How can we facilitate more young people and girls in particular to get involved in canoeing/kayaking?
What were the symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and is it an illness that can attack anyone or a side-effect of over-training? It is an illness that can affect anyone, young or old, sporty or not. There are a quarter of a million sufferers in the UK alone. It has nothing to do with exercise and is not induced by over-training. My symptoms included general exhaustion, fatigue after very light exercise I went from racing two and a half hour marathons in a kayak, at world level to being fatigued after 20 minutes of light paddling the equivalent of a brisk walk! The muscles in my body ached, to the degree where it became painful. In fact my muscles ached so much that I had to stop and rest mid-way through washing my hair because my arms ached too much to hold them up for too long. In the beginning I slept loads 13-14 hours a night and then later on there were periods when I suffered insomnia. And those were just the physical symptoms; the emotional battle was something else.
