Ask Carroll

[Davros]

These are big river rocks, really big rounded heavy and smooth. Big enough you'd have to pick up with 2 hands with a stack of smaller ones. It's like walking into a NZ river. Anyway cheers.

[swvic]

Kunji is an ascidian (squirt), not a crustacean

[Beanpole]

That pumice has been around for a couple of years now. There was a big volcanic eruption around Vanuatu? It's never really gone away but occasionally after extreme weather we get more big chunks. Guess they are floating around at sea or wedged somewhere.

[offshore1]

Kunji is an ascidian (squirt), not a crustacean

I thought Kunji didn't like squirters.

[Natho]

Nick,

I have laid down my own basic training program with the goal of increasing paddle fitness and gradually increase paddle distance with the view of completing my first medium distance race. Care to critique it? I know it’s far from perfect. Been doing this for 2 months to lay a foundation and it’s now time to change it up. I’m thinking of dropping out a couple of run sessions for swimming. What should I add or change to keep it interesting? The program is worked around an early morning session before work and an evening session after.

Current basic program:

Mon: AM 30 min run intervals
PM: Strength training and core

Tue AM: 30 min Paddle (80% MHR)

Wed: AM 30 min run intervals
PM: Strength training and core

Thur: AM: 40 min Paddle intervals

Fri: AM 30 min run (80%MHR)
PM: Strength training and core

Sat: Rest

Sun: Distance Paddle

[Natho]

should add basic fitness level at 40 is high with resting heart rate around 52 and heart rate recovery very good. So don't be afraid to throw something at me.

[Nick Carroll]

hmm don't take any of this as gospel, I don't believe in coaching over the Internet. But.

if your goal is to train for paddle racing, there's a massive chunk of thinking missing from this program, to wit, technical skills: understanding pace and the water surface, working around other paddlers, and constant technique correction.

- definitely swap out some running for swimming. And do the swimming in a squad environment if possible. A coach will help you correct your swim technique and you'll learn from watching other swimmers. Just twice a week is fine at first, if you find yourself engaging with it, go three times.

- paddle in a group/with others as often as possible, preferably some of whom who've well and truly got the edge on you in experience. Ask for technique tips, and do the things you find hardest as often as you can. Like if you struggle with knee paddling, just do it 70% of the time instead of the 20-30% that most early stage paddlers do.

- break the paddle sessions up more. Like, most of your time is best spent trying to change pace over short intervals, not just grinding away for 20 minutes. The actual paddling time is not the place to try to build aerobic fitness, that's what swimming and running are for. So do stuff like this:

in less active water, warm up for six or eight minutes slow/mod pace, then

10 x 4mins build (by "build" I mean start out at maybe 60% then push a little harder on each minute, so the second min is 70, the third 75, and the last 85%. take a minute's break between each 4min

then do 8 x 1min at that 85% with 30sec rest on each.

this set is best done with at least one other person so you work off each other a bit.

Another, really hard one is the Stepladder set

warm up slow/mod for six or eight minutes, then

5mins: 1 min easy, 2mins mod, 2mins hard
4mins: 2mod, 2 hard
3mins: 1 mod 2 hard
2mins: 2hard
1min: max effort
take a 1min break between each little block

wash off with a 90sec recovery, then repeat the stepladder.
This is a brutal set when done correctly, it's one of the foundation sets for my open board racing squad (with a few things added on)

Varying pace in sets is key to understanding yourself as a paddler and to forcing constant technique correction on yourself. It's impossible to do the Stepladder for instance if you just paddle it all exactly the same, you'll never go quicker through the set without being able to comfortably increase stroke rate and keeping it all balanced.

To me, you wanna be a good board paddler, you gotta do surf work on a clubbie board, going quickly through surf on a racing board is an incredible skill and it makes distance paddling seem piss easy. But maybe leave that for now.

[Natho]

Thanks Nick. Some great stuff there. I have a mate who is going to take me out for some training once Molokai is over this year (you know him). He is going to go through some technical stuff and has a serious edge over me so that should help push me to become better. He has offered to do it on a 18 footer but I think I will stick to my 12 footer and clubby board for now.

[crabmeat thompson]

Nick. How much should I charge a company who want me to transcribe their shit? it's a big project with massive audio files around 120 minutes each. some are 1-on-1 interviews, some are group discussions with up to 7 people talking.

they want me to give them a quote. an hourly rate or flat rate per 120mins audio. I was thinking $250 per 120 minutes audio or something like $40 per hour, as transcribing has to be the most tedious job we could do... but basically i have no freaking idea what a market rate would be.

[alakaboo]

If Nick mentions anything about phone number sets just ignore him natho

A lot less than that, braithy.
Not saying you should charge less, but a lot of people now send their tapes overseas to be transcribed so you could charge 35/hr, subcontract out and go get some surf time.

In theory. Subject to legal and privacy issues.

[crabmeat thompson]

If Nick mentions anything about phone number sets just ignore him natho

A lot less than that, braithy.
Not saying you should charge less, but a lot of people now send their tapes overseas to be transcribed so you could charge 35/hr, subcontract out and go get some surf time.

In theory. Subject to legal and privacy issues.

yeah, i thought as much. i know one other guy who they approached, and he quoted them $80 an hour, and that threw out my whole scale.

not sure about the offshore thing, because the content is australian. heaps of lingo and vernacular to sort through. i sense this company tried the offshore route, and they weren't happy with the outcome.

[foamy]

Can't you use Dragon speech recognition software to get the basic text down, then you could manually refine. Supposed to be good. I worked with a one armed man who successfully used nothing but. Some authors use it to do the first draft of their novels.

[Nick Carroll]

^^ don't have much to add to this (what boo said) braithy

It's tedious but not high skill work. But they're coming to you for a reason. Charge what works for you I say.

foamy, speech recognition software is shit. When it involves trying to pick apart different voices in the same conversation, it's completely shit.

[PeepeelaPew]

...

[alakaboo]

There are different types of offshore. Most legal firms I know send stuff to dedicated legal teams in HK and Singapore.

Brian as a guide we paid between 28-36/hr for technical data entry, on the GC.

[crabmeat thompson]

^^ don't have much to add to this (what boo said) braithy

It's tedious but not high skill work. But they're coming to you for a reason. Charge what works for you I say.

foamy, speech recognition software is shit. When it involves trying to pick apart different voices in the same conversation, it's completely shit.

thanks NC.

@boo. i just quoted them $35p/hr. as i hit send, it occurred to me that I should have quoted them less to just get the job, because it could have led to other, much better jobs as they're a huge media company with lotsa global projects.

[offshore1]

Yeah, I'll do it, 20 bucks an hour, but all seven dwarves'll have a North Carolina accent.

[crabmeat thompson]

don't undercut me, you cnut.