We went to our first competition this Saturday. After departing with sunny
skies and 60 degrees in t-shirts, 20 degrees and snowing was a harsh
reminder of spring in the rockies. After a brief pep talk in Denver, Tom,
Andy, and Shawn paddled some freestyle while Molly, Jessie, Brooke, Joan and
I paddled Slalom. The freestyle was okay and after testing out all the
features and the air temperature we decided to lobby to not have the
freestyle event. The slalom course on the other hand provided a great place
to learn the basics of slalom. We practiced offsets, ups, and dive gates.
The girls picked these concepts up well. The Freestyle was okay with some
good front surfing and spinning. However, it is hard to put your heart into
it when you don't want to flip over.
Race day was cold and snowy. We discussed strategy and course memorization.
This was important as the course was a little confusing. Many of the gates
that were not being used were frozen to the wires and could not be moved.
We practiced visualizing runs and waited for our turn to paddle by the fire.
Each student improved their time between first and second runs. In Slalom
you earn a raw time and then they add any touches (2 seconds) or missed
gates (50 seconds) on to your time. Our kids both brought down their raw
time and cleaned up their runs. In this race it was best run that counts.
In women's, we place took 2nd Joan 164 seconds, 3rd Jessi 167 sec, 4th Molly
170.19 seconds, and Brook 170.65 seconds. Very impressive for a first run.
Anders was our fastest guy with 129.97, Andy had a fast raw time 137 but
missed several gates. Shawn improved his time greatly and had a clean second
run with a time of 155 seconds. Steve Holmes, father of Molly also braved
the cold to have the fastest CRMS time 105.47 in his C-1. Steve and I also
won C-2 with a time of 126.93.
The Front Range Paddle folk took good care of us keeping us feed with
burgers and warmed by the fire. Hopefully we will not need this at our
race. It was a cold hard couple of days but I think we all learned
something. Like don't forget your Sorels.
I was sorry to miss the band concert. I am sure it was a special evening
back here on campus as well. But probably a lot warmer.
Peter
PS I attached the score sheet to this email. It will also be up on the
kayak board tomorrow.
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