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Kayaker, Engineer, Athlete, Tinkerer

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Classic Runs and Boat Damage


(Friday 15th)After the really cool hike yesterday my body was really hurting.  My forearms were weirdly tight and my legs hurt bad.  So in the morning Emmanuel, Chris and I did a easy paddle on the lake just to loosen some tight muscles and get a feel for out boats on flatwater for the first time. Later we came back and had lunch before Emmanuel and I did one classic run.  Nothing too eventful, still feeling pretty nervous on the bottom half of the course. (And Chris did recover the wavehopper, it wasn’t his race boat)

(Saturday 16th) Today was going to be a tough day of classic runs.  Two in the morning and one in the afternoon. It took me a while to admit how demanding the course is.  For long days I’m used to 2 or 3 hours in a boat, but so far here I’ve never spent more than 2 hours in a boat, or done more than 3 classic runs.  The whitewater requires very precise maneuvers that need a certain amount of strength and if you are exhausted then you can’t make the moves and will be slow or possible break your boat. I still am not feeling completely comfortable on the bottom half of the classic course.  I feel fine following someone, but I’m not completely confident in my ability to remember the lines on my own. Luckily I brought my helmet camera so that I can video the lines to be able to watch them over and over again. For the first two runs in the morning the camera was pointed too high and you couldn’t really see the water so over lunch I reglued the camera mount on my helmet and was able to get some good video of the third run. None of my runs were spectacularly good, all had some hard hits and the result was the appearance of some fresh cracks on the stern, but it the only the outer layer of resin that had cracked, it was still very strong and incredibly stiff. Later in the evening Emannuel and I did some minor boat repair and then the two of us as well as Fanch went into Aime to grab some bread and water and stopped by a bar for a beer.  Bars in Europe are quite a bit nicer.  Small open air very relaxed, it’s really cool to be able to sit outside in sunshine, and talk about wildwater.

(Sunday 17th) Today I did a time trial for the classic course without following anyone. We put in a Bourgh so we had a 20minute warmup, I got out of my boat walked around a bit, went over some of the lines in my head and then started my run.  The top half was very good, I had clean lines and felt fast. The middle portion of the classic is fairly flat so it’s the place to put on the power and make a good time. Unfortunately for me there was a large raft trip that I hit right at the beginning of the very hard, final third of the course.  Luckily I was able to pass them all before the big stuff really began. My line in hamslicer was horrible and I had a very hard stern hit.  I managed to get it back together for the beginning of the the 400meters but in the end I hit a hidden piton rock and banged both my bow and stern very hard.   My line through the sprint course was alright, nothing spectacular but not horrible. In the end I had a small chip in the bow and a nice big crack in the stern, not quite as bad as I thought, but I now know several more places where I can’t go.  As bad as it seems to start breaking my boat, it feels good to go fast at maximum effort.  Sometimes you have to cross that razor’s edge just to know where it is, and with some more practice I know I can go faster. 

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