The motivation

Doing DW didn’t cross my mind when I was adventuring around the Med on my surfski. Racing kayaks was a closed chapter, or so I thought. I was on a journey searching for a value to steer my life. ‘Racing is just a game. You only do it if you believe that game is important, has value’ I wrote. I was chasing after a deeper truth, games and constructs felt so superficial. After 5500kms, harmony arrived and I came home in December ready to start what would be an all-consuming career abroad.

Then Jon White told me that DW stalwart Billy Butler was looking for a partner. With the miles in my arms, I had potential, and here was an opportunity.

I thought back to the time I signed up to do DW. If you completed it you could wear the DW tie around school. That was my spark of motivation – I thought I’d look cool in the tie. I wouldn’t judge this as a good intention, but look at where it led me. I don’t know where any decision will lead me. Any opportunity could blossom into that next great thing.

Also, perhaps I was being too simplistic, too black and white, for you can love racing without loving the game. It’s just the vessel. I surrendered any illusion that I understood motivation.

And then there was potential. Would I regret stopping racing without fulfilling my potential? ‘I’ll do DW and paddle around Britain this summer, and then that’ll be the end of it’ I said.

The Watersides

We had a great spring campaign. 2nd fastest time ever on Thameside 1, 3rd fastest time ever on Waterside D, 3rd fastest time ever on the series. I learned loads about managing my type 1 diabetes. Billy and I paddled well together and bonded as a crew.

Devizes to Westminster

125 miles, 77 portages, in one go. I’d done the course as a junior over 4 days but this was my first straight-through. Race day came with perfect conditions: warm, windless and most importantly, high flow on the Thames. Some people have waited years for conditions like these and I get them on my first go!

The organisers had to make the tough decision to axe the less experienced half the field to let the race go ahead safely. They handled it brilliantly.

The top 5 was going to be hotly contested with Tom Sharpe and Keith Moule as favourites, their pedigree on another level to the rest. But who knows what will happen on DW? From our Waterside times we thought if everything goes right, we could challenge for the win, and with the river levels high, a good time was possible. Most of all though, I just wanted us to reach Westminster knowing we’d done all we could.

The Race

DW is a time-trial race. From Teddington lock the final 17 mile stretch of the Thames in to central London is tidal. You can only paddle down it with the tide so must arrive within a time window, this year from 5am to 9am, somewhere around 6.30 being optimal. Thus competitors calculate their start time based on how long they predict it’ll take them to paddle to Teddington.

Thinking there could be some games of cat and mouse with the other competitors, we hadn’t decided an exact start time. In the end it was just when we’d finished faffing about. We were so late that I nearly got locked in the loos.

Managing my diabetes starts well before the race. Well, it’s a 24/7 job that I’ll have forever, but the days leading up to the race are important because going high or low has knock-on effects. So I made sure to weigh all my food and get my levels perfect. I started the race on 7 mmol/ml – ideal!

It was about 17:00 when we set off in the evening sun with just Keith and Tom behind us. The canal was choked with debris and with BillyLikesPies in the front we spent the next two hours doing resistance efforts and stopping to free the bow. Luckily we had Toby Peyton-Jones cycling alongside who got involved early, jumping in the canal to unclog our rudder. “This will be the same for everyone” I thought, but watching the fountain spray up from the bow and knowing we were already off our target pace was a frustrating way to start. Note for next time: weed deflector for rudder and bow.

I started the race with a fuelling cock-up too. Perhaps in my panic to get out of that portaloo, I forgot that I’d mixed my Hammer Perpetuem carb drink at double strength. Instead of having one 750ml bottle of water and one of fuel, I had two of fuel! So in the first two hours I drank 4 hours’ worth of carbs and felt suitably sick. Idiot. Realising my mistake, I picked up a bottle of my homemade ginger, mint and turmeric infusion and eased off the carbs.

My sugar levels spiked to peak at 16.5 by 1.5 hours, caused by adrenaline and release of glycogen stores and perhaps in part by my excess carbs. The insulin I inject stays active in the body for a minimum of 5 hours, long after these glycogen stores would be depleted, so if I tried to correct this spike now, I’d go low later. Unfortunately, the profile of artificial insulin simply isn’t capable of stopping this spike.

My only worry was that my sugar levels would keep rising as they did on Waterside D. At a certain level, there isn’t enough insulin for sugar to get from the blood to the muscles and the body essentially thinks it’s starving so starts burning fat. The cells become insulin insensitive and it becomes difficult to get my levels back in range.

Luckily this didn’t happen. By hour 3, my glycogen stores were depleted and with no insulin injected my sugar levels came back down to 10. Amazing when plans work!

But then approaching Hungerford I felt worryingly heavy and sore for so early on. Fear and doubt weighed over me and it was the darkest part of myrace. By Dunmill actual darkness was falling and John and Izzy joined us on bikes, lighting up the canal. I voiced my worries and Billy reassured me we’d get through anything. Noticing my levels were going down I realised I needed sugar, fast. Still feeling sick I sucked on dextrose tablets and watched my sugar levels rise. Although my Dexcom shows the lowest I got as 5.0mmol/ml, I think I was probably hypoglycaemic at this point because when my levels rose I felt great.

Passing Newbury was a huge relief for me. In the dark now it was difficult to judge our pace. It felt fast but looking down at my watch I could see we were down on schedule. I felt strong so turned it off. We were doing what we could.

At Aldermaston Billy first voiced that he was having problems seeing. It was misty so I wasn’t sure if he was joking. Anyway, this had happened on his 2017 race so it didn’t stress me much. The only other problem we were both having was cramping. I seemed to drink loads but only had two pees in the whole race and lost 5kgs. So maybe not enough. At one portage I went to open a gel and then realised I had no control of my fingers, they were spasming. Hammer electrolyte pills kept these at bay.

A few locks before Fobney, Keith and Tom passed us. We shared a lead each and then were dropped after a slow portage. Perhaps if they’d caught us on the Thames we could’ve had more of a pull but in reality you have to paddle your own race and rushing a portage to stay with a crew will only make you suffer later on. Keith and Tom would carry on to execute a stunning race, smashing the record set way back in 1979!

We said goodbye to our three bikers who’d done a great job lighting the canal, opening bridges and keeping moral high. Now we were on our own.

Joining the Thames at Reading I was pleasantly surprised. Yes it was fast flowing and unsuitable for novices but it was far tamer than the swirly, boily Trent I’d trained on for 3 years. Paddling on the Trent at night just after my diabetes diagnosis, with no BA and no idea what my blood sugars levels were at, those were scary nights. Even so, we played it safe, bracing across the eddylines after each weir.

By Marlow Billy’s vision was failing and I had to backseat drive. “Go left a bit, right a bit, yes straighten up”. He was convinced he was seeing bridges where there was nothing. My sugars had been stable and in range since Newbury but now started slowly rising. They peaked at 16 and eventually settled around 14 for rest of race. The longest race I’d done with t1d before this was 4.5 hours so I had no idea how my body would respond to insulin after 10+ hours of paddling. I felt fine so didn’t even risk injecting 1/2 unit of novorapid in case I was super insulin sensitive. It’s hard to know if this had any impact on performance? It’s possible I had build up of ketones by the finish.

Since my falter before Newbury I’d felt strong in muscle and mind. Yes things were uncomfortable, but they never got worse. Billy never uttered any complaint. I never even considered Billy could crash, because that’s the confidence Billy inspires. With faith in my partner, I had faith in myself. I have great respect for people like Shaun and Joe because going down with another first timer must take huge courage (or delusion).

At Hambeldon I put on new kit, Billy stayed in his original. The vaikobi gear was excellent. I’ll do another post on what I wore.

With Billy’s sight deteriorating, steering in to locks was getting slower. Eventually, we reached Teddington after 14 hours 14 minutes. “100 miles done, 125 to go” said the marshal merrily. I wished he hadn’t. Stepping out on to a narrow ledge I went lightheaded and fell backward in to the water. Dad and Toby hauled me out of the water while eye drops were administered to Billy. Looking back at the GPS we lost a lot of time faffing at portages as the race went on – real discipline needed here.

A few kilometres down the tideway Billy lost steering. Luckily we were close to the bank, not at the top of a weir or in the middle of the tideway proper. 37 minutes later (checked on strava) our support crew had cycled over, fixed the snapped rudder wire and we were back on the water. But our muscles were now cold and seized. The finish was my only concern from that point. Could we have mustered a few minutes to get on the podium if we’d known?

The numb bum I anticipated never came but both of our cores were shot and we wobbled down past London’s landmarks. In the last few kilometres I felt so lightheaded I thought I could faint. It was nice to have the safety boat follow us to the finish line.

Yes our time (16:57:21) and position (4th) weren’t what we set out for. I don’t know what I set out for. But I’m proud that we squeezed everything out that we could. DW is an adventure. You control the controllables but set out not really knowing what will happen. The more things that surprise you, the more things that go wrong, the more you learn and the more spirit you must call upon to reach the finish line.

Thank you to our super support crew: Toby Peyton-Jones , Izzy Glaisher, Mum, Dad, Jon White, Emma LMitchell, Nick, Sara, Mark and Tom!

T hank you to the organizers and volunteers.

Shout out to my partners Epic Kayaks UK, Vaikobi, Ryan Lark Sport Psychology – trainee, Hammer Nutrition UK, Epic Kayaks & Paddles.

Follow my blog for updates on my attempt at paddling around Britain this summer.

DW is a race you can never tick off because there’s always improvements to be had. I hope one day I’ll be back, let’s see where life takes me.

Finally thank you to everyone who donated to my Action4Diabetes fundraiser page. https://www.justgiving.com/fun…/dougals-epic-adventure-a4d