...VANKAYAK EUROTOUR 09 CONTINUES...

World Cup Racice 09! As previously writen, 1000m was great, podium pic courtesy of Martin Hunter (l2r: Rene "the neonate" Poulsen, Adam "likes to poke fun at the Scandics" van Shorterthan, Anders "I brought my jacket, 'cause I'm 30" Gustafsson). K1 500m was junk cause I had some famous eastern-european-diarrheas that morning which is really gross, and too much information for all (4) of you so I'm sorry for that. K1 5000m was ten times longer than (actually, check my maths!) my usually-best distance, and a lot of turning which made me dizzy, but an awesome race!! I had fun, and I'm stoked for the next one. We kept the mash-up bumper-boating to a minimum, and I'd like to campaign for that to continue... broken boats suck.

Had a chance to check out Prague a little on Sunday night and Monday with Anders, Nuno and Chico-chewbacca from Nelo... walked across that cool bridge, watched those creepy-priest puppets do their thing at the top of the hour at that famous clock, had a nice meal and dodged guys in ASU football jackets through the cobblestone streets. I actually heard one of them say: "Dang this place is cool...". Pretty sure they thought they were on a movie set or at some kind of a 1800's-tyme theme-park.

Now I'm in Jonkoping, (sorry Sweden, blogger won't let me put the dots over the o's), training with Anders. Dang, this place is cool! Sweden is Canada's cousin, I love it here. Cold and Warm at the same time... everything is in the right place, people are nice and friendly (enough that they aren't rude but not so friendly that you're uncomfortable)... the air tastes clean and the water is fresh and cold, like water should be.

The food is insanely good. The meatballs and lingonberry potatoe-pancakes are presently going to work on those invading little Czech microbial corkscrews... Swedish lingonberry > Czech bacterium (check that math, too!).

Okay I made a map of all the places I'll go on this trip, you can click on it, and it'll get big, then you can follow the red line around Europe with your finger!! Use a napkin if you've been eating Lingonberry pancakes first though, or your screen will get all nasty, and you'll want to lick it. The X is either a race-stop or a trainingscamp-stop...

Two more world cup races! Poznan, Poland in two weeks, and Szeged, Hungary two weeks after that. I'm still undecided as to where I should train between Poz-Sze. Options include back to Jonkoping or to Duisburg with the Canadian Team... hmm. Maybe I will do a tally chart for my next post. Check back for an exclusive Jonkoping-photo essay coming soon to vankayak.com, I need to buy a camera...
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::WORLD CUP ONE - CZECH REPUBLIC::

The K1 1000m final was great! Click for the result page. It was an honour to share the podium with Anders "old daddy" Gustafsson from Sweden and Rene "the young gun" Holten-Poulsen from Denmark - their mutual virginal trip to the K1 1000m World Cup podium. Congrats guys! (photocredit above: Emily Wright Team US and A, artist credit: Adam van Beaverdam)

Big thanks to the King of Racice, Martin Doktor for hooking me up with a great place to stay, AND a sweet bike... and thanks to Pat Dolan for poppin' the front tire... RIP awesome bike (see photo below, *a single tear*). But thanks to the old racecourse guy for exchanging my awesome busted bike for a slightly less cool girl's mountain bike. I'm just stoked to be rollin' around on two wheels up here in Racice.

Races tomorrow include K1 500m and 5000m... so hopefully I've got some 500m turbospeed AND 5km stamina! Hopefully I stop coughing before then too, and hopefully the wind dies down in Welland for Canadian Team trails... Good Luck everyone!

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::THAT IS A BIG LAKE!!::

Yes, Lake Ontario is very big, we all know that (it's the 11th biggest in the world, by area AND volume). But sometimes it's really nice and flat for paddling on too. Now that I live right downtown Toronto, I paddle on it a few times a week from the Argonaut's Rowing Club... No, I didn't join the dark side, and they are a very welcoming group!

Updates:

1. The Earth Run was awesome, I came in 2nd. Do it next year. But don't wait till then to run... go now! The weather rocks and running is awesome! (see update #2)

2. I've been writing for IRUN... a great Canadian Magazine about more than just running. Check out my most recent article about training in Maui with Simon, and the one before it, and keep going back for news!

3. I like kayaking.

4. I'm going to the Czech Republic in a week to start some racing! World Cup #1 is there, then I'll bum around Europe for a few weeks, Sweden, Hungary, Poland, maybe Germany or Norway... check back for an update on vankayak euro tour 09... it's gonna be a good one! (knockin' on my knoggin)

5. My wonderfully ecologically-conscious sponsor RONA held a great park clean up day called Eco-Responsible Day up at Earlscourt Park in little Italy (that's me on the left with the wicked rake). We scoured the park for trash, I concentrated my efforts on cigarette butts, and will dutifully scold anyone I see discarding one of their butts on the ground or from their car window, or anywhere other than the trash bin. Eat them if you have to, that's YOUR garbage... smoking piggies!!

Check back soon!! I'll be "on the continent" as they say by next week... lots of news to come!

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::SPRING TRAINING 2009::

(photo credit: Fredrik the Fysio... L2R: Martin "I paddled in the 80's" Hunter, Anders "Latissimus Dorsi" Gustafsson, Kalle "345" Mikkonen, Adam "people in glass houses..." van Beaverdam, Eirik "I paddled in the 80's, too" Veras Larsen, and Mika "not the Calgary Flames' Goalie, or the massive finnish guy who won K1 in 1992" Hokajarvi)...

So I have been in Florida for some time now, about 4 weeks. After a record-low for kilometers in my kayak last fall, it has been a bit of a challenge getting back into on-water training, but I am finally starting to feel like myself again. As I have previously written, (I'm cheating here, cut-and-pasting from a previous blog, but it's MY blog, so I can do whatever I want, self-plagiarism included) getting back on the water after a few months of dryland off-season training is a process which requires a bit of patience, which is not my most glaring virtue. Reflecting back on the ease and finesse with which I pilot my small craft following a few thousand kilometres of preparation by mid-summer race season provides little consolation, as my blistered hands and sore back infantilize my "World Class Athlete" ego. As the kilometres pass under my boat, blisters mature to callouses and paddling my kayak feels increasingly natural, stringing strokes together like footsteps.

Humans did not evolve in kayaks; our bodies were not designed to paddle these skinny boats around for hours a day. It is for this reason that I am most thankful for the human body's ability to adapt when stressed with hard work. Bill Bowerman coached the University of Oregon Track and Field Team for the majority of the 20th century, including well-known middle distance runner Steve Prefontaine. He described this training process succinctly with four words; stress, rest, adapt, improve. It is the fourth word with which I am most fascinated.

The more I use my paddle to pull my boat forward, the tougher my hands will get, the stronger my back will become. The more my lungs extract oxygen from the air, the more my heart pumps blood around my body; the more the enzymes in my muscles turn carbs into energy, the better my body is prepared to race my kayak for Canada this summer. It's a demanding process, and one that I'm (thankfully) lovingly addicted to. We train for months and years and race for minutes and seconds, so enjoying and embracing the process is of prime importance.

As the good people of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia prepare to host the Canoe-Kayak World Championships this summer, the Canadian Canoe-Kayak team is preparing to compete on home turf upon the always-friendly yet often gusty little lake of Banook. Whatever the opposite of a raindance is, we should all learn one, and jig-away everyday until August.

A couple more weeks down here and it's home for a few weeks before skipping across the Atlantic Pond for Eurotour 09...
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....DAVID SUZUKI EARTH RUN....

Hey! Do you like running? So do I!!
Hey! Do you like the Earth? Me too!!

So come out to the Exhibition Place for the Green Living Show on April 26th and run a 5k for the Earth! I'm hosting it, it's gonna be sunny, and it's going to be fun, and only as hard as you make it. Don't drive there though, take the train or walk or ride your unicycle or take your solar powered helicopter or whatever. Yeah! Go Earth!
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