Cheat Race Day by Barb

This year, most of the Youts made it to the Cheat race: Liam, Ben, George, Will and Thomas competed and did very well. The results of the race can be found here.

Thomas, Sandrine, Tom, Georgio, Liam, Ben and ... we are missing Will who could not be very far.

We also had an honorary team member joining us this year.  Barb, Ben's Mom, tagged along in the Little Gray Van to fully experience the Cheat Race fun.  Barb nicely took the time to write about her experience so here is her account:

"Ben did not complain about his Mom cramping his style. She rode up in the van ride up to the race. 

Mom learned many things:

1.  It’s a long ride for six minutes of viewing.

2.  The road to the take out is especially scary in someone else’s vehicle.

3.  Mom needs to learn how to be calm like the kayakers:

Mom was too scared to drive LGV* back up the road so she waited for someone to rescue her. Tom and Sandrine noticed Mom and the boys waiting for rescue and graciously got off the shuttle bus, leaving their paddles behind. 

After the shuttle bus dropped everyone off at the put in, it drove away with Tom and Sandrine’s paddles on it.  So, once those of us in LGV got back to the put in, Tom and  Sandrine had to find their boats: which had been dropped off in one direction and their paddles: which had been driven off in another direction.

Meanwhile Mom felt guilty and responsible for the lost paddles: if she could have just driven LGV up the horrible road Sandrine and Tom would not have been separated from their paddles.  So Mom fretted while Tom and Sandrine found their paddles.  Mom should just learn to chill and be calm like the Kayakers."

(*) For those of you who would not be acquainted with Tom's now legendary vehicle, LGV is the Little Gray Van."

I also think that Barb ended up driving LGV home while everybody else was snoring in the van after a full day. :) And yes, this was a bit of a chaotic day but I am not sure I know any kayaker who would mind a little chaos once in a while.

The Cheat Race is always a great cap to the end of the Spring paddling season and I know I always feel a little pinch in the heart at the thought that the fun weekly training with the Youts are over.  But this year again, I had a fun time with this great group and I am already looking forward to next year!

Saturday April 21: Wavehopping on the North Branch of the Po

This weekend marked the second water release of the Bloomington dam, on the North Branch of the Potomac.  Upon Tom's advice, the Wavehoppers headed to Barnum, WV to train on this classic Wildwater run.  The Cheat being too low to be run in our boats, the timing was perfect.

After getting only slightly lost, Sandrine met with Thomas and George before heading to the take out.  There, they found some familiar faces: the LAKS Cheat Lite group, lead by Hollie, was also there to enjoy this nice Class II/III run.

The team geared up for their first "classic wildwater run" and Thomas drove us and our pile of Wavehoppers to the put-in.
 

There we met again with Hollie, who was very familiar with this river and gave us a few pointers about where to put-in. She also introduced us to Kurt Smithgall, who paddles on the US Wildwater team.  He was there for the day, doing loops on the upper part of the run and biking his own shuttle.  Kurt nicely offered to show us the lines on this short section.  We carried up about a half mile, put on and... tried to keep up with him while he was "taking it easy".  We left him at the end of this top section and finished the run by ourselves, paddling steadily and constantly.

At the take out, after refueling with our favorite healthy food (Yes, that includes Pringles) and a deep reflection on the most efficient ways to run shuttle, we found a nice crew of gentlemen who agreed to take Thomas back up to his car.  How could they not when Thomas looked like this:

Thomas most convincing look to find a shuttle ride.

We shuttled for a second run and waited for Kurt to be back to the put in to start our second run with him.  In the meantime, the guys decided a little rest was in order and what is more comfy than a Wavehopper for a nap??
 

A bed of nails is George's second favorite for a power nap.

We started our second run as soon as Kurt came back.  After a few miles, Kurt, who was paddling at a "leisurely pace" dropped out of sight.  We paddled paddled paddled! So hard that we finally caught up with him (Yes we did!!)... OK, OK, we found him in an eddy, where he stopped to do a little wave surfing, so what? 

Overall, this run was different from anything we had paddled so far: continuous class II/III with no major rapids, allowing for regular pacing and continuous paddling. We all had a good time on what was our first classic wildwater training.  Thanks Tom for encouraging us to do this! :)

 

Saturday, April 7: First Trip on the Cheat

Only Taylor and Ben made it to the first trip to the Cheat.  The river was level was around 2 feet, which was perfect to introduce Taylor to the canyon.  After the past Cheat Training Season during which the levels remained around 4-5 feet, Ben, now a veteran, found this level to be child's play.

At the put-in, while waiting for shuttle to be setup, the guys did not remain idle.  After Ben struck an engaging group conversion on Zombie apocalypse, they decided to use their talent to build a raft from sticks and ... trash(?)... well... let's say: from what they could find on the spot.  And ain't that a fine looking boat!?

  

Not sure if the goal was to have the raft follow us all the way down the river but the journey of the so carefully hand-crafted craft ended up being short-lived.

Everything went well as we made our way down the river and Taylor had a few opportunities to show us his bombproof roll.  He even took a little "ding" in the face without flinching.  Way to go!

This was a gorgeous sunny day on the Cheat and we all enjoyed a great day of paddling together.

.

March 31st: Team LAKS Red Mo Race Mission

  
On Friday March 31st, Ben, George, Taylor, Thomas, Will and Sandrine gathered at the LAKs office before heading to Grassflat, PA to compete in the Red Mo Race.  

 
 









  






This 7-mile race was organized on class II/III Moshannon Creek. It was open to crafts of all sorts and shapes, from stand-up paddle boards to canoes, rec boats, sea kayaks and, of course, wildwater boats.  This was going to be the first race of the year for all of us and also the first race ever for Taylor and for the new LAKS wildwater team.  Taylor and Ben were to compete in long boats whereas Will, Thomas, Geroge and Sandrine would paddle their Wavehoppers.

Team LAKS about to take the road

After our Atlanta adventure and the scares that  Tom's Little Gray Van had given us about a month before, LGV had spent some quality time at the repair shop and we were all hoping that our drive to Pennsylvania would be a breeze.  Ben, Will and Sandrine would drive in the van while George, Taylor and Thomas would drive in George's car. 

We were moving along, making headway towards our destination.  Time was flying by in the Little Gray Van where Ben, Will and Sandrine were chatting along, while listening to some dubstep, rap and other good tunes, all courtesy of DJ/copilot Will.  While Sandrine was driving, Ben and Will had the arduous task to keep the music going.  This was no easy undertaking because of the defective cassette-tape adapter.  Ben's role was to hold the cable in some awkward position that would keep the device working and Will ensured the "vocal backup".  He had to sing and "fill the blanks" every time the music would be interrupted.  Both did an excellent job and their team work kept the music going for most of the time.  Will even outdid himself by "guiding" all of us on a nocturnal scenic tour of some obscure areas of Pennsylvania.  :))


After a few wrong turns and about three hours on the road, the rain started and... the van stopped...  Despite the time spent in repair, LGV's tolerance for rain had not improved.  We were forced to stop multiple times.  George, Thomas and Taylor were following us closely and patiently in case LGV would give up completely.  If we were to make it to our destination, this was going to be a long trip.  And long it was! Instead of arriving at our motel around 10:30 or 11 as expected, we made it to Nowhere, PA (also known as Kylertown) at 1:30 am.  After the van gave us all these difficulties, you would think that nothing else could have gone go wrong! Well, think again! For a while we really thought that we were going to be forced to camp in the rainy cold:
First, we could not find our motel.  When we finally found it,  the office was closed. We drove to a gas station nearby to inquire about this slight problem and managed to get the name of the "key keeper".  We looked for the man who would give us access to a warm, dry and comfortable bedroom.  He turned out to be a "she" but this was the least of our worries. The nice lady checked us in and gave us our oh so coveted key!!   In the meantime, our team fashionista decided to throw in a little "gas station fashion show".

We were more than ready to get in our room and finally get some rest when we found out that the key would not unlock the door.  It is only after about 5 or 10 minutes of discussion about the fact that the room number could be a 6 or a 9 that Will, by some miracle, managed to open the door. Yay Will! Our hero!!

 

The room was finally ours! Hooray! But... it could accommodate 5 people and it was the six of us there.  How were we going to make this slumber party work?
The guys generously offered the cot to Sandrine (How sweet was that?!). First problem solved.


 
 

The next question was to decide who was going to sleep on the floor.  After lengthy deliberations and a few rock-paper-scissors games, Ben ended up on the carpet.



 








At this point (passed 2 am), we decided that getting up at 5:30 or 6 am to do a practice run to figure out the race course was out of the question.  We were going to "wing it".




 The next morning, after a copious breakfast, we headed to the race put-in to register and get ready to race.  Everybody seemed pretty pumped-up and ready to paddle hard and give their best.

And who forgot his shoes and borrowed Thomas flip-flops? 

We won't tell...Ahem...

Strategy or trash talk meeting ?

The river turned out to be extremely low and the short section we could see from the put-in looked very shallow.  We did not know what to expect for the rest of the course. 
The slowest crafts were scheduled to leave first, so we patiently waited for our turn to launch.  After a solid hour wait, we all cheered on as Ben and Taylor started their race. The Wavehoppers were in the two last heats, with other wildwater boats.  


The race turned out to be extremely scrapy.  The river was so low that it was difficult to get any glide out of our boats.  Another challenge was to pass the slower competitors who had launched before we did.  


Despite the less than ideal conditions, the members of Team LAKS poured all they had into the race and ended up with honorable rankings.

In particular, Ben placed third in the Men K1 category!!

CONGRATS BEN!! 

Taylor ranked fourth behind Ben and the Wavehoppers (placed in a separate category) proved to be competitive as well.  The complete race results are available here.

Despite a few mishaps and less than ideal race conditions, this was a fun time and a good opportunity for Team LAKS to cut their teeth on a first local race.

Saturday March 24: Let's Bend the Rule!

This Saturday, only Ben and Zach decided to brave the rainy and rather chilly whether to meet with Sandrine at Great Falls National Park. 



As a first in the history of Cheat Training, the Slow Grinding Death was going to be replaced by some fun surfing time at Rocky Island.  The river level of 3.9 ft was perfect for our long boats.

With the help of Zach, Ben (who had originally put his dry-top front to back, which would only count as one more of Ben's wardrobe-related anecdotes in the history of the Dream Team) managed to get dressed.  There is nothing like team work! Way to go guys!

We unloaded the van, and headed to Sandy Beach.  Without any warm-up, we jumped in the "jaw of the beast" by doing the hairy ferry below the fish ladder before heading down river.



 





Zach proved he had not lost his touch when came the time to work his way upstream against the canyon wall in extremely boily water to catch a few good surfs in the hole at S-turn.  He made this hard move look like a breeze.


After a few minutes of play around S-turn we moved down to Rocky and there...  what a delight it was to carve turns on this big first glossy wave!  We spent over an hour there, surfing and paddling back up ceaselessly, until our muscle could hardly respond anymore. This turned out to be quite a workout! 



We had Rocky for ourselves for almost the whole time we were there, and we felt quite lonely and bored, as you will be able to tell after watching those videos:
 

Zach Rockin' Rocky

Ben Getting a Good Taste of the First Wave     

When came the time to return to Sandy Beach, we realized that the river was too low to simply attain up.  We were about to experience a different type of workout.  Some walking or "boat rock climbing" / knuckle dragging would be required to go back to our starting point.

For some impossible reason for Ben and Sandrine to comprehend, Zach decided to be smart and get out of his boat to simply portage "sticky spots" that were impossible to attain.  Why in the world would you do that?! Ben and Sandrine, however, decided NOT to get out of their boats and to claw their way up the rocks: forward backwards, sideways but at no time their skirts would come off... NEVEEEERRR!!! Plus it is great fun to practice rock climbing with a 30-lb boat attached to your waist!!! Try it sometimes!  This must have been somewhat fun for Zach to watch too...  or maybe was it pathetic?  He may even have shaken his head few times. :)

Finally we made it passed the shallowest part and attained up to Sandy Beach, after a short pause at a small water fall the recent rain had revived in the back channel.  This is the perfect example of the little treasures the Potomac only reveals to kayakers: impossible to get a good look at this little jewel if you are not on the water.  Yes... that's how privileged we are!  Let us not forget about it.

This workout broke the tradition of Cheat Training in many respects but what a great time we had!  It certainly put smiles on our faces.  And it is not impossible that there could potentially be a slight chance that we might even do it again sometimes... maybe... Who knows? 

Thursday, March 22: A Logistical Conundrum

How to bring seven boats to the river when you have only four straps and none of Tom's vans are available?

This is the conundrum that presented itself that Thursday.


First we waited hoping that Tom was going to show in his big white van (after his Atlanta adventure, the Little Gray Van was getting pampered at the repair shop).  About half an hour before our meeting time at Angler's, we started to think about alternatives.... they were scarce. Ten minutes before the meeting time, all hopes of seeing the van appear were lost.  Time to move and do something about this!

We loaded four boats on Sandrine's car with the expert help of George and Liam, and Ellen was going to save the day by stopping by the office to take three boats on her car.  

There was one more hoop to jump through: how to tie those three boats with no straps?! Hmm... yeah... how about throw ropes and... lots of knots? Should work!?  That was a task for Ashley, George and Liam! That was going to be done in no time.  Yes but wait a minute... it is not all that easy... too much slack, no anchors, what's that knot already: "a double half trucker's hitch or somethin' "? After multiple, knotting, "unknotting" and "reknotting" the boats were somewhat tied on the roof... at least they looked like they were and with a little faith, we were going to keep them there all the way to Angler's.

Sandrine and Liam followed Ellen in case she would lose some of her precious load (Yeah! That's how much confidence we had in that tie job... and you should have seen the look on Ashley's face when we left the office...I think it meant "good luck with that!")


The ride to Angler's was long and stressful.  Liam and Sandrine saw the boats shifting around in every turn and they were just waiting for the moment when they would actually fly off.  They did not!  Yes, we witnessed a miracle!  We made it to Angler's and the seven boats with us... We even have pictures to prove it.  (Note the position of the top Pirouette at the office and at Angler's.... see any difference?)

There, Ben, Taylor and Zach were patiently waiting for us.  Yes, Zach is back!! We thought he had abandoned us but there is little doubt he was missing our back breaking workouts way too much to give up on this year's training. 

Welcome back Zach! It is great to have you back!

Incidentally, after we pulled in the parking lot, someone told Sandrine she was "the coolest Mom"!!!??? Hum... the "cool Mom" of SIX teenagers... REALLY?!?!  "Big sister" would have been a compliment, but MOM!?!?  That was a bit hard to take.  Better leave this comment behind and go paddling. :)

Since our little misadventure cost us some training time, we decided to go straight to the point and paddled straight to Wet Bottom.  Ben, Zach and George (who had traded his Wavehopper for a Fox) even spent a few minutes at Rocky, while Ellen, Liam, Taylor and Sandrine practiced ferries in the fast current below the rapid.  


This was a gorgeous and warm evening on the river and even though the training was shorter than usual, everyone seemed like they had their fare share of work.

Two Weeks Into Cheat Training

We are now two weeks into Cheat Training and the new team already proved very strong.  It appears like Sandrine will have to come up with some good challenges for our new paddlers.

Every Thursday, the team meets at Angler's for attainment workouts.  So far, we made it twice to Wet Bottom and a few of us even attained passed it to go surf at Rocky Island.  Attaining Wet Bottom can be tricky, since it both requires good boat control in swift current and swirly water, combined with enough stamina to be able to paddle hard and negotiate the random boils the river keeps "throwing" on the way. 

Last week, Ben made the attainment for the first time and only someone having succeeded at this move at some point could understand the way he felt at that precise moment.  Although this picture of him speaks rather loud. :o)

 On Saturdays, we meet on the Maryland side of Great Falls National Park before walking to Sandy Beach and paddling over seven miles down to Sycamore Island for the infamous Slow Grinding Death.  We usually break down this long paddle into sections and work on various aspect of our paddling: forward strokes, pacing, sprinting...etc.


A few Saturdays ago, our wildwater team joined us for the long haul. As they were zooming past us in their Wavehoppers, we wondered for a second if we were even moving.  We were not, though! Far from it!  Ben and Taylor could confirm that we were working pretty hard!  We essentially worked on sprints and we made very good time down the river.

LAKS Racing Team Kayak Camp in Atlanta

 On March 3-4, George, Will, Tom and Sandrine drove to Atlanta, GA to attend a wildwater training camp led by former head coach of the US junior wildwater team, Maurizio Tognacci. 

We left DC on Friday afternoon ready to let Tom's Little Gray Van take us to Atlanta.  Unfortunately, about an hour from DC, the Super Van decided it would not cooperate.  It did not quite appreciate the heavy rain, which poured on us for most of the way.  Every time the engine would stall, the silence in the van seemed to be screaming: "Is this the end of our trip?" But every time, after a few minutes of rest, the car would start again, allowing us to slowly and gingerly make headway towards our goal.  After more than thirteen hours on the road in dreadful weather conditions we made it to our campground. It was 2:30 am.

Smiley and Smiley

Despite a short night under nothing but a pavilion to "protect us" from the pouring rain, we woke up ready to meet Maurizio and start our weekend of training... but not before celebrating the most important event of the day: Tom's birthday!!  


After a (very) short morning celebration we headed towards our training location.
We were on the water shortly after meeting Maurizio and Tom O'Sullivan, who helped coordinating the clinic.  From then on, the focus was on learning, absorbing, practicing all the techniques, tips and racing strategies Maurizio shared with us.

George Boss, Tom O'Sullivan and Will Harris.

 We covered some wildwater paddling essentials such as Arms-Legs-Torso synchrony technique, fast turns...etc Maurizio also emphasized the racing dimension of the sport (starting a race, race strategy...) and provided guidance in terms of workout improvement.  We also did sprint trials and our various practice drills were filmed and analyzed.  


Over the course of only two days, Maurizio shared with us a myriad of training tips, technical information and racing strategies, and his enthusiasm and zest inspired all of us.  George and Will, in whom he saw some promising talents, came back to DC more motivated than ever to nurture and grow their potential with some hard (but fun) work and practice.

Overall, these two days of training were an invaluable learning experience for our freshly born "Wavehopping team".  It was well worth enduring the long haul and the moodiness of the Super Van and we all made it back to DC ready to take on the racing season.

Maurizio Tognacci surrounded by the LAKS team.