CHULA!

Well, we made it here to the OTC in Chula Vista!! 6am we had our very first Dragon boat practice (paddling pell-mell with about 1.5 square feet per person, but we moved pretty fast) in Mission Bay, San Diego; then onto Chula Vista, thanks to Susanne for driving us! We (literally) screeched into the parking lot and raced down to the dock just in time to catch the girls going to warm up. Carrie Johnson, the only female on the US Olympic team for canoe and kayak, Emily Wright (check out her blog, "The Wright's Tuff" - try googling it - the address is different than the name...), Emily Mickle, Jen Burke, and Sophia from Sweden, who is one of the top 10 K1 women paddlers in the world. Assan, from Senegal was training also. What a group to watch! Giulia and I got to go on the coaches boat with Nathan Luce, one of the coolest coaches, in my humble opinion :-) . He visited Oahu for a while last year and came by for a day as a guest coach for Le Jardin Academy's ILH kayak team, we were so happy to have him work with the paddlers (I was assistant coach, Mom (Kathy) is the head coach).
Back to here and now, though... lucky us, we're going on the water with the group here in a few hours! We're going on a K2, which is fortunate because we're racing it at nationals and we've never paddled K2 before. This atmosphere is great - we only just got here, but it has a really good feel - how amazing to be able to train with so many talented, driven athletes! (Plus, there's lots of good food)
Yesterday we checked out UCSD (Giulia is going to be a senior at Iolani this year: the college search is ON!). Some cool pieces of info: if you are invited to train here at the OTC, and want to go to school nearby, you will be considered a California resident, so lower tuition. Also, athletes can qualify to go to school at UCSD part time by petitioning their training as a part-time job. There is a carpool system so the athletes drive in together for schools farther away (like UCSD: approx 45 min drive), but there is also a community college about 10 minutes away.
This is so much fun :-D
Kati

P.S. Giulia says she'll write soon.

Some Pictures from Trials in Oklahoma City

Phase III

So we're coming up on Phase III of this year's paddling-travels (I:Olympic/Pan-Am Trials, II: Lake Placid Camp and regattas), off to Long Beach, CA, tomorrow! Dragon boat Nationals, and along the way, paddling in some pretty cool places - we're going up to the OTC in Chula Vista to visit friends and get on the water with some stellar athletes (YAY!!) and over to Newport Aquatics where we'll hopefully meet up with Billy Whitford. If you don't know him, Uncle Billy is a great waterman who moved up to California from Hawaii a few years back. He is one of the reasons HCKT's athletes have done so well in the past: the team won several National Champs with him as head coach. Although Uncle Billy isn't coaching here anymore, we've still been really fortunate in our coaches - Robyn, Blane and Pat!
We went out on the C1 yesterday, it was a blast. Pictures to come soon, we hope, which you'll want to see: it's pretty hilarious. This was our fourth time on the water working on the C1 in Kailua (Uncle Pete Roney has been nice enough to let us keep the canoe at his house), and while we've had the balance thing down ok, the issue of steering is a little tricky. See, there's no rudder, you're paddling on bent-knee, and you are NOT ALLOWED TO CHANGE SIDES (crazy). Who, we asked ourselves, came up with this sport?!?!
Here's the good news: breakthrough in the steering challenge, so we can actually go forward rather than around and around in circles. Phew!
Oahu Champs today, yeehaw!
Kati

Inaugural

Inaugural blog. My goodness, I never thought I would have a blog, but I'm actually really excited about this. With Trials done, Lake Placid camp and regatta over, the six-man season winding down and two national competitions coming up, I'm pretty jazzed to be able to share the experience with you all!
Although different from what I expected, the LP camp taught me some great things: I got to see how it's "really done," got in race time (so helpful), and I met some amazing people, like the charming and talented Emily Wright, who hosted me for a few days and was the inspiration for this very blog. Technique, fitness, race strategy, WARM UP strategy, all worked on. Races improved, times went down, good stuff! Giulia was holding her own up with all the other Jr.s, showing what she's made of. I found out the hard way that some Bantams are CRAZY FAST!! (ahem Bailey and Zoe).
We've both got Oahu Champs this weekend and State Champs two weekends later. Should be fun, we'll be working booths, fundraising for HCKT, come and buy!! In the by-week, we're flying out to CA for dragon boat Nationals (um, don't tell my crew that I've never paddled dragon boats before, ok?) and cruising around the southern part of the state. In our travels, we should be visiting some colleges (for Giulia) and the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista (so I can drool). The day following States, it's off to Oklahoma City and sprint flatwater canoe/kayak Nationals. Whew! Some couple months, I'd say.
We had a good practice this morning, Giulia liked it so much, she did it again in an OC6 -- Ryan is her favorite person right now, I'm sure.
I'm running the loop and pillboxes in the morning, then we're both going out on the K1, then C1 (just for kicks). So I had better get to sleep.
Kati