Shouldering the Brunt of Injury Prevention

Y'all - when it's cold out you are advised to warm up your joints and muscles before indulging in heavy lifting or paddling. Maia recently injured her shoulder and is relegated to watching me and Andrew get really huge in the weight room. This is not ideal.

Your shoulder deserves extra care because it is essentially the conduit of energy between your massive torso and the dinky paddle in your hands. Shoulder exercises may be annoying to do but they sure can do a lot towards maximizing your durability. So next time you are in the weight room it is suggested that you get cozy with one of the therabands or light weight dumbbells. I mean seriously, think of everything that your bursa sac and rotator cuff have done for you over the years. The least you could do is show them the same respect you give to your abs and pecs and lats.

Visibility is For the Birds

It took some time for the 630 AM crew to come up with an explanation but it was ultimately decided that heavy fog was to blame for the disappearance of Key Bridge. Despite the added resistance from the low lying clouds we all managed to eek out some pretty good times for both one mile runs.

Click on the album link below to see more amusing photos. Thankfully Jan was able to adjust the settings on his camera so the pictures would be large enough to show Andrew's freakishly large biceps.

weight room

Brazen, Fearless and Friggin Freezing

Paddlers entered Saturday's physical fitness test looking to set high marks on several key exercises. Their scores will serve as benchmarks on wich to improve throughout the rest of the offseason (note that "offseason" is a bit of a misnomer here considering our level of tenacity does not diminish during the winter months). Everyone did well - a clear indication that most have been working hard over the past few weeks. Results will be posted here soon.

The Sunday paddle session featured another opportunity for each paddler to become familiar with the limits of their own physical and mental capablities during a tough workout with sixty minutes of total on time. Radley inducted himself into the Polar Bear club following a brief lapse in balance near the end of the workout.

Today's picture shows some of the Canoe Club's heartiest members. It may be difficult to discern what year it is by looking at the clothes these guys are wearing but I assure you the photo is recent. From left to right are Dan Havens, Rich Libby, and Will Rhodes. Photo courtesy of Blaise Rhodes:

Can You Say VLOG?

Saturday's unfavorably cold conditions put us on the canal once again where we paired up and devoured a generous portion of three minute pieces served up by Coach Jerzy (good to have him back on the bike/launch). Many paddlers were disgruntled by the calamitous combo of cold air and reverberating wake that comes with paddling between cement walls. In the end we can all rest assured that both our balance and pain tolerance are much improved.

On Sunday we were back on the river doing 2 km pieces, followed by a team huddle in the grill room with the heat provided courtesy of a brand new wood stove.

Not sure why it took me so long to figure out how to embed videos but anyway - check out this strong paddler from down unda!


Jan's comment just reminded me that he has only half a paddle, and therefore requires twice the attention. This ones for you my friend:

The Time is Now

Paddlers should be aware that only 4 months remain in this offseason. Do your best to stave off cold weather induced complacency and direct all the controlled aggression you can muster towards training for the next 16 weeks. For your motivation:



Technorati Profile

Carnage on the Canal

With many of our out of town paddlers coming back to DC for the holidays, weekend training sessions are suddenly reminiscient of the long gone warmer days of summer in which some 10-15 boats are on the water at the same time.

Heavy storms on Thursday and Friday resulted in a ridiculous amount of wooden debris floating down the river on Saturday and Sunday. To avoid risking damage to our kayaks we opted to have it out on the slow and steady C&O canal - where Peter and John broke their boats...on debris.

Danke!

I am happy to say that our team's blog has gained international attention. Many thanks to Markus K. for dedicating an entire post to this site. Please show your gratitude by frequenting his blog.

http://www.knuf.net/

My German is, well, non existent but judging from the pictures it appears to be related to flatwater racing and other things athletic.

In accordance with this post's German theme, today's image shows Jan descending into nirvana as he begins his third and final set on the bench.

And finally dont forget to ask Peter and Radley about their foray into white water kayaking as both raced in this past weekend's run-paddle biathlon. Radley did exceptionally well, blazing the run portion of the event and ultimately finishing in second place. We also offer our condolences to Radley as it must have been difficult biking home with all that cold hard prize money weighing down his back pack - what a fighter.

Cut and Run

Or as Johnny D would say, don’t run at all. I decided to forgo the running portion of today's workout in favor of giving myself an extra 30 minutes to lie in bed and psyche myself up for my first attempt at touch screen voting. I was pretty nervous considering all the recent press reports claiming that even the people whose job it is to show you how to use the machines are irreparably befuddled by the technology. Ok this isn’t supposed to be a political blog, nor is it supposed to be sarcastic or cynical so I'll stop here. Today's picture is a view of the section of river on which we most frequently do battle. We like to inter-mingle metric and standard measurements - this is reflective of the diverse cadre of national and international paddlers we have on our team

Anaerobia Phobia

Today we decided to see what it feels like to unexpectedly gain 10 pounds the night before an intense sprint workout (workout demanded we add 10 pounds to our boat). Everyone focused on maintaining a consistent pace for each piece despite a seemingly endless barrage of "ready-set-go" commands from Andrew "the man with the watch" Soles. Above is a satellite image of our beloved 250 meter course (its 246 meters according to Google Earth)

La Resistance

Despite fighting foliage-borne resistance all weekend, today's workout required each paddler to add 10 pounds to their boat and hammer out 250 meter pieces on limited rest. The ageless Andrew Soles's ability to take a week off of paddling and then leave everyone in his wake was on display once again this morning. Another highlight featured the return of Radley Spring - hopefully he will become a regular part of the morning sessions.

"Dont Sweat the Technique"

After another grueling morning in the weight room, Maia and John managed to make big strides towards perfecting their already not-to-shabby paddling technique. Coach D pressed Maia to drive her paddle into the water and leverage her tremendous strength towards moving the boat. This effort clearly paid off as she catapulted ahead much to Jerzy's delight. John's near irreparable inability to pause at the begining of the stroke finally showed signs of improvement following 13 years of ineptitude.

(Title of today's posting is from the 1992 hip-hop album by Eric B. and Rakim)

Get Your Pogie On

So it turns out that paddling is not easy after hitting the weight room really hard for an hour. Throw in 20 mph wind gusts and an air temperature of 35 degrees and you will try to justify to yourself that there is a good reason for not going out on the water. However, John and Maia's collective motivation was strong enough to brave the maelstrom of adverse conditions and managed to eek out a 45 minute cruise (Maia sans pogies)

Building a Big Bad Base

The team continues to focus on the arduous task of developing a solid base of strength and aerobic endurance in preparation for next year's sprint races. EJ dazzled the team by demonstrating some football style stretching maneuvers that were clearly foreign to most of the non ball-sport people in the group (maybe it was just me). Breaking out of the stretching circle, we ran in v formation for 20 hard minutes along the capital crescent trail. Peter P is sure to be one of the fastest on land this winter as he broke 20 minutes in a 5K cross country meet yesterday morning After finally getting onto the water the team enjoyed flat conditions while hammering out 4 sets of 2 mile pieces to mile rock and back. The original plan called for the first two sets in singles and the final two sets in team boats. However, not having enough paddlers field a k4 it was collectively decided to finish the session in K1s.

Tomorrow promises more opportunities to battle - albeit with more clothes on as temperatures will drop into the high-30's.

Wild Weekend

Saturday's Capital Waterways Challenge was a surprisingly adventurous race. High winds produced massive swells causing nearly every competitor to capsize whilst attempting to traverse the the turn around Hains Point.

Photos are here

Racers did their best to follow this course map

Today the 6:30 AM paddlers awoke to air temperature in the low 40's - a harsh reminder that winter is well on its way.

Foggy morning

Yesterday was our first training day following this weekend's races. Several paddlers left over from the masters regatta joined us for four tough sets of 6-3-1.

Thanks to Jan V. for capturing these great pictures - click here