Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Team Canada

Congratulations to all the Alberta Paddlers on their performances at Senior Team Trials!

National Team Members from Alberta
David Ford *(originally Edmonton)
Ben Hayward (Edmonton)
Jessica Groenveld (Innisfail- qualified the Olympic spot for Canada, which Sarah Boudens, from Ontario , eventually won)

National Development Team Member from Alberta
Chris McTaggart (Canmore)
Paul Manning-Hunter (Edmonton)
Thomas & Daniel Purcell (Innisfail)
Marissa Dederer (Calgary)
Alex Clark (Canmore)

In my last post I noted that I hoped that there would be less drama on Day 3. I was wrong. Despite some controversy it was an amazing event the USNWC put on. Over 120 athletes from 9 countries competed in front of roughly 20,000 spectators over the weekend. A big thanks to the Center and USACK for hosting the event.

Thank you also to James Waldie, Greg Hunter and Sue Clark for their help coaching, videoing and generally taking good care of the athletes.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Drama and Sub-Plots! I wasn't kidding.


Day 1

Friday was an exciting race. First day of team trials is always a scary one. Everyone has trained really hard all winter and this is the first test of the season and the last National race in over six months. Everyone is trying to get a read on the competition and everyone has high expectations. It was my first Team Trials off the water, and it was nerve racking not having any direct control over what happens.

Our Alberta athletes did well on day one and we held second and third spots in Men's kayak due to great, solid performances of Ben Hayward (Edmonton) and Chris McTaggart (Canmore) respectively. This sets them up well for the next days.

Paul Manning-Hunter (Edm), Purcell2 (Innisfail), and Jessica Groenveld (Innisfail) all had solid runs showing that they have the speed to compete Nationally. The Juniors girls showed potential mixing it up with the other Canadian juniors. Unfortunately Haley Daniels (Cal) broke here paddle on her first run after a solid top section. Marissa Dederer (Cal) had a competitive second run.


Day 2

Saturday was the Olympic qualifier for several countries. as I mentioned in a previous post there were Olympic spots on the line for North and South America in every class. After a crazy day of racing Canada sits with a men's kayak spot, based on the World Championship performance, with three athletes still in the hunt going into Sunday's race (David Ford (BC), Nathan Davis (BC), Pierre Levesque (Que). Saturday saw Innisfails' Jessica Groenveld qualify the country spot in an insane Women's K1 race. Now it is between her and Sarah Boudens in Sunday's race.

The continental C2 spot went to the United States as did the C1 men's spot in a heated race between Canada and the USA. Canada will have to wait to see if China will qualify a spot in a complicated chain of events.

The extra continental spot in K1 men went to Chile's Pablo Mccandles, despite all the tricks Brazil through at it.

Some stellar runs were thrown out there today by Alberta paddlers. Besides Jessica's good work, Graham Jobe had a great first run, Haley Daniels had a personal best performance on a re-run, and Ben Hayward came oh so close to securing a spot on the National Team. Still time tomorrow for National Team qualification. I'm expecting an exciting day tomorrow though I hope the protest tent has less work.

Stay tuned...

Thursday, April 24, 2008

New Alberta Budget


Good News for Athletes! An HP athlete assistance program will be implemented to supplement the Federal program. This should be similar to what Ontario has already put in place. (see excerpt from provincial budget below)

Tourism, Parks and Recreation

The Ministry’s 2008-09 total program expense is $248 million, a $1.7 million increase from the 2007-08 forecast.

The Ministry’s operating expense is $160 million, a $16.5 million or 11.5 per cent increase from the 2007-08 forecast. 2008-09 operating spending increases include:

  • $10 million for tourism marketing and development;
  • $2.6 million for parks operations;
  • $1.5 million to implement the High Performance Assistance Athlete Program which will supplement the assistance provided by the federal government for high performance athletes. Over three years, $4.5 million will be provided for this program, and
  • $2.4 million net increase in various other programs.

The Ministry’s capital expense is $88 million, a $14.8 million or 14.4 per cent decrease from the 2007-08 forecast. In 2007-08, $50 million of one-time capital grants were provided for major recreation and sport facilities in Edmonton and Calgary. Capital spending highlights in 2008-09 include:

  • $50 million to support the development of the Capital Region River Valley Park, stretching from Devon to Fort Saskatchewan.
  • $20 million to the Calgary Olympic Development Association for the Centre of Sport Excellence. In total, the government has committed $69 million to this initiative, with $40 million provided in 2007-08 and another $9 million to be provided in 2009-10.

The Ministry’s 2008-09 capital investment budget is $36 million. The majority of this capital investment will go towards maintaining and improving infrastructure and maintenance in Alberta’s network of 500 parks and protected areas.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Storyline

Its coming down to race time. The opening ceremonies are tonight and the Day 1 course will be set tomorrow.

Everyone has been training really well and there is an air of excitement around the venue. With so many sub plots, and a massive crowd expected, it is going to be an exciting race. Results will be live on the internet. Please go to

http://animastiming.com/2008-olympic-slalom-results

Full results will also be posted at www.usnwc.org.

Some of the plots to watch for:
Men's K1
- Who will be the Games boat for Canada (Day 2, 3 + result from World Championships)
-Who will be the Games boat for USA
-Who will the 'next' nation with a Games boat (Day 2) (Chile/Brazil? Day 2)
-Who will be the Games boat for Ireland
-Who will be the three National Team boats for Canada and USA respectively (Day 1,2,3)

Women's K1
- Who will be the Games boat for USA
- Who will be the next country Games boat (Canada/Brazil? Day 2)
- Who will be the three National Team boats for Canada and USA respectively (Day 1,2,3)

Men's C1
-Who will be the Games boat for the Americas (Canada or USA in a deadlock, Day 2)
-Who will be the three National Team boats for Canada and USA respectively (Day 1,2,3)

Men's C2
-Who will be the Games boat for the Americas (Three American boats, two Canadian boats, Day 2)
-Who will be the three National Team boats for Canada and USA respectively (Day 1,2,3)

Alberta has athletes racing in every class with great 'Darkhorse' potential. Good luck to everyone!!!

The race will be shown on May 14th on NBC.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Get your burn on


Here we are in Charlotte. After a couple cool days the sun is out in full force. It sort of caught many of us off guard and I can see the peeling skin coming soon.

Paddling has been going great! The Seniors are on track for some amazing results and the Juniors, in their first session today, looked awesome. This afternoon we had our full coaching staff working hard on the bottom drop. Greg on video, James on splits and myself watching the show. The Seniors were throwing down some sick lines and owning the tricky bottom section.

I even managed to get out on the water yesterday and it was amazingly fun. Sometimes I forget just how much fun paddling is. It helped that I was WELL rested and it was warm out. It also reminded me how talented our current group of paddlers is. I was getting tips from them on lines that they cane on a daily basis.

A big weekend of training coming up. Time for consistency and confidence!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Do you think it's time to leave?



The weather in Calgary is insane! This morning at 7am, when I got up, there was about 1cm of snow on the ground. By 9:30am this is what it looked like!! 20cm of snow.

The weather report promised 6 degrees this afternoon so we planned a session on the Bow River at Bowness. Sure enough it was sunny and the morning's snow was all but a distant memory. We started the session wary of the clouds to the west, which is where weather comes from in this part of the world. Half way though the workout we look upstream at this wall of white coming down river. The heavens opened up with snow pellets the size of tic tacs. Within minutes we were covered in white and the temperature had dropped about 5 degrees. We toughed it out till the first thunder then made a b-line for the cars.

I can't wait for Charlotte where Paul assures me it is too hot for shorts and T-shirt. 7am tomorrow I'll be on my way.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Found Treasure and new Dimensions

Thanks to everyone who participated in this weekend's Personality Dimension Workshop. A giant thanks to my sister Peggy Holroyd and Karen Hirl, for making it happen. This will help us all communicate effectively, which will in turn, enable you to paddle really fast down a river (I know the relationship isn't linear but it exists).


The find of the weekend was a vintage paddling machine. I got an email Sunday from Paul Lauzon an ex-racer from the late 80's early 90's. He had a paddle machine of that vintage that hadn't been used since about '94 and he wanted to see it put to better use. The thing is a piece of art. Paul built the frame out of wood from a picture of Bob Smith's old machine and then attached the English built pulley and resistance module. It works like a dream! I think it is one of the best feeling resistance modules I've have tried. So now it sits in my garage for all to use. If you are ever board and want a good workout come on down for a session. I even have a TV that I acquired from the National Team to go with it (That beast is a story of its own. Imagine having to cart a TV in a wood Box to Europe to watch video on. no laptops??) Add those to a couple exercise balls, medicine balls, wobble boards, and you've got a pretty good little gym.

Ever wonder what happens to all those old slalom boats once they've been raced for a few years? I've been through over a dozen boats in my career and only know of the whereabouts of a couple of them. They just seem to disappear. Well know I know where at least a couple are. Paul had a couple boats, slalom & DR. Hopefully they will see the light of day and at some point encourage a new athlete into the sport. The Slalom Boat is for Sale $180. If anyone is interested let me know. Looking at the profile I think it would be pretty solid if it was brought down to the 350cm limit.

What a weekend!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Elk x 2


So the last week of the camp was great! While the water was a little on the low side we managed to do some good hard work without too many boat/rock incidents.

The highlight of the week was the epic assault on Elk Mountain. After Saturday morning fulls the group opted out of the hard session, I had planned, for an easy hike. heeheehee. How's Elk Mt. sound guys? Doesn't sound bad.

Ok, so in preparation for our pilgrimage up the mountain we feasted on everything left in the fridge. We're leaving the next day so we don't want to waste food. There were some interesting concoctions but the piece de resistance was some meat named aptly after the mountain. Thanks to Alex we feasted on Elk steaks before we went for glory. It was delicious.

Driving to the hike parking lot was more difficult than anticipated. The less than ideal tires on our rental van couple with the excessive power of said minivan meant uphill progress in half a mm of snow was impossible (after complaining to the rental company we got two free days of rental). We parked and walk the last bit.

It was a lovely jaunt straight up with the boys, being boys, knocking the snow off every tree all the way up with the hopes of hitting the next person. It's amazing how much energy they had at the start of the hike compared to the last pitch that not everyone finished. The snow got progressively deeper as we ascended. By the time we hit tree line it was more than knee deep. The last pitch to the view point was a bit sketchy but certainly worth it. The view was....all snowy. Clouds blocked any view we might have had, and minutes after reaching the top it started snowing pretty hard.

We evacuated the peak in record time. It was about an hour and a half up (for some of us) and less than 30 min down. We essentially let gravity do all the work and just hung on for the ride. Running straight down a mountain has never been so much fun.

When we got home we commenced the, nearly as epic, cleaning of the house in preparation for departure. All went well and Sunday we had a flawless drive back to the land of the beef. We are now recovering for a couple weeks prior to Senior Team/Olympic Trials in Charlotte, NC. It will be an amazing race by all expectations.

Till then..