Oct 1 & 2 – Exhausting, fun weekend

The last sprint regatta of the season – the Pacific Cup in Maple Ridge, always a fun regatta even though the weather usually doesn’t cooperate. This weekend was almost no exception. All Saturday, the fog was hanging low over the lake all day and it started to rain a bit in the afternoon. But Sunday was mostly sunny and made up for all the wet the day before. Temperature wise it wasn’t actually too bad either day. We had much worse in previous years.

Racing went okay for me – K2 with Jodi was fun. We messed up the start in the 500m completely but still finished ahead of all the competition – still laughing about the messy start. K4 with the boys felt good but Jodi had to fight for me to get me into the big boy’s boat. I should have listened to Jeff – being on the executive and trying to please everyone in the club just doesn’t work. K1 was okay even though the motorboat wash ran through my lane right after the start and I had to stop paddling for a few seconds. At least that lifted my anxiety of possibly being beaten by Jodi (she has been training so well this year) and I managed to actually catch her just on the line. She sure got her revenge in the 200m race the next day though. We both are happy with our results – coming in 1/2 in both races.

The highlight of the regatta were the young kids that just started paddling 5 weeks ago. In August a boy joined the club and his mom was really pushy about getting him some coaching. All summer long I tried to get a program together for beginner kids but it never looked like anyone was interested. So I did one last push and emailed a few people who apparently contacted the club throughout the summer and voila we ended up with 8 kids in a 5 week program. My “old” paddling buddy Kiran was coaching them to get them ready for this regatta. And did that ever work well – 6 of them signed up for the regatta with one having to cancel because he was sick (unfortunately it was the boy who started all this). The kids were great and they had a lot of fun in their races. We even dragged  them out in a war canoe race. But man, dealing with all these kids all day, getting them ready for their races, answering their question etc was exhausting but more enjoyable than dealing with “adults” sometimes. Seeing the kids enthusiasm and openess to the sport instead of the steady complaining I am used to lately was sooo refreshing. I would not trade this weekend in for anything… thanks also to Jodi for keeping me motivated to race even though I can be a moody K2 partner for sure.

Wrapping up the regatta – boat loading.

BCKC’s future champions

The kids K4 – they had missed their 200m race while I was on the water myself but went for a paddle instead

Coaching the kids

Jodi getting ready for the 200m

The 500M race – after the waves went through 🙂

 

After being on my feet all day, Jeff and I finished the weekend off with our very first curling game with Jeff’s parents. And we were not crushed by the other team. We were actually leading them for quite some time till the 5th end and ended up with a tie game after 8. Wow! And apparently this was one of the better teams in the league. Although their first was a newby like me and I guess we traded equally bad shots that the rest of the team worked their magic with.