A date and location has been set for the record attempt. Monday September 8th on Whitefish Lake in Montana. My man Skip Schloss has kindly volunteered to act as the event organizer for me. He has a house with a dock on the lake and many friends and contacts in the Whitefish area. I’ll post more details later when I get more time.

Today i finish a 4 day heavy volume training period where I will complete a total of 24 hour of race-pace pedalling on Glenmore Reservoir here in Calgary. I did 10 hours straight, non-stop on Wednesday and finished with a 10.9 kph average speed. 10.2 kph is required to match Carter Johnson’s current 24 hour kayaking record.

On Thursday I experimented with a slower pace and managed to end my 5 hour day with an average speed of 10.4 kph. Compared to the average power I had to maintain for 10.9 kph, 10.4 kph is a FAR more efficient pace.

I calculated that it took 25% more power on Wednesday’s 10.9 kph effort to produce only 4.8% more speed on Thursday’s 10.4 kph effort. My strategy will be to conserve as much as I can during the first 12 hours be being as efficient as possible with low power output, then slowly increase the power through the night until morning if possible.

On Thursday I lost my prop when my shaft broke! OH NO!!! Since I am not using a strut to hold the prop, when the shaft breaks, the prop falls to the bottom of the lake. I marked the location by dropping a way point on my GPS, but accidentally errased it. The lake is VERY weedy and dirty where it fell, so diving in to find it probably isn’t possible. Also if I get caught in the water I will get fined because you are not allowed to swim in the reservoir. Since I didn’t have a paddle with me I started to paddle with my hands, but quickly realized that I wasn’t going anywhere. Luckily one of the rowing coaching boats was near and the two girls (who I see EVERYDAY out there on the lake) kindly gave me a ride and tow back to the dock. I have a spare prop, but now I need to ask Manny to CNC machine me one more. I hate asking because he is so busy right now with PAYING work.

Fridays 5 hour ride was without the SRM power meter because the battery died, so I wasn’t able to monitor my power output. I ended at 10.4 kph average speed and included a bunch of pauses for this and that and varying intensities and speeds throughout the day.

Today’s final ride will be harder because I want to try to stress my muscles after 3 days of heavy miles and fatigue. I’m thinking of aiming for 180 to 200 watts for 5 hours, and an average speed above 11.4 kh.

Contest

Don’t forget that you can enter to win a free Nomad hand held computer by correctly predicting my finishing distance during the 24 hour record attempt. As more information about my speed and training results become available to you, you can revise your prediction as many times as you like by re-entering the contest. We will take your LATEST entry as your official prediction and the contest will close on Sept 8th.

Here is the online entry form:

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