Florida Training Camp

I have reached the halfway point in my 4 week Florida Training Camp. I'm pictured above (and below) in my lighthousesque boat with my "Partner in Pain" Anders Gustafsson of the Kayak Team of Sweden, full photo credits go to Bernie "sure, that's a food!" Irvin, our indispensible and irreplaceable (we wouldn't want to even if we could) massage therapist and nutritional advisor. So two weeks kind of zipped past, but I'm pretty sure I got some good training in somewhere. I have my Cervelo here, so I've been pelotoning it up a few times a week with the canoe guys. (Ahem, yeah I put that link to Cervelo up there because I'm a sponsored cyclist, like super fast and everything, seriously) Also did some good 2k's with the Norways (5x2km, average 8:09 with a turn, 8min recovery), who have sadly packed up their heart rate monitors and Viking Caps to make the trek back to icy Oslo. I wanted to put a link to Eirik's site, and Alex's site up on this post, in hopes that they'd do the same for me... so that is the only purpose of this last sentence. We tried to host the 2nd not-so-annual International Beach Day last weekend. It was for the mutual enjoyment of the all the different nationalities that all train here, and to do something about how we unfortunately communicate almost exclusively with head nods and mipronounced "Guten Tags!". Despite plenty of enthusiasm from at least 5 different countries (Canada, Portugal, Norway, Germany, and um... Quebec) there was a crazy red tide that forced us off the beach with towels over our mouths coughing and gasping for breath. Brutal... IBD #3 is postponed until February.

I'm staying in Florida until Dec. 19th, which is later than most... I took my time getting here though, with all these trips to Africa and the beautiful western Canada (big shout out to Calgary & Burnaby CC's). So most of my teammates and training partners will be long gone by the 19th. I'm hoping zee Germans, who are staying until the 20th or something will be cool with me joining up with them for a few sessions of Deutschestyle-kayak training.

Lastly, and not about kayaking... if you need some really good music to listen to, check Kings of Leon (to rock your socks a la Nashville), and Kevin Drew (to chill the heck out after that insane Kings of Leon air guitar session).