Everyone
should know the concept of the minimum effective dose. The smallest amount of anything, be it
medication, supplementation or training, that produces the desired
effect. As a concept, it is worthwhile to think about when planning
your training for a big event or trip, but, in practice, it is
impossible to determine in advance, and probably equally infeasible
to estimate afterwards. You might get through the trip but perhaps,
with a little more or a little less training, you might have been
faster, or less tired, or more able to do extra distance.
After a big trip, I always think about whether or not my training
was adequate. Less often, I wonder if my nutrition was adequate.
Nutrition on trips is much harder to control than training. I would
love a steak, salad and potatoes every night on a sea kayak trip but
it is just not possible. Nutrition often falls into the category of
just doing your best while recognising that best is nowhere near
ideal.
First real meal after finishing at Southport
Before we started and certainly once we finished paddling from
Strahan to Southport, I was convinced I would never undertake such a
trip again. It was not so much the trip that put me off but the
training. As I enter my 7th decade on this planet (I’m
61 this year), I realise, with a good dollop of dismay, that while I
can continue to stay active and do lots of things, my ability to
recover from “lots of things” is reduced and takes more time;
steak, salad and potatoes for dinner every night notwithstanding.
The corollary is, if I’m doing more kayak training, I have to
decrease the other activities I do in order to recover. Trail
running, bush walking and climbing all fell away in the months
leading up to our Tasmania paddle trip.
Nick and Doug at Southport
My schedule was roughly – every seven to ten days (dependent on
recovery): one long paddle day up to 50 kilometres, one day working
speed: 12 to 15 kilometres on the ocean maintaining as fast a pace as
possible (trying to maintain a pace of about 8 km/hr), one day on
skills, and one day paddling in “Tasmania like conditions” –
wind, rain, big swells (or all the former together). Additionally, I
strength trained three days per week, albeit focusing on maintenance
not building, and, I ran the Saturday Park Run for metabolic
conditioning.
Plugging into a 20 knot wind on a training day
Doug and I did all our training, with the exception of two days,
on the ocean. While I think it is possible to train for flat-water
paddling on the ocean, I don’t believe one trains appropriately for
ocean paddling on flat-water. The two are different in so many ways,
not least getting comfortable paddling in difficult conditions.
Early morning start on a long training day
Various friends and acquaintances had different ideas about how we
should train for such a trip, and these varied from doing all our
paddling with loaded boats, to training almost entirely using intervals or sessions of no more than three hours. As none of these
folks had successfully completed a trip like ours, I felt confident
giving these ideas no further space in my mind. Talk, as Mark Twight
said, minus action equals zero. Additionally , there is fairly well
supported research evidence to suggest that none of these suggestions
is actually a good way to prepare for long endurance events.
Entrance to Mainwaring Inlet on a stormy day
Overall, I think my training was effective, although towards the
end, a good deal of mental discipline was required as I was
thoroughly sick of spending so much time in a small boat on a big
ocean, week after week, and month after month. I don’t think I
could have got away with less, but I’ll never really know. I was
certainly tired after a long days paddle with a loaded boat but not
overwhelmingly so. Weather days were occasionally welcome!
When the trip was over, I felt surprisingly “run down.” It’s
hard to explain, but I did not have my usual energy and, although we
did some bush walking afterwards, the bush walking trip we did was
much less than I would normally have been satisfied with doing. I
lost three kilograms on the paddling trip, a percent of my body
weight that would be declared a rampant success for any weight loss
program or treatment. In retrospect, I think the weight loss was the
cause of my general run down feeling.
On the Du Cane Plateau overlooking Walled Mountain
It’s not quite three weeks since we finished up our big trip
with an easy 18 kilometre paddle into Southport on a sunny and calm
day. I swore I would never do a trip that required that much
preparation and training again, but, already this morning, as I
strolled along my local beach on a drizzly morning, I started
thinking, maybe it wasn’t so bad.