Thursday, March 26, 2009

The land of the Rattlers

Morning practice was tough mentally and physically. 9x750m hard with the Czech and Slovakian girls, yep I was hanging on to there wash for dear life so I wouldn't drop off the pace. I made it and even had a good job from our coach for staying strong through the whole workout! I flew off to work for a few hours came back lifted (felt good) then proceeded to walk down to the boat house. The boat house is down the hill and across the road from the main campus of the OTC. Like normal I started to meander down to the boat house for our third session. About halfway down i glanced over to the bushes on my right, there curled up and intently staring at some prey was the glistening black form of the local rattle snake, I managed not to scream but I started to hyperventilate and almost past out, by the time I arrived at the boat house I was shaking and almost past out again, yes apparently me... who is not afraid of bears, mountain lions, dissecting dead things and performing brain surgery on rats.... has a severe snake phobia.
Well I managed to calm down after about half an hour and go out to practice with a few of the Slovaks. Its really fun to train with the other national teams which are here it mixes it up and pushes you further then you thought you could go!
cheers
K

Monday, March 23, 2009

Daily Life

One more load to go in the washing machine, two more things left on my to do list, 5 already checked off . Yep today was my make shift catch up day ie no work and only 3 training sessions. It feels great to have caught up with most of what I needed to get done and it sets me up for an awesome week.
Training is going well, I am getting over my cold and feel stronger by the day. Unfortunately many of the girls on the team are getting sick and a few other have had injuries in the past few days making it a small crew out on the water. There is only a few weeks left until team trials so hopefully folks will start feeling better soon!
cheers
K

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Back out West

For the past few weeks part of the Czech team has been training at the OTC, its been awesome to see them paddle and even nicer to have company out on the water. Normally we train separately but this week we have had several sessions together. This tends to produce a high speed workout no matter what the tempo or speed is supposed to be. Thursday we went out K1 with the Czech team and ripped out 9x750m repeats, the end result was all the girls docking up together because we were to shaky to actually paddle anymore! Today we took out the K4s for a quality workout against their K4 it went well. The boat I was in was the "light weight boat" and we kicked butt, the other USA boat was a "heavy weight boat". It was broken up like this because we only had 2 (M) boats 1 for the Czech team and one for us, leaving the second USA team to use the men's (L) K4, which incidentally I don't fit into at all.
The work out was very focused and our boat improved steadily through out the practice and by the end we were neck and neck with the Czech team!
Tomorrow is a rest day which I am looking forward to a lot.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Yak4AStack

Yak4AStack was the coolest event I have ever seen. 300 + paddles from around the world descended on the Pines in Melbourne FL, for an event which promotes craziness, fun and international relations. Many of these kayakers/canoers have been training hard every day multiple times a day for the past month or 2 using the Pines as their home base. Today was now the test of all that training, it was the big race, the main event to put to test the hours spent between practices. That's right between practices, who out of these athletes reached the exhaustion point that brought them to the Nirvana of figuring out the craziest most out landish and creative costume for this race. The athletes were assembled into 85+ teams of 4, the goal go from the dock, make it around a buoy and hand off the boat(a scupper) to your two team mates then have them go around the buoy in the other direction and back to the first dock as fast as they can all with costumes on. Olympians and medalists participated in this event and were paired just as randomly with other paddlers. I should mention that the scuppers were 2 person boats. giving them the golden opportunity to try out new partners for the next Olympics (grin).
Hannah and I went out to hunt for the perfect costume on Friday night, we came up with Xena warrior princess and her side kick Gabrielle as our respective alter egos. After a run to walmart and the thrift store we had everything we needed. Debbie(the women we are staying with) managed to pull many rabbits out of her hat "closets" to help with the assemble of the outfits. She had a sewing machine and various other implements which we desperately needed to pull it off. We successfully put the costumes together by late Friday evening and were ready to go for the races the next day.
people were dressed in elaborate and simple costumes some came by water others by land and it proved to be exceedingly entertaining on all fronts .
I highly recommend that if you are in the area for this event that you join the festivities or at least come to watch.
cheers
K

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Surfing

Hannah and I tried are hands at surfing today. Lets just say we shouldn't give up paddling just yet, but we had a lot of fun and I will definitely go again.
The paddling down here is great, we walk out Debbie's back door and put the boats into the canal and head off.
While we were out paddling a dolphin popped up near by it was really cool I never expected to see one in the canals but there it was.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Florida

I made it down to Florida without incident and am now situated at Debbie Pages house approx 6.25km from the Pines via the canal system. The weather is perfect and water calm so great paddling conditions.
This morning we passed several members of the Italian team on the water, my g*d they were sooo strong, fast , and all around intimidating but it was really cool to see them paddle. It really gave me something to shoot for.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

long cycle over

Wow the past few weeks of training took there toll on me both mentally and physically. Everyone on the team handles the stress differently some giggle alot, others have emotional breakdowns, some get snippy and short tempered its all a normal part of a hard cycle. I was assured of this by the strength coach who apparently doubles as everyones therapist during the hard weeks. Through all this I was working 4nights a week leaving me with approximately 5-6hrs of sleep which did not help matters any, but yet again I servived and cant imagine my like anyother way.
I love training but I am happy to have a week to lay low and have a change of scenery ie my trip to Florida for 6 days of ...... Training lol!!!!

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Half way

The Brain begins to shut down after 1 day of hard workouts (lack of oxygen and fatigue), by day three brain activity ceases all together. We are on day 3. There is very little going on upstairs and I think I am operating in the negative, on the upside by body is feeling better and better each day. I am trying hard to stay focused on technique and not speed right now, once my body adjusts after a few weeks of proper tech. the speed will come. Constantly modifying and monitoring all the components of a good stroke is tiring. You change one thing and another body part goes out of whack, slowly but surely pieces are starting to click into place and I can feel a big difference when it falls into place, even if its just briefly!

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Upcoming Week

Great news a fisherman at the tournament last weekend on Otay Lake found my paddle! Granted he brought it home with him to New Port Beach and waited a week to call the training center about it, but at least I was able to get it back and in this case better late then never!
Next week should be awesome Coach wants us on the water 3 times a day and in the gym once a day. Its going to be tough but I think my body should handle it fine. The ribs are feeling better a few twinges here and there but nothing sports med cant help me with. We think my issues came about do to some technique deficiencies, I tend to paddle with my shoulders by my ears which exposes my intercostal muscles to a lot of strain. I am working on fixing my hunched shoulders on and off the water which will make me a better paddler!