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Paddlers' Stories |
Lee Menday, Senior Doubles 2008
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| The race was three days away and we had time for one more training session. A 23 mile run down the quiet River Stour; yeah, right! We'd had rain for a few days and by the time we set off from Sudbury the normally pleasant river was a raging torrent. As we reached the half way point we had been dragged through trees, brambles and ended up in the middle of a field; smiling, bewildered, but still paddling, and a very surreal moment. Five and a half hours later we were tired, in pain and ready to quit, the quiet paddle before the big day had turned into a bit of a nightmare. Not the required outcome really! |
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| Good Friday and time to travel to Devizes, the car was packed to the gunwales with our entire kit, food, drink and kitchen sink. The junior race had started and reports of our teams from the Royal Hospital School that they were all doing well. However, the relayed messages of the weather started to concern us. It was bitterly cold and windy, the forecast was for worse to come, and little did we know how bad it would get. |
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| Saturday morning and we were to start at 0800, but due to the concerns of the race organisers, they delayed the start time to 1600. This was not good news for me as it meant we would need to paddle the canal section in the dark, the towpath would be very muddy and slippy and as an amputee I wouldn't be able to see or feel where I was placing my foot to get a level foothold. To run with a head torch would be advised, but this would affect our night vision, so it was a case of eat carrots and "go for it"! |
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| We left Devizes Wharf at 1600 and with just a mile under our belt we were hit by a strong biting wind that almost stopped us in our tracks. We made our first portage, 14.5 miles, Wooton Rivers, nearly three hours later: that was the easy bit done; we lost the dusk light and now came the real challenge, the dark. |
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| Les and I made good time even with limited mobility and then my worst fear was realised. As we ran one of the portages there was a fallen branch or a tree root across the tow path, my left foot slid under the branch and I hit the floor with a crash. Look on the bright side, if I had my own foot it would probably have been badly sprained or worse, broken, and the race would have been over for us! |
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| Not deterred, we cracked on and again maintained good time and ticked off the portages. Checkpoints were a welcome distraction and our support team were on form too. |
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| Our aim was to be at Dreadnought Reach - the Thames at Reading - by 0530, in fact we made it by 0430, which gave us a welcome hour to have a change of clothes and more importantly for me a change of suspension sleeve for my prosthetic limb. I was suffering with a freezing cold stump and lack of circulation to it and this was becoming a real problem as I was losing the volume in the residual limb to keep it snug and firm in the carbon socket. So when running portages, the leg was loose and increased the friction and painful rubbing. With hot food and drink inside us and an encouraging word from our support team it was time to get back on the water. The temperature was a bitter -2 and a lot less with the wind chill, but we needed to dig deep and set a target to be at Longridge Scout Camp by 0830. The reason for this was that not only were we paddling the race but also we had seven junior crews and three "Endeavour" crews taking part and it would be good to see them setting off. We managed to see only three crews, but gained a cup of tea from a lovely young lady supporter, thank you! |
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| With no time to waste we moved on down the Thames and our pace seemed to be relentless. Shiplake and Sonning behind us, we came to Marsh and the memories of twelve years before came flooding back. 1996 was our last attempt at the straight through race and with river levels low, we were pulled out of the race by our support team. We were younger, fitter and just as mad, but it was a failure to haunt us for some time. Older, wiser, not fitter and minus a leg; could this be the year of celebration? The odds were stacked against us, but we had the desire and we had changed from K2 to C2, surely this might give us the edge. |
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| We passed through Marsh and our emotions privately released and demons were excised. It was time to press on and attack the last 40 something miles to Teddington Lock. Our pace on the water was excellent and we maintained our schedule and then came Windsor Bridge. We had hoped the level of water would have dropped and we could have passed straight through without a portage, but unfortunately this was not the case and we had a long enforced portage to deal with. I couldn't run, only a jog/shuffle, it was like running on sandpaper inside my socket. That kept me on my toes! |
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| The weather conditions were at both ends of the scale, sunny one moment and blizzards next, but it was the wind that sapped your strength and morale, any body heat soon disappeared and hypothermia was a real concern, not just for us but the support team waiting on the banks. With only a few miles to go before Teddington, Kingston straight was unbelievable. It was wind against flow and the combination was demoralising. We tried to find shelter along the sides, but there was nowhere to hide, it was a case of digging deep, head down and keep moving. At this point we both felt sea sick due to the motion of the canoe in the turbulent water, not a pleasant experience I can assure you. |
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| We made Teddington Lock at 1515 on schedule and with our support team "cooking on gas"; we took on board hot drinks and food and topped up our camelpaks ready for the last 17.5 miles on the tidal Thames. We were both suffering with the conditions and it would have been very easy to have given up, but the fear of failure was not an emotion either Les or I wanted to experience again. So it was dig even deeper, find the inner strength and get out on the water and paddle. |
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| We approached Thames Young Mariners and all our parents and paddlers had gathered to cheer us through, thanks also to Sally Peake the Chief Timekeeper for her contribution too! That was truly a great moment and you could feel the adrenaline pumping through your body, but then we turned the long right hand bend towards Richmond and we hit the wind and cold again. The swell formed with wind against tide and we battled our way down the river. It seemed to punish us mile after mile, we knew that we were running on empty and it became a fight with motivation. We used any excuse to get more power in to the paddles and up until Kew Bridge we hadn't been overtaken by any kayak or canoe. The inevitable happened and we were overtaken, but we used this as our lever to produce that little bit of extra power and with the last push we rounded the left hand bend towards Westminster Bridge. |
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| 26 hrs 27 minutes and it was all over, we had made it, our medals were presented by the lovely Brenda a retired D/W official who had promised to see us in, an emotional reunion with our wives Susan and Anne, (support team 1) and Phil & Simon Holbrook,(support team 2) and then time to sleep for Britain. Well, not really, as we needed to be up early to meet our junior and Endeavour crews as they too crossed the line early on the Monday morning. |
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| The 60th anniversary D/W race will be remembered for a long time to come. It will go down in the history of the race as being one of the worst set of weather conditions ever and yet the water levels were excellent. The combination of conditions claimed many crews and those who finished can rightly claim to have conquered the "Canoeist's Everest" |
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Lee Menday
“BK (L) leg amputee” |
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