Marathon Worlds

The Marathon World Championships in Crestuma, Portugal, was a fabulous event. The organizing committee did a great job on all fronts, the event was well run, races went off on time, there was live event coverage online, the food was great, and the bus ride to and from the course provided us with an up close look at Porto and the surrounding area/countryside ....wow that was a mouthful.
The durou river on which the event was held runs through the small hillside town of Crestuma and is a beautiful and active(ferries, wine boats etc..) tidal river with 12ft tides!
The K2 event in which Anne and I competed took place last Sunday. The race went well, we had a great start staying in the mix, riding wash and fighting with the other teams to grab the best position. The field contained several athletes who had medal in the Sprint World Championships in August and athletes who competed at the 2008 Olympic games! Anne and I were knocked off the pack by a feisty Italian team who decided they did not want us to be riding wash with their "group" one minute we were on the wave and the next we were spun off to the side. We didn't let that bother us and kept on plugging finishing the race with a sprint to edge out Argentina.
We still have lots of things to work on, such as portaging and being more aggressive at the start but we came a long way since last year and fixed what we had set out to fix which was our start. Now we have a world class start and can work on figuring out the next part of the puzzle

Portugal

Anne and I arrived in Porto, Portugal Sunday afternoon. We were completely jet lagged because we were unable to sleep on the plane ride over, its actually close to a miracle that we were able to get through security in Madrid and transfer planes but as always we pulled through.
After arriving at the hotel we took a 4hr nap then preceded to locate diner this was much harder then anticipated . We followed the map which lead us to the waterfront beach area about a 30min walk away, still no food siting. The beach was beautiful and we walked along the boardwalk aways then low and behold the golden arches appeared. In our half starved state we succumbed to the urge to go towards them and find food. We ended up eating our lovely mc'ds over looking the ocean and watching a beautiful sunset.

All around the world!

Plane to plane, one city to the next, race series after race series, add in friends a few national championship and world championship medals and you have the makings of one cool experience. The past month has been fun and tough, that much travel can rec havoc with your body combine it with racing and your in for a whole new meaning for the word fatigue. My immune system gave out fairly early in my travels but somehow my body kept doing what I had trained it to do and I placed in the top 3 in 9 out of 11 races plus managed to do a little poking around each place I traveled too.
I am in MA training for a few days before I head out with my K2 partner Anne Blanchard for my last race of the season at Marathon Worlds, Crestuma, Portugal.

Premier women rocked at dragon boat worlds

The title tells it all the premier women's team dominated at Dragon Boat World championships coming away with 2 silver and 2 bronze, four medals four races!

Nationals

Hailing from Atlanta GA, or rather Gainsville. The USA sprint national championships started off yesterday with the 1000m events, today was the 500m and tomorrow distance and 200m knockouts. The races have been going great, I placed second in the 1000m K1, 3rd in the 1000m K2, 3rd in the 500m K1 and 1st in the 500m K4. Unfortunately I caught a really evil cold when I was leaving Canada and it has put me in bed for the rest of the day. I am hoping to feel better tomorrow so I can race the 200ms but I have to be smart since I still have a month left on the road.

Sprint Worlds

62 countries, 4days of racing, loads of spectators and perfect weather = one amazing experience.
I just arrived back in the USA after 7days in Halifax, NS at the World Sprint Canoe Championships. The competition was fierce and we were a young and inexperienced team but we learned a lot which we can utilize in training and racing for the upcoming quad.
I will start with a world champs recap and a preview of nationals tomorrow.

Sprint Canoe Worlds consisted of non-stop action from the minute we arrived off the plan on the 10th til the day we left on the 17th. THE EVENT WAS INCREDIBLE there were 62 countries who took part in the event.
I will fill in more details tomorrow when i am no longer on the road.