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