Training Session 1

Sun, 24 Jun 2007 18:35:17 +0200

Training Session 1 –

It’s not what I expected. The town that is. I suppose I should have remembered that it is in the middle of the Yukon Territory, an area covering 186,661 square miles with a total population of 33,000 people (by comparison, England is 50,337 square miles with almost 61 million people). But never mind all that, after all we aren’t actually classifying ourselves as tourists, Kieran is a racer and I’ve been relegated the illustrious title of “Land Crew” – so much for “Empress of the Universe”.

Our departure for the great race started out was a bit marred with a two hour delay out of London. Not usually a problem, but in my infinite travelling wisdom, I gave us only a 2 ½ hour layover in Vancouver for our flight to Whitehorse. We missed our check-in by seconds due to the fact that the normally happy and easy going Canadians were having none of it – maybe because Kieran looks a little intimidating with his freshly shaven head (a fact which inevitably led to his being searched at every security opportunity). The look on Kieran’s face indicated that he was less than impressed with any of it. I felt the only answer was beer – enough to blur the passing of time during an unexpected six hour layover.

So now we’re here, and Kieran is off on his first training run as I type this. After two days, the town is beginning to grow on me, the scenery is absolutely stunning and available for viewing 22 hours a day as the sun only sets between 200a and 400a. This morning during our 600a ‘check the river’ walk (please don’t be impressed – jet lag has us in bed before 1000p and up at 430a) we saw a beautiful golden eagle skimming along the tree line near the river. In the afternoon we saw four bald eagles soaring over the hills looking for some unsuspecting rodent. If you love the outdoors, you really should find your way up here at some point.

Everything is perfect leading up to the race. The weather was about 30 degrees on Thursday but it has cooled dramatically, which is much better for the race. The river also seems to be in good spirit and after a phenomenal winter and resulting snow pack melt, Kieran’s average speed on the training run this morning (obviously quite some time has elapsed while I type this) was 7 mph, with his fastest section being 10.5 mph. He looks and feels good, and his confidence is bolstered by a very successful training session (18 miles in just over two hours).

So far the training hasn’t gone without humour, at one point on the training run Kieran passed a father-son canoe team who were doing great time…going backwards. We’ve also met the three RAF tandem teams, none of whom have ever kayaked before. Apparently they expected to be called up for this particular duty, for what I can gather it has something to do with losing some sort of drunken bet!

At this point he’s officially raised £1685 for the Lymphoma Association, and just three days until the race, Kieran is confident and relaxed and looking forward to one last training run tomorrow. Meanwhile, I must go out and learn how to pitch a tent, which is part of my Land Crew duties for his compulsory stop in Carmacks…

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Training Session 1