Ever since I arrived in Antigua at the end of my Atlantic row, I have struggled to motivate myself to train. I regained the 30 pounds I had lost in double-quick time, largely due to a fearsome sugar addiction engendered by eating sugary snacks every hour, on the hour, during my time on the ocean - OK when I was rowing 12 hours a day, but not OK when I was back on dry land.
I had been about 8 stone (112 pounds) for most of the 5 years leading up to the row, deliberately went up to 9 stone (126 pounds) immediately pre-race in anticipation of weight loss, and duly arrived in Antigua weighing just over 7 stone (102 pounds, to be precise). To my horror, within 6 months I was nearly 10 stone (140 pounds) and feeling awful. None of my clothes fitted, and I was appalled at my lack of discipline.
In the overall scheme of things, I was probably not doing so badly - since my teens I have been nutrition-conscious, and I never go too long without physical exercise - but compared with my usual state of leanness and fitness I felt like a complete slob.
The point of telling you this sorry saga of yo-yo-ocean-dieting is to convey the good news that I feel I have turned the corner. Over the last 2 weeks I have met a number of people who have inspired me (we all need inspiration!) to improve my diet and start training more seriously. Emma Farrell reminded me of the joys of healthy eating, and Jason Mckinlay has helped get me feeling enthusiastic about exercise again.
I think I may even have experienced my first ever runner's high. A few days ago Jason had set me a punishing training session - 3 x 10 minute intervals at maximum, with 4 minutes rest between. My heart rate spent a lot of time at 182 beats per minute - I didn't even know it could go that high.
It hurt like hell, but for the rest of the day I was buzzing, feeling so full of energy and enthusiasm. I can see how this could get addictive...
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Last night I had a drink with two very interesting guys. Steve Smith pedalled the Atlantic and the first stage of the Pacific with Jason Lewis, who then went on to complete the first human-powered circumnavigation of the world, arriving back in Greenwich last Saturday.
Steve introduced me to his friend Mark Featherstone, a highly accomplished sailor (see this BBC story) and skipper of Steve Fossett's yacht Cheyenne. It transpires that Mark and I nearly met a few weeks ago, in very different circumstances. When I was on a storm-tossed Pacific, capsizing and generally having a bad time, the Cheyenne was on its way from Hawaii to California. A member of my support team contacted them to ask them if they might be able to retrieve the Brocade en route.
Mark called Steve Fossett (this was 11 days before Steve's disappearance over the Nevada desert) and Steve had generously given the go-ahead for them to divert and pick up my boat. They were only about 50 miles away when they received the message from my team that I still hoped to resume my row, so I did not want them to salvage the Brocade, but to leave her where she was so that I could pick her up myself.
It is strange to think that we could have met 100 miles off the coast of California in the middle of a gale, instead of in a quiet, cozy pub in the pretty seaside town of Salcombe.
P.S. I was due to travel to London on Thursday, but have decided to extend my stay in Devon. I have been training the last couple of days with a fellow ocean rower, Jason McKinlay (Atlantic Rowing Race 2003, doubles class) and am starting a new training programme under his supervision. I also have the use of a lovely house, usually occupied by my friends Julian and Celina, who are in France at the moment but return on Sunday. This is a beautiful part of Britain, and I have good friends here. So what's the hurry?
[photo: Cheyenne - picture by Henri Thibault]
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Huge congratulations to Jason Lewis, who yesterday arrived back in Greenwich after completing the first human-powered circumnavigation of the world. Especial admiration because his ambition nearly came unstuck early on in the journey, when he was hit by a car while rollerblading across the US, necessitating a lengthy stay in hospital and a lot of ironmongery to stick his legs back together. To continue a venture after such a major setback - wow, that takes guts.
I have not had the honour of meeting Jason, although I have met two of the people who accompanied him on various stages of his journey. Stevie Smith (who I will be seeing again, in Devon, tomorrow evening) was Jason's original partner - the two of them pedalled (yes, pedalled, not paddled - their boat was propelled by a bicycle-type mechanism) across the Atlantic and the first stage of the Pacific. Stevie wrote a very entertaining and inspiring account of their journey in his book, Pedalling to Hawaii.
And Sher Dhillon, who pedalled the same boat, Moksha, across the Indian Ocean with Jason, now lives in San Francisco and helped me pack my provisions into my boat before my aborted Pacific attempt earlier this year.
So we have only one degree of separation, and hopefully I'll get to meet Jason at some point. It would be surprising if our paths do not cross, as it is one of the perks of my 'job' that I get to meet people who have done all kinds of interesting things.
In the meantime, well done Jason, on a magnificent and epic achievement.
P.S. An update on the bean sprouter... thank you very much to all who were frantically Googling to find the mysterious square sprouter. As luck would have it (and what are the odds on this?!) I went to visit my dear friend Romy who has just moved into a property in the wilds of Wales, near the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth. She was showing me around one of her various barns, stacked high with her boxes of possessions, and there, perched on top of one of the boxes, was a seed sprouter - the exact same one I had been looking for. Spooky! That one was the Bergs Bio-Salad Sprouter, made in Germany, but does look very similar to the Being Fare sprouter suggested by a few people. But it was just so surprising and serendipitous to see it sitting there in a barn in Wales...
[photo: Jason Lewis]
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Further to my last blog, a lot of people have been asking for more information on beansprouts (with the notable exception of my friend Reprobate George, who cooked a fab beef curry last night, but not a sprout in sight...).
I do not claim to be an expert, so will point you in the direction of my beansprout sponsors, Sproutpeople of San Francisco. They provided me with bags of their Beanie, San Francisco and Peasant mixes, and a beansprouter.
Speaking of beansprouters, I am trying to find one like Emma's - a system of square, stackable trays with narrow drainage slots in the base. But unfortunately there was no manufacturer's name on it, and I am rarely online while I am on the road so haven't had time to search the internet for it.
Any information much appreciated!
[photo: my old beansprouter, made by Biosnacky, on board Sedna in mid-Atlantic]
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