Kayak 500m time
trials - Lauderdale Canal
Saturday 21 July 2012
Derwent Canoe Club put on an afternoon of 500m time trials in the Lauderdale Canal. The canal is fairly shallow, but sheltered and is a handy, user-friendly spot for testing out times on various craft.
It was fairly casual and you could do as many (or as few) painful efforts as you wanted. I started in my Grafton Chrono and did a few warm-up laps then a hard on at 2.19.
I swapped to my evolution edge & was surprised that it was nearly the same at 2.20 and I could feel the pain from the previous efforts.
A 500m kayak isn't a sprint. I approached it by about 30 sprint strokes to get the kayak moving, then settled into a hard, steady stroke - concentrating on keeping my stroke together until trying to finish the last 50m off as hard as I could.
After a few Chrono & Evo Edge efforts I tried a Stellar SES. I didn't get the leg length set up properly and couldn't keep it straight but it felt ok on the flat.
Later I had a go in a Think Uno (fibreglass version). It felt sleek. I didn't get to try a timed lap as Jon was getting too cold standing around.
Ben ended up with the fastest time paddling Seb's Nelo K1.
