before I realise he’s planning to sprint to the line. Sprint!!! 9.5K of hard slog and he wants me to sprint!! I dig some extra ’stuff’ from somewhere and the boat lurches faster towards the line, we even lose Nettie, but I’d like to think it was because of our speed…not the unpredictable nature of our steering…Anyway we zoom across the line in a sharpish 50:22 which is a shade below our target of 49 something.

Me: “Think you should’ve gone off faster at the start…felt we could’ve maintained a higher rate”…(laden with irony, edged with sarcasm)
Karl: “Yeah, I kept it down coz I didn’t think you’d keep up” (free of any verbal nuance)

As if we at Richmond canoe club didn’t know that! After years of flying in the face of popular opinion (sports drinks pah!) we have now been completely vindicated in our choice of beverage. Tea’s health giving benefits have now been underlined in an influential reports by contributers to the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. European, Nutrition..no less…They also found that, contrary to popular belief that it is not dehydrating and that it is ‘healthier’ than water. So yippee and all that. Research funded by the Tea Council, nothing wrong with that. No. Nothing. And members of the Tea Council would be as independent as any member of Richmond Canoe club wouldn’t they. They would..we are. If we’d paid someone to justify our tea drinking and they found no such justification we’d accept that. Wouldn’t we? We would, no question. Pass me that teabag, milk, one sugar.

OK, so last week wasn’t 56:20 it was a windy, bumpy, tidal 57:40 and can therefore be assigned to the 10K bin of history without a backward glance.

This week looks more promising with only torrential rain promised. Thats despite the BBC weather website showing a little fluffy cloud for the whole days weather. The whole day ending at 4pm when everything turns blue, which, I believe stands for “Don’t go out, you’ll be drowned”. But we’re canoeists right? That means water holds no perils for us and anyway I’ve had lots of practice at the w/e (see last post) so I’m ready. No tide, a little breeze…easy peezie, look out 56:19 my names written all over you.

Due to congestion I take decision to put boat in at end of raft, not entirely vindicated as I get blade stuck under boat and nearly capsize. Water is still flowing quite fast and wind is more like 10mph than the 6mph promised by the multi billion pound met office computer system. At least they got the direction right….

Trevor, fresh from shouting at juniors in the Cezch republic bellows a “Neeeeil go!!” and I sprint off towards Glovers. I’m chasing Alastair in a Lance and John who’s been looking suspiciously relaxed in our training sessions. Gasping for breath at the turn I overtake Alastair but the size of my wash is too tempting and he hangs on as I attempt to chase down John. He stays ahead until the turn at the bridge where he makes the schoolboy error of assuming I can drive and promptly gets shoved in the stern for his troubles. Not one to dwell I nip up the inside with Alastair keeping me company..I don’t think he’s gonna give up!

Lap one done, Mat + Marcus steam past and I get a lift for 100m then Karl+Iain provide another 50M but Alastair’s gone so lap two is lonely (sob) and fecking hard work (why do we do this?). Last lap is livened up by Milos who wash hangs for a couple of minutes then eases past followed by Chris H. who, in the spirit of Albert Steptoe, veered off towards Petersham meadows rather than offer me his wash. No hard feelings but I’d glue that polysterene into your boat pronto…

Feel like someones pulling me back on a large elastic band as I pass Richmond bridge with 500m to go and, metaphorically speaking everythings bar a smoking exhaust pipe has fallen off. My reward for this level of exertion? Two seconds. Precisely two seconds off my best (three weeks ago). A new best time for sure but 10K god of time keeping must’ve been having a laugh…Anyway 56:18 is the target, 10K is the process (I do wish it was shorter).

I do love touring. Not as much as I love…Special, obviously but enough to pitch up on Sunday morning at 8am. We (20 people, 10 boats) are heading off to Wey canoe club and the Wey navigation where the water awaits our …y’know…boats…

So, Jim has, rather cunningly in Peter’s absence, given me the role of ‘Boat Distributor’ which although straightforward in principle is….not. 10 boats, twenty people…the maths isn’t hard but the people and the boats they prefer are. AND some (boats) are less seaworthy than they appear with the stilleto being the first casualty with a broken rudder followed by a missing ‘new’ discovery and a knackered ‘old’ one. Anyway much counting and re-counting (thanks Sarah) is done and boats are lobbed on cars and we head for Guildford. Sort of. Marie-D, Dave and Rait all conspire to overshoot by a few miles and we have to go via the ’scenic’ route. I never said I could navigate so its not my fault. Ever. Did I mention the driving rain?

Eventually get to Wey where everyone else is looking shifty and drinking tea. Can’t exactly discern an atmosphere of ‘C’mon lets go!!’ but Jim insists we empty the boats of rainwater (did I say it’d been raining?) and get on the water. Surprisingly little faff and we’re heading off towards Send…in the rain (did I mention it was?..it was). Jim, in his ignorance, has asked me to look after the faster crews at the front. Touring it seems has it’s ‘quicker’ devotees whose idea of touring is clashing blades, wash hanging and portages that don’t involve yawning and stretching. Canter up to first lock with Tom + Coralie, Vanessa + Gordon and..Sue who’s in the back of the Condor I’m driving. This is her first experience of my driving and theres a shocked silence emanating from the back. Vanessa’s driving is worse than mine and, admittedly whilst wash-hanging, I’m forced to execute my newly aquired but little practiced ‘bow rudder’ stroke. No harm done and we quickly retrieve ourselves from the reeds where I’d driven us and up to the next lock. Through the rain. Which was wet.

We get to Send and coz it’s so cold (and wet, it was raining) we hop back in and meet the main body of the tour at the last lock. Everyone turns round and we head back towards the club (Wey, not Richmond…do keep up). Though not before it manages to rain even harder. Portages are getting slippy and Gordon nearly gets even wetter (not possible) exiting his boat and I nearly lose Sue whilst doing the splits on a pontoon…My walking tights under a great deal of pressure executing that maneuver let me tell you…

Get back to the club which, technically, is only half way but a quick straw poll reveals only one taker, Coralie, for the next 10 mile loop. “You English, you are so weak, no wonder the Normans found it so easy in 1066..it was probably raining and you were all inside drinking tea and eating sandwiches..Pah!”. After a shower (more water but warm) we decamp to the club room, drink tea and eat sandwiches while reminding Coralie that the French cavalry got bogged down in mud at Agincourt and were decimated by English archers. “Yes but you still drink warm beer and eat ‘buffet bars’ bought from garages!!”. Neil (diving) clearly overstepping the line here, declares that the beauty of French women is vastly overstated and that Terry Henry has less va-va-voom than his half eaten buffet bar. A taxi is ordered and Neil is helped into his coat while the more Francophone members of the group console the two distraught (affronted & insulted) French ‘tourers’. Everyone agrees that all French women are indeed stunningly beautiful and that Mr Henry has double and likely three times more va-va-voom than any of Ginsters products.

Finally, Flasks are emptied, aluminum foil is carefully folded and then we load the, now dry, boats onto the cars. Did I mention it had stopped raining? Did I mention the sun peeped out? Did I mention that there was an unspoken agreement that this was not to be mentioned? Did I? I did.

Thats what I’ve got to beat, last weeks time of 58 minutes and 22 seconds. Loins are girded, oiled and generally prepared. Lucky pants are worn, rabbits foot secured….black cats escorted from premises, mirrors unbroken. Whats more, sneaky line on inside secured and general pleas to ‘move over’ ignored.

Trevor ushers last K2 onto water, its Catherine and Sue. Late arrival not, it seems, due to hair or makeup adjustments. Definitely not, no sireeee no slap in this boat. Nope, not ever. Sue makes last adjustment to waterproof mascara and the first ‘mass’ start is ready. So finely attuned am I to Trevors starting procedure I begin to paddle on the inhale slightly proceeding the ‘G’ on Goewwww!. Subsequent lead is phenomenal and I proceed towards the top of Glovers in an eerie silence. Well executed turn at the top is followed by a relatively …no,bloody quick…canter down to the raft. Trevor shouts “6:25 for Glovers, what drugs are you on??”. Nothing you can afford Trevor.

Exactly who do I think I am? The thought passes briefly through my mind as the first lap goes by and as Trevor shouts “18 minutes 30″ I begin to get ahead of myself. Now, my maths isn’t that strong but after years of buying drinks for Karl and Graham my arithmetic is….adequate. Three times 18 and a half is (tap, tap, tap =) 55 and a half minutes and that means I’m flying! Y’know, the best things in life are free but a decent time on the 10K has to be paid for. A fast first lap is expensive and debt repayment is swift and unavoidable. Bugger.

Second lap is painful and it serves me right, Tony sneaks up the inside before Corporation Island and after a brief inquiry as to his line he’s gone. Feck, feels like I’m paddling in porridge made worse by the flying wedges steaming past and gernerally messing it up. Fortunately Tim, deciding to take the plunge with a Jag, takes a plunge…Which is good coz he was catching me. I am ruthless and I don’t care. Karl offers me his wash but I decline on the grounds that his wardrobe still isn’t finished.

Lap three and it can’t come soon enough. Can barely raise arms and to make matters worse I’ve inhaled three flies and a bee. Richmond bridge and the flies have been joined by a mosquito lodged in my ear, I lose at least five minutes fishing it out (OK, OK, 3 seconds) but manage to find enough energy to ’sprint’ for the raft.

Check the book and its 56:20, thats a whopping 2 minutes off last weeks!!!!!! At two minutes a week I’ll be under 40 minutes by July and under 20 by September.
Retire to White Cross for celebration. Jim forces me to drink four pints of special and I swear I heard Catherine say she’d been asked for ID at Waitrose…..

Catherine: “I am buying wine and I have ID if you need it”

Checkout: “No I don’t need it, you look over 18″

Catherine: “Most people think I’m not, here’s my passport.”

Checkout: “Yes. You look over 18 and your passport proves you are. Thank you.”

Catherine: “Why don’t you ring for the supervisor. It could be a false passport.”

Checkout: “You can have the wine for free if you like.”

Jim buys more Special and Catherine goes home. The events are unconnected but only coincidently. Coincidently drinking Special enables you to get up Nightingale Hill without any effort. I don’t know why. Go home, Park is strangely devoid of deer. Lie down in dark room.

Arrive 9am at club, do more gardening. Towpath now looking splendid and it’s possible we might not kill any cyclists as theres a bit more room (in case you’re wondering why). Am nursing slight hangover from dinner party and only have vague recollections about what was said or even where it was. Good job I recorded it. Listen to recording while waiting for Jim & Karen to arrive. Odd but conversation seems to have centered around shoes and canoeing with a fair amount of heated discussion surrounding the efficacy of paddling in stilletos. Bunch of weirdos.

Climb into back of Jims car as Karen bags the front seat. I pass her the road map and pass out. Arrive Lechlade, nr Swindon, which is the start of the Big Paddle. Inspect splendid campsite and wander into town to check facilities. Town has a freehouse (The Swan) so we’re alright. Karen thinks we should check out the facilities and disappears into the supermarket. Apparently Stella is on offer until the end of June so we’re OK in there too. Eat chips.

Drive to next campsite Eynesham lock and inspect facilities. Pub is Arkells but we won’t hold that against them and the landlady is very friendly and we negotiate menus and prices. Good stuff. Check with lock keeper that the site has hairdryers, hair straighteners, makeup mirrors and all the stuff that Richmond canoe club requires on tour. Admittedly we only saw the toilet (very nice) but Nick (the lock keeper) assured us that everything would be in place before June. He also said that the grass would be mown, large spiders evicted and the volume on the weir would be turned down especially for us. We thanked him for his time, Karen ticked the boxes, wrote down the guest ales and we left for the next campsite.

Arrive Cookham, lots of facilities tho’ not sure any of them were freehouses but the Ferry Serves London Pride. Thank god for small mercies. Karen’s happy with the facilities so we walk to the lock via a Rolph Harris painting. Rolph if you’re reading this I still don’t know what it is yet. Lock keeper v friendly and we inspect the shower..singular…which is one more than the last site. This should be interesting, might have to ‘double up’, Jim starts a “shower sharing” list the finalisation of which is eagerly anticipated. We decamp back to car pleased with our efforts.

Arrive at canoe club, cycle home in dinner party attire, get chased by large dog, fall asleep whilst taking socks off.

Karl phones; “Ready for the speed stuff?”, I drop my jam doughnut in surprise. He’s proposing a one-on one-off session x 10 x 2. Now, if my maths is up to it, that amounts to 20 mins of…y’know…very hard work. Naturally I say yes, those years in the SAS have certainly toughened me up and I’m not afraid of a little pain. Hang on, that was the RAC. Still, they’re renowned for being..being…er…motorised.

Get to club early and do some gardening. Accosted by lady in thick purple jumper, odd shoes and a woolly hat who accuses me of “killing the plants”. It’s hard to deny, I’ve just massacred a hundred foot of towpath and the place is strewn with ‘dead’ weeds. I claim self defence, they attacked first but she fails to see the funny side and declares her intent to report me to the council. Notoriety at last.
Karl arrives and I find the biggest double bungey I can find to wrap round his boat. It’s only fair, he now has more lard than me and needs the workout. Karl has never had a bungey on his boat and thinks it’ll slow him down just a tad. Subsequently exhausts himself on the warm-up and by the time we’ve done the first set he’s a gibbering wreck. I’m a speechless wreck. However, The Merrie Thames appears like a mirage thru the heat haze and we abandon the second set for larking around in it’s wash. Much more fun, much less pain and to be honest…much faster. I wonder if the driver is interested in the 10K?

Narrowly avoid being turfed into river by evasion tactics of Merrie Thames. How was I to know she was going to do a sharp turn to port in order to avoid an erratic rowing boat? This was supposed to be a warm up paddle…arrive back at raft shaken but unstirred. Drink tea to get warm and watch Graham chop the carefully painted balustrade. Theres a plan apparently.

So, find myself on the water idly wondering how fast (slow) i’ll be..NEIL!!! GoeWWWW!!!…feck thats me. I splash off towards Glovers in pursuit of Tim whose in a Lance, I chop 10 meters off him with with a turn that has me amongst the branches on the other side of the Island. I spit some leaves out and gallop down towards the bridge. This can’t last and sure enough things start hurting by the time the turn at Twickers comes round. Hellfire I do hate paddling upstream and the shallow bit near Richmond bridge sucks my boat down until it feels like I’m not making any forward progress. This is followed by a short altercation with the wooden slates marking the bank near the moorings and some more leaf spitting as i snag some trees near the start. Splendid first lap.

Second lap is more fruitful as Paul C makes the school-boy error of going inside the boats after Glovers. I take 10 meters out of him and try to hunt down Charmian who is somewhere in the distance. However Neil (Diving) appears first and I nudge is stern just to let him know I’m there and he careers off to the right (it was an accident honest). Make a smart turn at Twickers then plow back to the start. How hard is this?

Lap three and the wheels are coming off as is my steering. Manage to get in the way of assorted K1s and a couple of K2s as I misjudge the turn at Glovers. Seems I’ve misjudged someone else as Tim scoots past me at Richmond bridge and I desperately try to hang onto his wash. Fortunately he makes an enormous turn at the bridge and I sneak up beside. He’s not finished tho’ and gets past me…git. Anyway throw caution to the wind and use the last of my dwindling energy to chase him to the finish….

Check the book and I’ve done 58:20 which for me isn’t bad. My targets 55 by September and Karls threatened to help me with ’speed training’. If it’s as fast as his DIY it could be a slow year.

Retire to White Cross for beer & shouting then head home…