Dog Days of Winter

Temperatures hovered around 70 degrees for the second straight weekend this month. Most paddlers were unsure whether to act elated to be paddling in short sleeves, or to be concerned about the prospects for planetary survival over the next several decades. In the end we decided in favor of savoring the short term gratification of unseasonably warm air and put off worrying about saving Mother Earth until Monday, or perhaps Wednesday since thats our day off.

Jan made it back safely from Germany with chocolaty gifts in hand. The team is no longer devoid of funny jokes and interesting commentary regarding the physical sciences.

And news just came in that Maia is representing well down under after winning a gold medal at Sate Championships in Penrith. Yay Maia!

Jerzy the Great

Jerzy's presence in the weight room was hard to miss this morning as repetitions were moving at a faster clip than usual. Everyone's notion of low intensity training was altered as we ended the workout by stumbling out of the gate crippled by excessive lactic acid in our veins.

Becoming increasingly weary of the northern hemisphere, Maia decided to make the long trip down south for the Australian Youth Olympic Festival where she will be competing in big time races on the 18th and 19th of this month. Best of luck to her and all the other American paddlers. Be sure to follow the action here:

http://olympics.com.au/ayof07/sports.cfm?SportID=8

In other river related news : apparently the Anacostia is polluted, perhaps so much so that revitalizing the riverfront may be impossible:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/08/AR2007010801738.html

Happy 2007 Y'all!

Hopefully everyone had a great New Years and had a chance to savor their extra days off from training as there wont be too many more before our next push towards greatness this spring.

I posted this video below in the spirit of giving your brain a break from all things paddling. And because its darn funny (has audio).