It was fantastic to take part in the inaugural Thames Ultra 200km, a 200km non-stop paddle race from Lechlade-on-Thames in the Cotswolds to Teddington Lock in London (basically the full non-tidal stretch of the river).
This race had it all! Starting in torrential rain, the Thames here is narrow and twisty - a far cry from the River that runs through central London. There were 44 locks we had to pass through on this race, and the first few were quite straightforward, albeit tricky with a hard board.
The rain cleared late in the afternoon just before the night section and we had a lovely calm evening and night. Night time was interesting; other than a couple of the fast kayaks passing me I didn’t see anyone. And the locks were tough - not always easy to find them in pitch black I got lost a couple of times in some boating marinas and dead ends, adding nearly 4km extra. Some locks were tough to get out of with high sides and big drops back in.
Reading festival was going on over the weekend and the Thames literally runs through the middle of the festival site - you could smell the weed and sweat about 3km out 😂 It was so much fun paddling through at 1am with the confused looks and shouts from festival goers.
The sun was rising as I went through Henley; a heavy mist sitting on the water. The locks continued and really zapped energy. The river got busier as I paddled under Windsor castle with bank holiday boat traffic and then the wind kicked in for that last ‘gotcha’. Luckily as the river changed course the wind came from behind and in the last stretch through Staines it was almost like downwinding conditions with a wide river and strong gusts from behind.
A great race and one I would highly recommend to endurance SUP racers, this was the inaugural event and we proved it could be done in under 34 hours 😎
My final time was 32 hrs, 9mins.
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