theflowofthings

Oh, the joys of traveling… I would like to thank the weather gods for holding onto all their wet stuff for the duration of our trip, well for the most part. If only they could have kept it up for a few more hours.

Just as we are settled into our plane to Chicago, hasty introductions to row mates taken care of, our captain tells us that we can’t leave the tarmac due to bad weather in Chicago. He tells us that he’ll have more information for us later. The whole flight whips out their cell phones and a chorus of “Looks like we’re going to be a bit later than anticipated,” resounds. So, for the next 45 minutes, we sit there, waiting. The voice over the P.A tells us that not only can we not take off, but we have to wait another 45 minutes for clearance again. I sit there reading my Seventeen mag and slowly inching away from the lady next to me who’s chowing down on her pound of pistachios when the voice starts again. This time, it tells us that we are clear in Chicago, but we now have to wait for the storm in Charlotte to pass over.

After what seems like forever, we take-off. The chances that we make our connection to Calgary are slim. But me, being the optimistic person I am, hope for the best.

No such luck, our plane lands 4 hours later than anticipated. And consequently, we miss our flight. The United people wouldn’t give us a hotel voucher, so we “terminaled” it. What living hell! Apparently Chicago Airport takes a great care in its propriety and as such, they were buffing and vacuuming the floors, literally all night. I started off on the chairs, and then moved to the floor. After doing about 5 rotations of chairs to floor, I gave up on sleep and opened my book. At around 530am, the announcements started up and I went to find food, and some energy in a cup: Starbucks! In the line, people were very grumpy and touchy, but once they got their coffee, you could literally see the change, they visibly relaxed. So at 8am, I boarded the flight to Calgary with the group and settled in. A dead ipod and two books later, we arrived in Calgary. I’m happy to be home and am ready to sleep in my own bed. No more traveling for a little while, now we gear up for Junior Team Trials at the Kananaskis.

So after a long, heated weekend of racing, Team Canada has been decided. Here’s what it looks like:

Senior Team

K1- David Ford, Nathan Davis, Ben Hayward

K1W- Sarah Boudens, Jessica Groeneveld

C1- James Cartwright, Cam Smedley, Spencer Pomeroy

Senior Development Team

K1- John Hastings, Pierre Levesque, Chris McTaggert, Jon Allen, Connor Curson, Paul Manning

K1W- Anna Williams, Sara Potvin-Bernal, Thea Froelich, Katrina van Wijk, Kathleen Taylor, Marissa Dederer

C1- Craig Allen, Julian Potvin-Bernal, Alex Clark

C2- Cutts, Purcells

Congrats!

The competition was on a scale so unlike any that I have been to. It was unreal to be going down the course and having hundreds of people yell encouragement to you, and cheer you on!

I’ve heard from a lot of people that their weekend was less than par and I can definitely attest to that. I’m super excited to be part of the development team and I can’t wait for the tour this fall!

Well, here we are again in Charlotte. The flight was long and it was way too early of a morning, 3 am to make sure our boats got on the plane. Greeting us in Charlotte was beautiful weather and our oh so faithful Studio 6 Extended Stay. There’s not nearly as much carnage as the last camp, well almost. Yesterday we had a technique session on the drop. We would paddle over to the corner eddy above the drop and Mike would tell us if we were doing the up on the right, or the up on the left below the drop. On my last run, Mike told me to go down the left side, but do the right up. So I went down the left side and when I hit the hole, I got window shaded into my paddle. I heard a crunch! When I tried to roll up, I couldn’t so I switched my blade around and made it up. Thank you to Pablo who came to the rescue. He gave me his paddle and found my other blade for me.

Right after my paddle breaking experience, Alex went down and broke his paddle! Unfortunately for Alex, he only has one blade and ended up swimming.

I’m definitely enjoying the room Haley and I are staying in. We are so far away from everything that the internet doesn’t even work. So, we have to go either into the courtyard or, my personal favorite, Thea and Alison’s room, where something is always happening. It’s really awesome to see everyone again. I’m looking forward to the weekend.

Back in snowy Calgary again, the weather never ceases to amaze me.

We had an amazing end to the camp, an epic hike.

Mike gave us a choice on what we wanted to do, 30 on, 30 off or a hike up Elk Mountain. The boys had their elk steak to prepare before we left.

At the bottom of the mountain, it was raining, the higher we drove, the whiter it got. When our van started slipping back downhill, we parked it and started our hike. The first little while was good; we were all laughing and throwing snow at each other. We stopped for a water break and then continued on. I’m glad Mike told me to wear pants, because the further we went up, the snowier it got. It was like Christmas, all over again!

At one point, I turned a corner and BAM! The incline increased to something unreal. It was no longer a hike; it was now a scramble of sorts. The snow would slip out from under you and you would grab on to something to steady yourself only to realize that it was snow too. Finally after about half an hour of this, the trees opened up and I could “see” a magnificent view and the perilous plunge I would take if I slipped too far.

An hour and a half after starting our scramble/hike, I was at the top of Elk Mountain with some of my team mates. We rested for a few minutes and then started, well slipped down the mountain. We ran as fast as we could and hopped for the best as the snow moved with us, causing mini avalanches every once in a while. I feel sorry for the next people that go up after us.

The way down was amazing, waaaaaay better than going up. The worst part of it was that you didn’t know what was under you, so you just ran and hoped for the best. It took us 30 minutes.

I’m sure that this hike was one of Mike’s most genius ideas, everybody went to bed early for the first time and on the long drive back to Calgary, our van was almost silent. Heck, even Seo, our always moving black lab mascot was napping for the majority of the time.

Mike kudos on this wonderful hike of yours. What mountain do we conquer next?

It’s been a busy past few weeks. After getting home from Charlotte, I found myself sick and not going to school. This was a problem since I had quite a few questions concerning my chemistry homework.

The weather in Calgary was warming up, it was actually almost as warm as Charlotte and the sun was showing its face.

I paddled at the Kananaskis for the first time since November. I remembered what a good training site it was, minus the snow.

Currently, we are in the midst of our final Chilliwack camp. The weather is miserable, if we are lucky we get 1 or 2 hours of sunlight, otherwise it is cold and overcast. Ah well, it is spring in Chilliwack.

We raced at the Rich Weiss Cup this past weekend. The competitors were half from BC and half from Alberta. The course was difficult and tiring. The water was dropping continuously even with the rain and snowmelt. We found ourselves paddling through almost all of the eddies on the river. I had a very bad first run, but managed to re-focus for my second run. I came in 1^st in the junior women’s category.

Thank-you Lina for the awesome Easter brunch! It was delicious. Easter is my favorite holiday of all times. This one is probably one of the most memorable, no thanks to the eggs that I had pelted at me. It was almost a full on war. You guys better watch your back. People will probably be finding eggs all through the year.

We have one week left in the camp, and I hope to get in some more wicked training before heading back to Alberta.

Well, after a long trip I am finally home again, if only for 2 weeks.

It was a tough training camp, doing 2 sessions a day on whitewater sometimes 3 with a run or core was tiring. You were ready to go to sleep at night.

I definitely learned a few things about Charlotte this time around. Maybe the most important, is that, contrary to popular belief, Charlotte is not warm in February. I brought a ton of shorts with me and was able to wear them maybe one day out of two and a half weeks. The weather was miserable with wind that made going through the gates properly miserable. I wished that I had brought my winter jacket. Now, for Senior Team Trials in April, I’m tempted to bring my Canada winter wardrobe with me, even though I’m told it is supposed to be very warm.

At the end of the camp, we were able to participate in a race. It was a little race, pretty non-official, but it was a race none the less. Talking with some of the other girls, I discovered that they were all just as nervous as I was (being 1 of 2 juniors in the senior women’s category). The center was hosting a job fair of some sort that weekend, so there were rafts going down the channel until just an hour before the first racer. They set the course half an hour before my race run.

I walked into the change room to get ready and discovered that my bag with my kayak gear was missing. Immediately I thought who would want to steal smelly kayak gear, not saying that my gear stinks or anything. I ran back to Mike and told him my gear had been jacked. I then proceeded to open every locker in the women’s changing room. Then, on a hunch I looked in the shower stalls. There, in the last stall with the curtain pulled, I found my stuff scattered around my open bag. I was pretty pissed at whoever had done it, but I guess I did find my stuff in the end. The person had even unzipped the inside zipper of my vest and stolen the 20$ Canadian I had in there. Luckily that was all I had stolen.

The race went okay, I did not do very well at all though. I ended up finishing in 7^th place.

I’m looking forward to going back in April for Senior Team Trials.

So much for warmth in the south, it is freezing cold here! I thought that after arriving here, it would be sunny and warm, but I guess it’s only like that in the spring/summer.

Our hotel is super sketchy. The Studio 6 Extended Stay. There are permanent residents staying, cop cars sometimes circle the building at night, and to top it off, last night someone tried to open the door to our room.

That out of the way, I would like to congratulate Matt for getting a very colorful eye today. Hitting the poles is not fun, especially when they are heavy. We all do it, but sometimes it stands out more for one person than for another, in this case it was Matt and his eye. Good job bud.

Well, Charlotte training is going well, so far we have only had 3 casualties, Graham, Haley and Alex; only 2 bleeders, the later 2. On our 2^nd day here, they both went over the drop upside down. Alex took some skin off his knuckles and his elbow and Haley took off some skin from her knuckles. Haley bled a lot. We paddled across the mini lake at the bottom, up the conveyor belt and across the mini lake at the top to where we store our boats. Haley then ran down to see Mike and get her fingers cleaned up. I followed her and there was a trail of blood leading to them. It was pretty gross.

I got my new boat yesterday morning, an APS Itomco. I was so excited to see it! I was a little sketched out about paddling my new scratch-free boat on Charlotte first, but as it turns out; I was fine and only added one or two new ones. This is my first new boat and I quickly learned that there are some jobs that come with this. After paddling yesterday with my seat moving everywhere, I put it in properly this morning. I have never worked with carbon or kevlar before and so this was an interesting experience. It was very sticky, but with Mike’s help and guidance my seat is now properly in place. Too bad he only said that there was a right and wrong way to put the plastic bag on, not which side it was the proper one. So now, I get to pick strips of Wal-Mart shopping bag out of my boat. Thanks for helping out Mike, now I can do patches on my own, seriously though, which side of the plastic is the good one?

            So much to report on…..

So much for not getting sick, ever since we got back from Masinga Dam, I have slept in my tent and been antisocial with only my sickness for company.

While I was sick, I remembered the good times we had in Masinga Dam.

Our safari was awesome! The Mutatu that was to pick us up at 6 am, didn’t get to us until 10 am, it had to come from Nairobi, a good 4 hours away. While waiting for our ride, I was very tired! Sleep hadn’t happened for me the previous night. I hadn’t been smart enough to bring a thermarest with me, so my back wasn’t happy with me or the rocks grinding into it all night. Also, the resort had set up floodlights around the camp. I’m guessing to keep the animals away. These lights weren’t so much a problem for the sprinters, as their tents were thick and impenetrable as for our light REI models. It was like the sun was shinning on us all night long.

The safari was really cool. We managed to see some zebras, an elephant butt and some giraffes that were super close. On the drive, we got stuck trying to go back country to skirt around some major mud. Thanks for pushing us out boys.

We watched some of the sprinting events and then headed back to our home at Savage Camp.

Upon arriving at home, sweet home, I slept. I’m pretty sure that I got dehydrated and that that was where all my problems started. I woke up a little while later to discover that I had missed dinner, so I took some Tylenol and passed out again.