Are We All LARPing?

Mark Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) made a big splash yesterday. The elbows up crowd had their elbows so far up they practically began flying. I listened to the whole speech twice. Not because it was the best speech I had ever heard but because much of it was reminiscent of someone’s Linked In profile or the weird HR lady doing a presentation on cultural strengths at the wokest workplace. Jargon that sounds profound but when you slow the sound track down and actually listen, not simply hear, you wonder how lofty ideals, like “calibrating our relationships so their depth reflects our values” are instituted in real life.

Of course, if you do listen carefully, and also dig into the substance of Carney’s speech you realise that the lofty goals of decarbonising and net zero went out the window when economic crises loomed. Which, with the exception of everyone who has spent the last decade LARPing as a climate advocate while flying around the world, knew they would. The carbon tax, at least for households, was the first thing Carney removed. Next came boosts to mining, oil and gas production. In Carney’s own words: “We are fast-tracking $1 trillion of investments in energy, AI, critical minerals, new trade corridors and beyond.” Fast tracking, of course, is code for we have reduced environmental protections that cover resource extraction industries.

Canada is in a tough spot. The USA, which has always loomed over the country as an elephant towers over a mouse, is extremely reliant on trade with the USA. And, it’s not all one way, Canada imports 30% of its food and this is not all processed junk food which any country can actually thrive without, it includes fruits, vegetables and even meat. Almost 50% of Canada’s fresh produce is imported.

There is no doubt that Canada needs a new way forward, and Carney could be the man to orchestrate that. All this stuff is way outside my pay grade. I found being President of a recreational club challenging so I cannot imagine the pressures that the Prime Minister of Canada must feel as he seeks to realign an entire country's economy whilst trying to maintain the high standard of living that Canadian’s have come to expect.

Canada’s strength, Carney propounds is “a recognition of what’s happening and determination to act accordingly.” It is an “honesty about the world as it is” and “the capacity to stop pretending, to name realities.” This is the only way forward because no problem has ever been solved by obfuscation, and certainly Canada needs some truth and honesty about the issues it faces. The only problem is, are Canadian’s ready for truth and honesty?

The entire country is still in the grip of one of the greatest controversies of its entire history: the residential school affair, which has cost the country upwards of $40 billion despite the fact that no human remains have ever been found. And, of course, there was the illegal freezing of bank accounts during the trucker convoy in February 2022 when Canada’s government (under Trudeau) acted against its own citizens. In 2024, Canada’s publicly funded health program was forced to pay for a man to have a fake vagina created while keeping his own penis. The case was won because Ontario signed up to the WPATH guidelines (an interesting story by itself), and, Canada continues to house “trans” women (even those guilty of violent crimes) in women’s prisons. In fact, we can thank Canada for exporting to the world, entirely new categories of gender. Carney’s speech was both inspirational and aspirational but it remains to be seen whether the Canadian public is actually ready to grapple with reality or whether the entire enterprise is simply the placing of a different sign in the window.

Heart Rate Variability: Lessons from Sea Kayaking

On Monday we got our long paddle for the week done. Roughly 41 kilometres in 6 hours. The current must have been running slightly north this time. My theory is that the standard north to south east Australian current sometimes eddies back up the coast because our pace was almost a kilometre slower on the return journey. If you have a smart watch you can look at all your statistics from any training session at a glance. It’s interesting (at least to me) to look at pace with distance along the X axis and an overlay of heart rate.

The 20 kilometre mark is where we turned around (somewhere north of Grasshopper Island). Our speed drops immediately but my heart rate doesn’t really begin increasing until the 25 kilometre mark when we really start plugging back into the current outside the semi-shelter of Durras Bay. My heart rate is 10 to 20 beats per minute higher to maintain a slower speed! You might be tempted to think this is cardiac drift, but, it’s not because at the 35 kilometre point, my speed increases as my heart rate drops. From 35 kilometres on we are inside Batemans Bay, which provides shelter from ocean currents and swells even though it is a big open bay compared with other bays along the coast (like Jervis Bay). The paddling always gets much easier once we turn the corner and enter the bay.

Wednesday, Splashalot came up the coast and we went out for a downwinder and to test out our kayak sails which have not been on our kayaks since we paddled southwest Tasmania two years ago! It wasn’t nearly windy enough despite BOM calling for winds up to 25 knots. Some of these northeasterly days just turn out to be fizzlers. The lads set out at a cracking pace and despite starting before them (only by minutes) I was quickly the laggard. However, about half way out, their pace slowed and I was able to keep up. I had high hopes that with a sail up, catching waves would be easy and I might – for once – keep abreast of Speedalot (also known as Splashalot). It was not to be. Speedalot was out front despite having no sail. The waves were moving fast and the pissy amount of wind we had was not enough to get onto the runners without the usual sprint paddling.

This morning, Garmin thinks my body battery is 39 out of a 100, and I should “Try to keep stress low and relax today to charge your battery.” That’s not going to happen.

Loser Think: Vale Scott Adams

Scott Adams has died. Originally known as the author of the very popular Dilbert cartoons which lampooned cubicle life and spawned a book series, daily calendars and a range of merchandise including a video game, Adams also authored many books which became big sellers and garnered him a large following.

Adams was, of course, cancelled by the wokerati who claimed he made racist comments on his extremely popular live-streamed show Real Coffee with Scott Adams. What is notable about Adams, apart from having his career destroyed by the woke mob, is that many of his books, which could loosely fall into the self-help genre, changed millions of lives. Not because he was racist, or transphobic, or any other slur intended to destroy careers, reputations and livelihoods on the basis of imagined slights, but because his books showed ordinary people how to live less ordinary lives.

Adams was neither right nor left and advocated for a wide ranging world view where each individual idea is assessed based on its merits not according to ideology. He refused to define the world in terms of oppressor versus oppressed and gave average people the skills to improve their own lives. The left hated him for this.

Our ABC, re-published from AP (Associated Press) a hit piece masquerading as an obituary which features a sub-header “Descent into Misogyny and Racism,” proving, once again that the leftist woke movement is neither empathetic, nor caring, and is profoundly anti-human. To his credit, Adams, whose book, Loser Think, outlines the way in which modern media manipulates the readers would find the “obituary” fantastically amusing. He is probably composing a Dilbert cartoon about it right now.

Vale, Scott Adams. We are the poorer for your passing.

The Platitudes We Tell Ourselves

We’ve gone from four to three for the big paddle trip. I knew this was coming months ago, but, I hoped that our fourth would rally round and magically become fit and healed in the increasingly short time available. But, it’s all over now. When I was younger it was – and still is – a common platitude when you got your arse kicked on a mountain route to say “well, the mountain will still be there next year.” And the mountain will, but will you?

I am certainly not as fit as I was two years ago when we paddled from Macquarie Harbour to Southport in Tasmania. Nor am I as fit as I was when we did Bass Strait in 2022, or even the Furneaux Group in 2019. I can’t be, because I’m 62 and the grind gets harder and harder. While my muscle mass has decreased, my repetitive injuries have increased. It takes longer to recover, and I need to titrate my training more carefully. More reason to start early!

It’s not clear that our fourth man ever started training, but, if he had, would it have made a difference? At our age, the only downside to a long training cycle is boredom which is, tedious and mind-numbing, but you can learn to tolerate tedium and boredom. The upsides are almost too numerous to mention but the most important is you have time on your side if an injury or repetitive condition (most soft tissue/tendon issues) suddenly worsens. You can take a couple of weeks off to recover and not get panicked because you need to progress from paddling 10 kilometres on flat water to 40 kilometres on the ocean in conditions. I do like the British sea kayakers understatement where conditions includes gale force winds and Corryvreckan tidal rapids. It’s the same as starting early on a big mountain route. You need time so that you can deal with any eventualities that arise.

In one of those “I’m old enough to remember” moments, I am old enough and honest enough to admit that there are many old goals that have lived in my head for a long time that I am no longer capable of achieving. These days, instead of saying to myself “the mountain will still be there,” I say “you’ve only got one chance, make it work.”

A Morning Out

I was forced, by a flare up of an oldIT band issue, to spend the day on the couch yesterday. I’m so obsessive about training that I am always 1000% convinced that one day off will lead to all those “gainz” disappearing like free donuts at an Obesity Anonymous meeting (apologies to both donuts and the obese – I’m a bit fat myself). Anyway, I survived the rest day, I’m not sure how, likely just by trolling crazies on X, and this morning I took the kayak down to the beach for a paddle.

The wind was calm but the water a bit murky from the NE blow yesterday and there were lots and lots of fish. Not that I actually saw any fish as whenever I got near they flicked their tails and disappeared but there were big schools about. At the Tollgate Islands, the northerly current was insane! The NE swell was frequent but not big and, as I got near the Tollgates I thought I would be able to paddle around close in but the current had kicked up extremely volatile conditions. There were actual standing waves at the north and south end of the island and on the east side I was tossed about like a cork. The BOM surface currents chart shows the northerly current a bit below a knot off Batemans Bay but I think it had to be running faster than that to create standing waves.

It’s just a bit over four kilometres back to shore from the Tollgate Islands so I thought, as my leg had loosened up, I would have a crack at some speed work. I got my speed, briefly, up to 10 km/hour – wouldn’t it be magic to cruise at that pace – but I was getting pretty puffed out by the time I got into shore. According to Garmin, I spent 11 minutes at “threshold” which seems too low to me as I was huffing and puffing on the way back and eased up a few times to have a breather, and I certainly didn’t cover four kilometres in 11 minutes (more like 30 minutes). What’s most interesting about the graph is the two heart rate peaks: one in the latter half of the paddle as I sprint back to shore and the other as I paddle around the east side of the Tollgate Islands where I was thinking “shit, I’m about to capsize out here!”

A fun morning out and much preferred to the usual slow and steady 40 kilometres (which still has to be done).

Paddle Fit

We were only three for the Sunday paddle again. The list of injured, out of shape, or just not interested grows exponentially longer while the tally of the “paddle fit” shrinks. But what is “paddle fit” and how do you go from unfit to fit? For most people paddle fit means doing a bit of paddling, and, if you are really motivated, perhaps some supportive strength training or GPP (general physical preparedness) and hoping for the best. That’s like driving to a far off event with no idea of the route you will take. You might make it, but it’s more likely that you’ll: (a) never arrive; (b) arrive so late you missed the event; or (c) stagger in near the end of the event with a busted up vehicle and having taken ten times as long as everyone else. It’s not a strategy for success.

Long distance sea kayaking is primarily an endurance sport, which means you need first and foremost aerobic capacity and, despite the promises of fitness influencers, the only way to build aerobic capacity is do what is commonly known as LAD (long aerobic distance). If you are out of shape, you start with perhaps as little as 10 minutes a day and build gradually. It’s long, it’s slow, it’s tedious and it is absolutely necessary. No-one paddles 40 kilometres in a day without aerobic capacity. The reason some people maintain aerobic capacity year round with little specific training is that they are continuously active in their aerobic zone. They bicycle, bushwalk, trail run and paddle. All those things use different muscles in different amounts but they are all aerobic activities and build the necessary aerobic base. If you are working within your aerobic zone, you can go out day after day after day without undue fatigue.

But, if your muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints are not conditioned and strengthened as well, all the aerobic capacity in the world won’t help. This is why runners build slowly, to condition their musculoskeletal system to handle the load. I can come off my winter season reasonably aerobically fit (because I never stop doing some kind of aerobic activity) but if I go out and try and paddle 40 kilometres, my aerobic system will handle the activity no problem but I’ll be in a world of hurt – and quite possibly injury – because my musculoskeletal system is not conditioned to that volume. The beauty of being a multi-sport athlete is, I can keep training my aerobic system by simply switching to another sport. While I build to paddling 40 kilometre days, I can ride, run or walk and I’ll still be improving my aerobic system. And, of course, with other sports available I can also add in intensity without risking injury.

Intensity is best trained via tempo and interval training. Tempo training improves lactate clearance and recycling which means you can produce more power (go faster) for longer. Interval training pulls in fast twitch muscles to improve power and provides speed for those burst efforts, like surf breakouts, or paddling hard to catch waves. If you have an aerobic base, these two workouts are way, way more enjoyable than the drudgery of the long aerobic distance. Both tempo and intervals however, have to come on top of an aerobic base, and it’s surprisingly common how poor an aerobic base many paddlers have. You can actually work out with some simple at home tests when it is time to add intensity to your training.

Finally, GPP, the building block that most endurance athletes prefer to avoid. General physical preparedness is simply strength training incorporating the four functional human movement patterns, or five if you are a Dan John aficionado. Push, pull, hinge, squat, loaded carry. Two to three times a week. As you get more experienced you can vary specific exercises and tempos or add power and dynamic movements, but, like aerobic conditioning, the bulk of strength training should be basic multi-joint movements. And it’s not Les Mills Body Pump. Strength training is not 700 squats with no load to cringe 80’s music. Strength training is 3 to 5 sets of 3 to 5 reps as heavy as you can maintain form. When the load gets easy, the weight goes up.

There is, of course, a whole science of strength training but given that most paddlers don’t lift at all, the goal is simply to get started with some basic GPP. Most older adults would benefit from a hypertrophy phase (like a Delorme protocol) but when hardly anyone lifts, the goal is simply to start lifting. This is especially important for women as we are smaller and weaker than men. Women can have the best paddle stroke in the world and we will still struggle to out perform men because men have more muscle and hence can generate more power. The reason most blokes can out perform even elite females is because of muscle mass and the concordant ability to produce more power.

Few choices in life are truly binary, and training isn’t technically binary. You could choose to train some attributes and let others slide, but, if you don’t train at all, one thing is certain, you’ll never be really paddle fit.

I like to say that the only people who are not enthusiastic about training are those who haven’t trained correctly. The only people who hate lunges are those who’ve never done enough of them to experience what strong legs feel like on the trail. The only ones who hate long, slow aerobic capacity–building runs and skis are those who have never known what it feels like to sail up the mountain, nose to the wind, with ease. Relaxed, poised, moving fast and flying. Steve House.

The Sunday Paddles: Surfing by the Tollgate Islands

“Keep an eye on the weather” Doug said as we parted at Snapper Island. We had been surfing on the Clyde River bar. The conditions were better than you might expect for a primarily NE swell, and a high and rising tide, but, if you got the waves right, the runs were long.

Robbie and I headed out to the Tollgate Islands. By the time we got there, a big black cloud bank had spread out all the way to the Tollgates. Robbie and I paddled through the gap and rapidly back to shore. A half kilometre out we could hear thunder rumbling. I got home just as the storm moved in.

First 40 of the New Year

Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. General George Patton.

I needed a rest day. Not my body this time but my mind. In the contest between two introverts and one extravert, the extravert wins. Every time. The house was blissfully quiet and I got all the little jobs that had added up over the week done.

Doug had done his long day for the week on Tuesday, it was Friday when I did mine. The winds were light all day with just a 10 knot easterly building later in the day. The swell was up; in the two to three metre range with some long period waves coming through. It was just after 6:30 am when I started paddling with no real idea where I was heading. I headed north to Snapper Island and then, because the tide was very high and it is a long time since I have done this, I went all the way up Cullendulla Creek. There were a lot of fish jumping.

East then, past the dumping surf on Long Beach, threading my way through a rock passage between Maloneys and Long Beaches, only possible at the highest tide. At Reef Point, the swell was breaking and I had to put on some power to spear over the bigger waves and into Maloneys Beach where I ate a rather nasty left over chicken burger (not recommended). Out past Three Isle Point and North Head and on towards Oakey Beach, but I was getting queasy; the sea had that oily, greasy, roiling greyness where sky and sea are indistinguishable so I turned about and headed south to the Tollgate Islands where I ate something slightly less disgusting but not actually good tasting (cottage cheese and banana) breaking my own rule to never become a sea kayaker who eats bananas.

South again to Black Rock and starting to feel I desperately needed a cup of tea. Circuit Beach had a spilling wave and not too many people so I landed there and enjoyed tea out of a plastic mug. On the move again after 10 minutes heading back north following the shore. Lots of swimmers and sun-bathers at Surf Beach, a few less at Denhams Beach, and then only three or four at Sunshine Cove. My watch was stubbornly one kilometre shy. Doug would stop, but I think the power of training is in not stopping when you desperately want to, so I thought about Steve Bechtel’s latest training article, and turned and paddled 500 metres out to sea, and then back again.

J's Big South Coast Adventure

I made this map for J. The kilometres may be a bit off. J’s Garmin watch steadfastly recorded about two kilometres less than my watch on every outing. On the first afternoon of J’s arrival, we walked just 2.5 kilometres, a little loop walk that takes in a beach, a headland, and a bridge over a creek.

Next day I drove us up to the Dam Loop near the Botanic Gardens. We walked around the Dam Loop. The mountain bike trails would have been hopping but we only saw two young blokes who had randomly picked a “blue loop” from TrailForks and ended up on the Dam Loop which is all but abandoned by mountain bikers these days – with good reason - there were half a dozen trees down, the track is eroded and covered in sticks and even logs. After the loop, we went into the Botanic Gardens for a beverage at the cafe and then with a handy laminated map the volunteer at the counter gave me we walked around all six of the giant trees in the Gardens. I had remembered the spotted gum at the far southeastern end of the Gardens as bigger than it was in life. Like being a child and finding adults tall then growing up and realising some adults are actually quite short.

On Monday, we all three drove down to McKenzies Beach to walk the Munjip Track. I had planned for us to take the bus – I love public transport and I love taking the bus to walk home – but J’s morning routine seems to be much longer than ours and I wasn’t sure we would make the first bus. As it was a public holiday, the service was pretty sporadic. McKenzies Beach used to be a great surf beach but all the east coast lows have steepened the beach so much that it’s almost always a shore dump now. It was a glorious day on the Munjip Track and we did all the side tracks to lookouts. At Mosquito Bay we discovered we were rather hungry so we had lunch (thanks for the burgers J!) at the cafe. It was busy. I will never understand how or why people will drive down from their holiday home to wait half an hour for someone to make a middling burger when you could make ten burgers that are more delicious for the same price at home in half the time. But, as my grandma used to say “there’s nowt so queer as folk.”

Tuesday, I did weight training before we cycled into town, over the bridge and around the shore to the Cullendulla Nature Reserve and the mangrove boardwalk. I thought this would be a rest day for J after the previous two days, but, given her Garmin body battery was 9 when we got home and she wrote: “up and down hills,” for the first and last half hour even though there aren’t really any hills!

Our longest walk, at six hours, was from Cookies Beach to Maloneys Beach. J and I drove to Cookies Beach (so many cars!) and walked to Maloneys Beach while Doug drove to Maloneys Beach and walked north. We did all the lookouts, of course, but our pace was quite slow so don’t be deterred by the time taken.