Vicky Corner, Member
As part of the wonderful collaboration with the Wey Kayak Club, some of us have been training with Wey Kayak Coach and Samson Fundraiser Paul Dimmock. Paul has coached and mentored several elite athletes, yet every Thursday we get use of the Kayak Ergometer machines (‘Ergs’ to us) under Paul’s expert guidance. The ‘Gym Girls’ Davinia, Rachel and Alison attend making sure we are safe, sufficiently stretched afterwards and taking the sessions if Paul is unavailable. This form of exercise and support is a huge part of my life as it’s a good way to stay active in spite of the limitations MS brings. It actually gives a cardiovascular work-out, which is hard to achieve with MS as it doesn’t rely too heavily on legs. There’s a whole mixture of abilities in these sessions and both Paul and the centre are on-hand to make adaptations where needed. There’s also an après-paddle session after all the hard work in the break area for a coffee, providing a really good social aspect too.
After all our time paddling in the hall training, it was time to take things to the next level: Actual water… Many of you already heard of a charity called Access Adventures (Guy/Hils are big promoters!). Access Adventures’ website describes them as ‘delivering life-changing adaptive sports and activities’. Activities include wakeboarding, water-skiing, alpine skiing, paddle sports, kiting or biking for people with disabilities. At Edge Adaptive Sports Centre, Heron Lake, Wraysbury we (the ‘Samsonites’ I call us), recently and exclusively hired the lake. Samson members James, Guy, Jenny, Richard, Mike, John, Karon, Hannah and myself. We were joined by Paul, Davinia and Alison which was really nice. We put our skills into action and had fun on the beauty of Heron Lake.
We are hoping for this to become a regular arrangement and already have another booking scheduled. The people that run the activities (Jane, Claire, Kate to mention a few) are extremely safe, patient and resourceful finding ways to make things comfortable. I cannot sing their praises enough.
