(Sunday 10th) The day after arriving in Villette
I paddled a wavehopper for the day since we couldn’t find the Speed art boats
the night before. For the first run we would do the classic course with an
additional 6 minutes of warm up river. The two first impressions I had of the
river were wow this is fast and this is very cold. Even with the air temperatures in the 60’s I
could still see my breath on the river. This course definitely deserves all the
hype. It is very big pushy, fast and technical. The race lines are all good,
but if you are not on line in several spots you can easily break a boat. For
the first day I did one full classic in the morning and one run from bourgh in
the afternoon with the girls. That night the Australian team as well as Ben
Oakely of the British team stopped by to talk for a little while and we decided
that we would meet up in the morning and do a run as well as drop a tip that
the Croatian team had dropped some boats in a village somewhere up the
valley. Both Chris and I were eager to
get our boats so we left that night with Emmanuel to try and find them. I was
pouring rain and had been raining for quite a while at this point. After a couple of wrong turns eventually we
found them and even with a rain soaked bag we could tell that they were
light. When we got back Chris and I
pulled our boats to examine them and we were both very pleased our designs had
come out exactly like we wanted and the build quality them seemed very good.
(Monday 11th)The next day the river was very
high. I still didn’t have my boat so I
was in the wavehopper. After seeing the
level, only Emmanuel and Ben Oakely were interested in getting a run in, and
since I had a wavehopper I figured I would give it a go. Within 2mins of putting on I knew this was
going to be quite a run. The river felt
like it was at flood stage just huge waves and monster holes and the water was a
dark shade of grey. I managed alright
for the first half negotiating the 2 meter high waves. But after passing the
halfway bridge the “big” stuff began.
Things got even bigger and pushier with the lines becoming
narrower and completely disappearing in some cases. At one point I went around the corner just to
see ben (who has had top 10 finished in worlds) get back endered out of a
massive hole. In a split second I look
to the left and right to evaluate my options, the hole is nearly river wide
with was looks like a weak point right of center. Since I am in a long boat the doesn’t turn
very well punching it was the only option.
I just put my head down and pulled for all I was worth. After I dropped down the face of it into the
meat of the foampile I am stopped dead and begin to feel the sickening feeling
as I am ever so slowly sucked back in.
The next second I am looking straight up at the sky as I am vertically
back endered in 4meter long boat.
Luckily I ride the ender out of the hole and fall clear of the boil line
where I scull for a while to get back upright.
Then I had to get my wits together and finish out the run. Emmanuel and Ben had eddied out above the
sprint course to get a breather and make sure I was still in my boat. After letting out hearts slow down a little
we eddied back out the finish the madness.
The sprint course was as big as the rest of the run but luckily the
lines remained the same. When we
finished we got out and just sat for a bit relaxing. That was notably the hardest thing I have
ever paddled in a boat. The green
narrows have nothing on the Isere at 60cumecs.
Nobody wanted to do another run so we decided to get lunch
and Emmanuel would do some boat repair while I would make some bow crunch pads
for both of the Wishes. This was made
even more interesting because the resin we bought from zastera was horribly
slow, I was worried it wouldn’t cure at all. After 4 hours it was still very
flexible, we both said screw it, took them off and went to paddle the upper
section so we could get a feel for out new boats. The boats are very nice they
are very responsive on waves. We paddled
with the women this afternoon which was interesting, there were many eddy outs
and even two swims not even on the classic course so the next two weeks will be
very interesting. When we got back the
crunch pads were still flexible so we taped them on and hoped for the best.
(Tuesday 12th) The next morning it appeared as if
the resin was in fact working as the crunch pads appeared to have hardened some,
which was good because Emmanuel and I were going to do two classic runs with
the Aussies and Ben. First time on the
real classic course in my race boat and I was very nervous. Fortunatly because
it had been raining a lot the water lever was very good and things were padded
a little more so there wasn’t much boat tapping. End result was I could keep up with Emmanuel
pretty well as well as the slower of the Aussies. I felt very good about the runs and decided
that was enough for the day. In the afternoon Emmanuel and I went into Bourgh
to buy important things like beer and fly paper for the hourdes of flies in our
house. Nothing much eventful happened
other then Emmanuel left to see his sports medicine doctor in Lyon because his
back was bothering him.
(Wednesday
13th) Since Emmauel was gone I met up with the Aussies for two upper
runs in the morning. The first was more
of a warm up steady state session, and the next I did 5 times 4mins on with
2mins rest. It was good to do a real
workout on a section I was very comfortable on so I could get a feel for how
the boat responds at race pace. The more I paddle the wish the more I get used
to and like it. It moves very well and as long as I keep the blades in the
water forward and not past the hips the boat feels very good in the big
whitewater. After the two runs Chris and I headed back to eat some food and
rest a bit. I was eating speculoos and nutella, and drinking chimay while
cooking more food for later it was very relaxing.
Later in the afternoon Chris wanted to do some sprint runs
and I didn’t really want to paddle so I went along to video and act as
safety. Well I was able to video but the
safety wasn’t as effective. Chris ended up falling out of the boat on his 4th
run and right when the throw bag was about to land on him he was pulled under a
wave and missed the rope. He was able to get out with his paddle, but the boat
was washed downstream. After chasing it
along the bike path for several hundred meters we were not able to catch it. So
we loaded up and drove way downstream to the village of centron to see if it
would pass through there. Luckily I had
a good book with me so I just sat with the sun on my back and a throwbag near
my and just relaxed and read for a while.
Shortly after the sun dropped behind the mountain Chris came back
unsuccessfully.
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