Bad Omens

Before today's workout we all watched in horror as a crane (or is it egret) plucked a snake from the river and shook it for several minutes hoping to kill it. Eventually the massive bird decided that it was too hungry to wait for the little guy to stop squirming and just swallowed it whole! I evaluated the experience as a sign that the workout was going to eat us alive - which it did.

Gods and Generals

Our local lord of the river glowing after a solid outing on the Susquehanna. He and other WCC members dominated as expected. Here's the proof results.

The men's relay team did well, finishing just behind "smokin' joe's bbq". They kept it close most of the race, a few errors in course selection and transitions between relay groups probably cost them a repeat of last year's victory.

our mixed relay teams finished in first and third. Things were close, with the (eventual) second place team opening up a substantial lead in the 2nd leg, but our teams paddled hard and Andrew Stephens and Emily Harris squeaked into first by an incredibly narrow margin.

Dan Havens was the hero of the day.

Rich Libby won the unlimited Kayak division, even after trailing the leader by up to 4 minutes.

Adrian and his dolphin nose boat led the race in the deep lake start, but got into trouble in the upper swamp section, where he capsized four times. At some point the nose section of the boat began to leak water at the seams, allowing his competitors to sneak away from him as he bailed water.

Andrew and Radley managed an unofficial 11th place, only swam twice. No photos are yet available, but radley's dad has some video we want to get posted on youtube.

The sprint team mimicked a race scenario in which John and David P were unexpectedly placed in a K-2 with little to no forewarning. Luckily, they are both butchers (latest term for bad ass paddlers) and were able to find some semblance of power-synchrony.

Demons of the Speed Variety

We are delving back into speed work this week and Darek is pushing everyone to their limits. Monday morning's breakfast featured eight healthy portions of 200 meter pieces followed by a slovenly run up the capital crescent trail. Absent was the ever-redolent Jan Vorberger who was no doubt at home coping with the effects of heightened separation anxiety stemming from his upcoming departure from the Washington Canoe Club.

Many club members are headed up to NY to do battle in the famed General Clinton. Good luck guys!


I just set something up that lets you track site usage. Check out the stats for the blog over the last two days! Anyone know what bounce rate means?

Region	Visits	Pages/Visit	Avg. Time on Site	% New Visits	Bounce Rate
California	5	2	101	0.2	0.4
Maryland	3	1	0	0.333333	1
District of Columbia	2	1	0	1	1
(not set)	2	1	0	1	1
New Jersey	2	1.5	82	0.5	0.5

Woah Dude Preakness is Crazy

I decided to cap off the "easy" week by heading to Preakness to see what people do when they are allowed to bring as much alcohol as they can carry into the middle of a race track on which the second portion of the famed Triple Crown is held. Hilarity ensued. I was in the general vicinity of these true athletes :

Life's Fine When You're Bearded

Life's Fine When You're Bearded, originally uploaded by kayakwcc.

Here we see Radley, widely considered to be a keen hunter/gatherer, in his natural state devouring ice cream with reckless abandon and ultimately vitiating(word of the day) his beard in the process. The photo stream does not capture the delicate art of stalking the lunch lady which preceded the kill.

Bodaciously Loquacious

That's how I would describe the participants in this jovial yet informative email thread between two mainstay's at the WCC.

Dear Dr. Rhodes:

You look like a guy who rarely misses a meal. How can I know if I need to eat while I am exercising? I plan on doing an idiotic 40 hour paddling race in a few weeks. One of my pals recommends tubes of mayonnaise. Another says expensive sport gels are the way to go.

A Safari Sole

Dear Sole,

You’ve got to be kidding. No human can sustain intense athletic output for 40 hours without nourishment! Instead of sucking down tubes of warm mayonnaise, I recommend you consider the following facts.

Fatigue during a workout or sporting event is usually caused by lack of water, salt or sugar. Most athletes in sports that last more than a couple of hours know that they should drink and take in some salt, but they also need a source of sugar.

When you exercise, you get your energy from sugar and fat stored in your muscles and sugar and fat in your bloodstream, and, to a lesser extent, from protein. At first you get more than 80 percent of your energy from fat and sugar stored in muscles.

Usually at the start of exercise, almost 45 percent of the energy comes from stored muscle sugar. As you continue to exercise, you use up fat and sugar stored in muscles and get far less from these stores. After two hours of exercise, you have used up most of your stored muscle sugar (glycogen) and get less than 15 percent of your energy from that source. At four hours, your muscles have almost no stored sugar at all.

When your muscles are depleted of their stored sugar, they become difficult to coordinate and feel heavy and hurt. Your muscles can get some sugar from gluconeogenesis, a process in which your liver makes sugar from protein (branched chain amino acids), but that is not enough for all-out exercise. During intense exercise, you need a source of sugar. It can come from sugared drinks or any carbohydrate-rich foods. You can use special sugared exercise drinks, sugar gels, carbonated soft drinks, exercise bars or any food that contains sugar or flour.

Personally, I recommend tubes of frosting. They are tasty, yet nutritious!

Good luck in your Silly Safari,

Dr. Rhodes - Response mostly pirated from Gabe Mirkins’ website…http://www.drmirkin.com/about/AboutDrMirkin.htm#whois

Mother of All Recaps

I apologize for the delay in posts to this blog. My only excuse is that the task of conveying the significance of recent and upcoming events over a simple blog post was so daunting that I chose to put it off, hoping that the pressure would dissipate. Instead I was taunted day and night by my own guilty conscience, ballooning in the pit of my stomach as if I were cautiously sipping on a two liter bottle of Diet Coke chased promptly by a few Mentos every night. However, now that I am writing this I think waiting an extra week or two was a good idea because it gave me a chance to fully digest the significance of all the latest happenings at the Washington Canoe Club.

We have a new coach! Darek Oborski was recruited from a top notch club in Poznan Poland and has been tasked with growing the sprint team into a high caliber program (not that it isn't already, I'm just sayin...) and to instill fear in the teams with which we compete. It became clear early on that his knowledge of the technical aspects of the sport is immense as he systematically identified various flaws and quirks in each of our strokes. Darek also thinks its funny to mock our feeble strength by jumping in on a set of bench press and treating the the 185 pound bar like its a twig. All in all he's a great guy and a perfect fit for the team.

Jan is leaving! (boooo!) Our much beloved friend and training partner is packing his bags and heading across the pond in pursuit of unlocking the ever present mysteries of the universe. And on the side he will be training for the Olympics with a club in Coventry England. We will miss you Mr. Jan. You were the spotter for my bench press, the rider of my wake, the lone laughter after my bad joke, the anti-American remark to my "U.S.A!...U.S.A!" chant. Please come back and visit us when you can (and don't be surprised if you get a visit from a throng of WCC paddlers). Good luck and all the best with your new endeavor.

Today's photo is in tribute to Jan. When you hear the word Jan the first image that comes to mind is often of Jan himself, changing in the grill room right before a workout. Apparently he does it in other countries too! Here he is disrobing behind a boat rack in Germany. My those English are in for a treat!
In other news, Maia, Johnny D, Radley, and President Soles ran the Charles River. And by ran I mean we paddled some twenty odd miles down a river littered with portages, rapids, and slower paddlers hahahaha. Soles also participated in what is known as the "World's Toughest Canoe Race" which took place in Texas, of course. Radley and Soles are doing another marathon race in NY this weekend - Radley gave me the details this morning but I forgot them because I was too mesmerized by his attractive yet confounding hairstyle.