there's no stress relief like a surf wave

This afternoon, I didn't feel like getting in my boat. My job is intense and demanding right now, and I considered spending the day getting ahead. But I know that balancing my life with time in my boat makes me more focused and productive. Plus it was a gorgeous fall day. Around 5pm, I put my boat on the car and drove to the river.

For a workout that I wasn't super excited about, it was one of the best experiences I've had on the water in a long time. The river was just over 17 feet on the Jeff City gauge -- high enough to top all the wing dikes -- which makes for some strong current and interesting features. Big boils and swirling eddies form in corners of the river that are normally calm. It's fun to play with water that actually plays back.

I normally paddle upstream along the north shore, and then sprint back down the middle of the channel at the end of my workout. With the dikes only a few feet under water, the attainments over them were challenging. After several floods this fall, however, the tops of the dikes are not at all even. The resulting irregular water helps me climb up more easily (there are spots to sneak through).

Paddling on much lower water earlier this week, I watched an Army Corp of Engineers boat rebuilding the third dike up from the Jeff City bridge. Unlike the others, it's now a tall, uniform wall of rocks. When I got up to it tonight, the difference was obvious. There was a clear, uniform horizon line extending out into the main current of the river. With the river dropping an good 2+ feet as it passed over the dike, there was no way I was going to get up over this one. But below it: a perfect surf wave.

Surfing on a river is the same principle as surfing on the ocean -- but with waves that never run into the shore, you can sit on them indefinitely if you get your balance right. In the fast current, it took me a while to find the sweet spot. But once I did - oh, this was the perfect wave for a slalom boat. Long and glassy. Carving back and forth with my hips, paddle relaxed in the air, it felt like I could sit on the wave forever.

There is nothing more relaxing the sitting on the upstream face of a wave with fast current rushing the other direction underneath you, and to be stable and balanced. It is magic. It was heaven. It was just what I needed. I stayed on the wave until sunset. Then I raced back down the main channel, feeling more relaxed and centered than I've been in a long time.

I snapped the picture with my phone as I drove back over the bridge.

Discovered new trails! (and already an injury)

One of my favorite things in Mid Mo so far are 13.5 miles of great trails about 10 minutes from my house. They can be steep, twisting, and rocky. I may not have mountains, but at least I can find some refuge climbing steep hills along pine groves and creeks.

Pavement bores me. Treadmills are just pointless. I lift at my local YMCA, but I don't understand the dozens of folks who are plodding along on the rows of treadmills burning a mere few hundred calories an hour while staring at the cieling-mounted TVs. Better than vegging on the couch, I guess, but seriously. I want to RUN, and collapse into my couch dripping and shaking after an hour pushing for a personal best with the domed sky above me and no one in sight.

Anyway, trails have their disadvantages. Especially in fall, when roots and rocks are disguised by leaves... no match for a weak right ankle. Ouch. Roll & pop.

At least I have a paper shredder under my desk that can double as elevation when I R.I.C.E. I am going to try and stay off the trails for a week.

We'll see if I can take it...

No gates? Time to get creative.

So it looks and feels like I am training again.  I still exist in a perpetual state of no resources, no coaching, and no training partners -- but with good river access I have been getting on the water regularly.  I am getting damn good at going really fast in a straight line.  Yeah, that held my attention span for about 3 workouts.  Now I'm bored.  I need gates.
 
So, until I can find a place to hang gates, I have been playing with tennis balls.  One of my favorite workouts of all time was on the Wolf River in Tennessee, where I freed a basketball, soccer ball, and a red playground ball that were stuck in some tree branches.  I spent the next hour floating down the river with them -- liting my bow over one, sprinting to the next and pivoting my stern underneath it.  Onside, offside.  Rotate to watch my stern go under the ball over my left shoulder.  On to the next.  It was a blast.
 
So I took inspiration from that workout, and packed a mesh bag of old tennis balls with me to my dusk workout on the Missouri.  Throwing them as hard as I could (which is more difficult from a boat, my throws were pretty bad), I set a "course" of tennis balls on the moving river.  (7 may have been over ambitious, I occasionally had to race around to rescue defectors).  I spent the next 30 minutes, until it was too dark to see even the neon yellow, making up courses between the balls and sprinting from one to the next.
 
It was humbling.  My weaknesses are obvious when I have objects to turn around.  Paddling through offset gates, turning back to the right after a tight offside turn, with my paddle on the cross, is difficult for me.  I want to run the boat and keep up my speed.  Something to work on.
 
On a positive note, I have had 5 workouts in the past 48 hours (lifting weights, 4m trail run, 1 hr paddle on river, 4m trail run, 2 hr pool session).  The momentum feels good.
 
 

back in the saddle again

It has been just over six months since I have posted here. Six months, wow.

For me, perfect can often be the enemy of good. If I can't give something 110%, I drop it completely and focus on the things in my life which are the priority. For the last six months, slalom has been on the back burner and my blog has grown stale.

My career has become my focus, both for financial and personal reasons. I'm 25. I don't have a trust fund. I want to go places, not just spin my wheels. It was time for me to get serious. The year 2007, my best attempt as a REI-bike-wrench-paddle-bum, was a blast; truly one of the best years of my life. But I had some growing up to do.

So now, I am wearing heels and working 60 hour weeks. I avoided my boat all summer. I really wasn't sure how much I wanted to paddle or what my relationship to the sport should be. I both missed it desperately and contemplated trucking all my gear to GAF and making a couple grand selling my spray skirts, PFDs, paddles and boats. But I couldn't do it. My heart in still in my C1 and I still have a burning, intense desire to train as an athlete.

In Jeff City, I live blocks from the Missouri River. There is a boat ramp less than 5 minutes from my house. I have been getting out every weekend for the past few weeks, feeling her out again. It feels great. I am coming at the sport with a totally different mindset now -- and where before I struggled to know what to do, how to connect my movement, now I am relaxed. I have been more aware of small things like the outfitting changes that could improve my performance -- currently, I seem to be better able to figure this stuff out on my own.

For now, I am just having fun and getting reacquainted. My standard workout is to paddle to a high-paced music mix: steady tempo during the verses, full throttle during the chorus, and a break on the first verse of every new song. If I stick with it, that will get boring fast, and I will need to invent games, hang gates, or explore other local rivers.

If I prioritize this again, it will mean travel. Which I am now better able to afford -- but it means not visiting friends and family on the long weekends and holidays b/c I'd rather be in a training camp somewhere. Last year, as much as I loved the sport, I didn't connect w/ others enough for it to be a total social-life replacement. Can I juggle all these things? Work? Training? Visiting friends and family?

Choices. Lots of choices.

Either way, I feel fortunate that I have the choices in front of me to make.

Missouri Whitewater Championships

The Saint had water! With the gauge reading 6" on Saturday morning, a good crowd turned out despite the grey skies and threats of rain. We even had a full C1W class: Hailey drove down with her family from Wisconsin, and Colleen drove in from North Carolina.

I felt very relaxed at this race. I have been getting nervous before races on larger water, but the Saint feels like my home. I was calm and focused. My first run was wonderful... until I flipped and broke my paddle on a rock!

Although light, carbon fiber paddles are normally able to withstand serious rock abuse. I checked my paddle on a flight to Charlotte earlier this month, however, and I worry it got a little banged up. Either way, I went to do a lightening-quick roll, and suddenly I had two pieces in my hands. I swam out of my boat, laughing.

Fortunately, the MWA takes your best run as your final score, as opposed to combining your times. This meant I was able to borrow a paddle from a friend (thanks, Brian!) and race again with a chance to place. I had a good second run, and ended up with 2nd.



Tomorrow and Sunday, the US Open will be on the Nantahala River. I am excited, but also feeling out of shape as I haven't been in my boat all week! I was in DC for work. This is a very tight course on fast moving water, and will be a huge challenge for me.

Glacier Breaker Video

Video of my most recent race is now posted on my video page.

On this run, I miss several gates and flip over a few times! Fun! Video review is a good tool for me because it shows me what I actually look like on the water. I don't like watching it; I get frustrated because I feel more technically competent than I actually look. But it shows me my obvious weak points. It also shows me where I have improved. Even though I end up upside down on this run, my rolls are fast. There are subtle moments of boat control that I was not able to do last fall -- holding ferry angles with my knees as I rotate, etc.

The US Open is on this same river in just over a week! I have been training hard, and hopefully I will be posting a video with no missed gates and no flipping upside down.

I did this today!

No, this is not a picture of me -- I walked down and snapped it later in the afternoon. But it is a C1 on the same line that I followed successfully through this hole. By the end of the day, I'd run the bottom half of the Charlotte course 6 times. And some of those times I was even in my boat at the end of the channel!

The thing that intimidated me about the bottom drop was not the drop itself, but the random, surging waves and piles above it. I was terrified of flipping here and then scraping over the shallow drop upside down. And so, of course, I did just that. And it wasn't that bad. I bumped, scraped, and banged against concrete, but my helmet and other gear took the blows. I have found that accidentally doing the thing I am most afraid of can be productive. Whether flipping in Tablesaw on the Ocoee, or swimming the Z-route of Cat's Paw on the Saint Francis, I end up thinking "oh, okay, that actually wasn't so bad." Once I get the fear out of my system, I can relax and start learning.

I ended up swimming on 4 out of my 6 runs today. I had trouble hanging on to my paddle in the surging, powerful water. I need to fight for it! I also had trouble waiting. Knowing that I was going to hit the big hole upside down, the self-preservation part of my brain would immediately send my hands to unbuckle my thigh straps. In bigger water, I need to learn to wait.

But on two of my runs, I pulled into the eddy below the drop hooting and hollering. The second time I absolutely nailed the line, and the hole actually gave me free speed as it spat me out. It was an addicting feeling, a taste of what is accessible when you really groove and flow with water.

Even though I swam at the bottom drop, I nailed probably 2 dozen combat rolls this weekend on other parts of the course. Once I even got sucked down and had to fight to get my paddle in the set-up position before I could roll up. A month ago, I would have swam. I know I have many more swims in my future, but my combat roll has become reliable enough that I am willing to start trying risky moves. Until now, I have been in survival mode on the Charlotte course. Now I am ready to start playing.

With Pan Ams and Team Trials only 7 weeks away, I know I will not be totally comfortable on this course by then. I will not be able to make all the eddies they will hang gates in, and running the bottom drop will still feel like rolling the dice. But this weekend it was clear that I can get down the course in one piece.

I paddled with Nic and Colleen today -- two wonderful training partners and peer coaches. They walked alongside the water with me and talked about my plan, and chased my gear when I bailed. I took a gamble randomly showing up in Charlotte with a rental car and a paddle, and it was wonderful to feel welcomed and part of the group. This is a difficult sport to get into, and I really hope that I can give as much to others as they have shared with me.

Video of the approach to the bottom drop is online here.

A kayak just above the bottom drop

The hole below the bottom drop

Looking upstream from the drop

The room of doom! Crazy "eddy"

The comp channel and main building

paddle check

I touched down in foggy Charlotte at 10pm. I ended up checking my paddle. Although the consensus seemed to be paddles were simply carried on before 9/11, I assumed there was no way they would let it through security in the current climate. I wrapped it carefully in three layers of cardboard and handed it over to the ticket agent, fingers crossed that I would see it on the other side.

It made it though just fine. I was so happy to see it slide onto the baggage claim! Both my boat and my paddle are like extensions of my body -- and since I won't be training in my regular boat this weekend, I really wanted to have my own paddle here.

I am excited and nervous about training tomorrow. Whitewater always energizes me, and it will be fun to watch members of the US team practice in the morning before I put on mid-day. But I also need to decide soon if I will be ready to race on the Charlotte course at the end of April (olympic team trials and pan ams). I still have not run the bottom drop, the biggest rapid on the course. I am a little worried I've been building it up to much in my head -- psyching myself out. But I don't really feel afraid of it. Not fear. Just nervous anticipation.

It's very good to be here.

cold weather workouts

If I ever decide to quit this sport, I need to make that decision on the river. Not back in home in the flat, dry midwest. I forget too easily. Before every time-consuming, expensive trip I wonder if this should really be a priority. With family, work, and everything else on my plate, can I really afford to be traveling across the country to get in my boat? The hours I spend training in Missouri are rewarding and satisfying, but they certainly aren't exhilarating.

For the past year, I have been waiting for one ultimate "ah ha" moment where my commitment to the sport would solidify. I think I've finally accepted that this will not happen. Instead, I will continue to have this realization over and over again each time I put on whitewater, and during the days and weeks between sessions I must constantly weigh my dedication against doubt. Delayed gratification, I believe it's called.

And learning to do that may just be the most important thing this sport will teach me.

Glacier Breaker and the USNWC

photo by Michele Baskin

This past weekend was the Glacier Breaker race on the Nantahala, traditionally the first race of the year. It was not as cold as the name had me thinking -- sun and temps in the 50's cut the shock of the famously chilly water.

The top slalom paddlers from the east coast were there. Ben Fraker, Tad Dennis, and Jeff Larmier -- the top three US canoes -- were all racing. I have never been on the same course as such high-level paddlers before. While their times were much much faster than mine, watching their runs on the same course was incredibly educational. Even though I never made all of the gates (tight offsets!) I was happy with my runs over all. The second one even had two combat rolls, one in gate 8 above nanty falls, and one in gate 12 below the falls. Colleen Hickey was the only other C1W there, and she beat me by a large margin. Colleen's paddling is looking great and I hear she will be making an appearance at the MWA championships!

Sunday I drove into Charlotte to train. The day was productive, and showed me that I have improved since my time there over the christmas holidays. I did loose the skin off of 4 knuckles, hanging onto a deep low brace below the M-wave. I was proud I hung onto it and recovered! I made all my rolls and I am starting to build the confidence I need to paddle on that water. It still scares the pants off me.

The next race on the Nantahala is the US Open, March 22-23: http://www.nrcrhinos.com/
Team Trails will be held at the Charlotte course, April 25-27: http://web.mac.com/slalom2008/Slalom/Welcome.html

Thanks again to everyone for their support.

San Marcos Olympic Qualifier

3 days in Texas + 3 Missouri Girls = serious fun!

Yesterday was the San Marcos Olympic qualifier. Di and JoJo were wonderful enough to join me on my trip south. After getting the Big Red Van out of the snow and ice in Ironton, we drove all night through Texarkana towards Dallas. We arrived in San Marcos early Friday afternoon with enough time for everyone to get on the water. Di and JoJo explored upriver while I jumped right on the slalom course.

Saturday was rainy and "cold." All the locals were complaining about the temps in the upper 50's. The water temp was a constant 72 degrees, which made steam rise dramatically up from the whitewater. JoJo and Di went on a long paddle (7+ miles) with some Texas friends, while I trained all day in the rain with friends from Colorado and Charlotte. Big storms came through -- went sent them on to Missouri to fill up the Saint Francis.

The course featured a drop with a sizable hole below it. As a righty C1, I was comfortable getting in the hole and ferrying across on my onside, but getting into the hole on my offside (bracing on the cross) freaked my out! My goal for the weekend was to get though that hole on my cross. The first few times I dropped in from river left I immediately got flipped. With some great advice and encouragement (thanks, Chris) I nailed the move a few times.

JoJo in the hole:

Sunday was warm and sunny. I came in 3rd in the C1 class in the race. I still felt slow and sloppy compared to where I want to be, but I am improving each time. Next weekend is Glacier Breaker on the Nantahala, which promises to be a much colder race. The 72 degree water was awesome. It's much easier to push myself when flipping feels like taking a bath!

Thanks so much to Di and Jo for coming with me! They both had their own reasons for going to Texas, but the trip was so much more fun with three.

under construction

You may have noticed my webpage looks, um, a little out of wack. That's because I am working on an overhaul -- I am going to move from www.blogger.com to start publishing my own feed. This will give me more flexibility to post pictures, video, and other content on my site.

So expect more soon. I have been learning a lot about webpages over the past few weeks, and I still have more to learn a few more bugs to work out before I am ready to switch everything over.

For a recent website overhaul that looks fantastic, visit the new www.missouriwhitewater.org!!!!

Yes, this is a canoe!

Although most people who paddle the 39-gallon Skip are sitting on their butts, this boat converts easily into a C1 if you install a pedestal instead of a seat. Just like my race boat, I am on my knees and using a single-bladed paddle.

This tiny playboat feels radically different compared to any other canoe I have ever been in! The short, low-volume ends mean I can really throw the boat around. Right now I don't have much control, so in the pool I was playing, flipping end over end with my bow or stern pointing up towards the ceiling and almost always landing upside down. It was easy to roll up, but at least half the time I would propel myself past the balance point and flip over to the other side. Fun stuff.

Another Skip was my first true love as a kayak. I borrowed it from a friend, and I swam out of it repeatedly on my first few river runs. I was quickly drawn to canoes and long, sleek slalom boats -- but the funny, little playboat remained a favorite. My family called it "tiggerfish" because it clearly liked to bounce around (not to mention the bright orange color). I sent it back to my friend once I was able to buy a boat of my own (the EZ). Now, a year later, I discovered another friend had a Skip that wasn't seeing much use. Except this time the hull was set up as a canoe! Excellent! I promised to give it some love an return it better outfitted than it was before, and drove back to St. Louis with it on my roof.

I think this boat will be great for my training. I rarely have access to much whitewater, so a boat this small will test my balance in other ways. Goofing around and learning tricks will teach me rotation and power. And being upside down so often will hopefully lock in my roll as a immediate, reflexive response.

This is going to be fun!

Pool Slalom

The C1W time to beat was set by Carolyn Peterson in Texas in 2001, 114.2 (open age class). My fastest raw time (w/o penalties) was just over 115 -- although I did touch three gates giving me an overall time of just over 121. Pool slalom records are online here. The C1W record is 132% of the men's record of 86.1 set by Davey Hearn in 1998.

The event was hosted by the Missouri Whitewater Association this morning. In the event, 5 gates are hung over an ordinary pool. Each racer has to do three laps, with a specific pattern of upstream turns, s-turns, and offsets (diagram of the course here). Because it is the one slalom event that has a exact, reproducible course it is also the only event where it is possible to compare times nationally and track records. I raced C1W, C2W, K1W, and OC1W, although I obviously focused my energy on my C1 runs.

It was a good day. I still feel sloppy and slow at times, but my progress has been consistent. Events like this help me to see it. I am looking forward to racing on whitewater next month!

Thank you to all the MWA members who
volunteered to set up and run the event!

canoe women down under

This is a picture of Rosalyn Lawrence, a kayaker from Australia. Notice anything unusual? That's right! She's in a canoe! Rosalyn threw down a great pair of C1 runs in Australian Nationals at Penrith this past weekend. I was thrilled to see a C1W class. Nationals were held in conjunction with the qualifier heats for the first 2008 Canoe World Series race (www.canoeworldseries.com), where Rosalyn placed 6th in women's K1.

This was the first major race of the 2008 season, and several American athletes were there to see how they would stack up after their winter training. Many are working towards the Beijing Olympics in August -- the US Team Trials will be held in late April in Charlotte, NC to determine who will get to go.

Not surprisingly, Tony Estanguet (FRA), Robin Bell (AUS), and Michal Martikan (SVK) were the top three C1s. Bell performed extremely well on his home course. Estanguet and Martikan continued their battle for the top spot which has been ongoing for years. More than a decade after his Olympic gold in 1996, Martikan remains one of the dominant forces in slalom canoeing. Estanguet won the gold in 2000 and 2004, and his performances are very consistent. So, let's just say Beijing is going to be very interesting. Benn Fraker (USA) was paddling his brand-new canoe designed in partnership with iTomCo. Apparently he is getting used the the new hull with a solid 6th-place finish. Also from the US, Jeff Larimer placed 13th and Eric Amason placed 18th.

Full results, including C2 and men's and women's K1, are posted here: http://australianopen.canoeworldseries.com/en/results

Dental Work on a Whale

I looked the part. It sounded just like a major cavity was being bored out. Heck, it even smelled damp. But I was not doing dental work on a whale! With my head and arms totally inside the boat, the noise and dust from my dremel reverberating around me, it really felt like I was.

I was actually grinding out chunks of foam and old contact cement so I could install carbon hip blocks in my new boat.

The Lizard had been good to me so far. The outfitting installed by its first owner did not need much modification. I raised the pedestal up to 3.5 inches. While still very low for me, having my center of gravity so close to the center of buoyancy really changes how the boat responds to me. It will be an ongoing experiment, I am sure. One thing is certain, this boat is a far better fit for me than the galasport I was in.

More pictures of the Lizard:
the installed mad dog hip blocks
new boat on top of my car
in my one bedroom apartment, boat storage is also part of the decor

Ten Things I Did This Winter

It has been almost 2 months since my last entry, and so much has changed. The beginning of 2008 is already a stark contrast to my life last year. I have a new job and a new home, both major transitions that have been a long time coming. But I still have the same friends challenging me to dig a little deeper, and the same loving family to laugh with at the end of the day. And I always have my boat and my paddle; my muscles and the water. What more could a girl want?

I honestly had no idea how many people were reading this blog until I stopped posting for a month. Missouri paddlers I hardly knew where asking me when I was going to update. I am both humbled and flattered by the interest. I am deeply passionate about racing, but because almost all of my practices are alone, I feel as though I am by myself in a bubble. The interest of others in my efforts and in whitewater slalom is extremely motivating; thank you.

So here, by popular demand and in no particular order, are ten things that have happened to me since I last posted! Now that the holidays have passed, expect more to be coming soon. The MWA Pool Slalom is this weekend! And qualifier races around the country start in just three weeks!

(click on pictures to enlarge)

1. Paddled the Saint Francis River

Unfortunately, I have only done this once. Last year, I had already been on about 10 times by early-January! That was my first year paddling, and it seems I got spoiled by consistent high water. Long chats with friends over a fire at D-bridge were wonderful times, and I was looking forward to them this winter. The river has been too low so far this season (USGS graph) except briefly in early December. I will keep watching the weather reports for rain and keep my gear ready to go! Perhaps, by a strange stroke of luck, we will have water for the races. Here's hoping.

2. Found the Limits of my "Truck"

My friends know that I call my toyota corolla my little truck. It has survived the Rockies, hauled hundreds of pounds of lumber, and faithfully delivered my boats to race after race. Sometimes, I forget it is only a light weight, 2-wheel-drive sedan. Looking for the put-in of a river, I drove over some iced-over wheel ruts from construction vehicles. Crack! As my wheels broke the ice, I discovered they were deceptively deep! I was stuck. My wheels just spun, shooting a jet of muck into the air. I decided I would have to jack up the car and put large branches under the wheels to move. I was muddy and frustrated. Rather than get angry, I just took my boat and walked the rest of the way to the river. After a fantastic hour on the water, I returned to find a family, out for a walk, examining my car (it looked pretty obviously dumb once the ice melted). They helped push me out and I was on my way!

3. Trained at the USNWC

Christmas Day, around 3pm, I said goodbye to my family and hit the road. After a year watching video of the whitewater center in Charlotte, NC, I would finally have a chance to paddle there. This was by far the biggest water I have tackled in a slalom C1. I absolutely loved it and I cannot wait to return. I am very jealous of my friends who have the opportunity to train on this water regularly.

I struggled with my roll during the week. Not the physical skill -- I had trouble staying calm upside down in water that I was so intimidated by. At the end of the week, I had nailed a few combat rolls and I was running the top half of the competition channel comfortably. I never ran the bottom drop, the largest rapid on the course. I made obvious progress during the week, but not as much as I would like. I am looking forward to returning soon. Below the bridge.

4. Graceland, Graceland

...Memphis, Tennessee! Christmas was spent at my Grandparents' home, surrounded by family. It was a wonderful holiday. When you get all three siblings together (which does not happen often enough) it is guaranteed to be a blast! We made great food, laughed until the late hours of the night, and shared family stories. The chance to spend time with my Grandparents and my mother was priceless.

I also had a chance to workout on the Wolf River in Germantown, Tennessee, which actually had a few eddies. After freeing a trapped basketball, volleyball, and soccer ball from a strainer, I invented a new game called "stern ball" where you race around the balls in a triangle as they float downriver, alternately sinking your stern below them or lifting your bow above them. Good fun.

5. One Bedroom, Second Floor

On January 1st, I officially moved back in to the city of St. Louis! This puts me closer to work, friends, Forest Park, the Mississippi, downtown, and the FPCC pool class. I feel like I am in the center of everything and it is delightful. Here is the first thing I moved in.

I have never lived completely on my own before; I have always had at least one (or as many as 5) roommates. I love having my own space! I can get up when I want, cook what I want, and keep it as clean (or not) as I want, and I am only accountable to myself. I have thought for years that living alone was something I wanted to do at some point in my life and I am grateful for the opportunity to do so. Because I am not in a point in my life where I can have a puppy, I bought a plant and named it Spot. We are still working on "fetch," but it has "sit" totally perfected.

6. Paddled a Torpedo Log

...aka Down River C1. This boat was tippy! I also did not fit in it, and had to crouch in front of the hipblocks and pedestal in order to get in. This boat is designed for speed in whitewater. Racers sprint down a course as quickly as possible, choosing whatever line they think will be the fastest. I think paddling a DR C1 and a sprint (high-kneel) C1 would be great cross-training for me. It was such a strange creature under my knees, twitchy and responsive so differently that my squat little slalom boat. It clearly craved speed, but I never really figured out how to turn it. At least I didn't fall out into the Catawba River.

7. Took a Nap on the Road

Quite literally. On my way back to St. Louis, in the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee, traffic suddenly stopped on highway 40. There was light snow falling, and the temperature had dropped significantly that evening. After 20 minutes of not moving at all, trucks began to turn off their lights and park on the highway. I hopped out and knocked on the cab of the nearest 18-wheeler. The driver told me 2 semis had jack-knifed and flipped on the highway a few miles ahead. It might be hours before we moved. So I thanked him, parked my car in the left lane, lay back my seat, and took a long nap. Oh, and I had a whitewater boat in my car. A boat that had been stored outside for months and I was sure was full of spiders waiting to crawl out once I turned off the lights. But suddenly it was an hour later. The rumble of truck engines woke me up, and finally we began to inch forward. Also on the road: a giant peach.

8. Smashed my Stern in the M-Wave

The course in Charlotte recreated the M-Wave in all its shallow nastiness. Before my week there, I had never been really stuck in a hole before. In Charlotte I was - intentionally, unintentionally, right-side up, and upside down. We got all the bases covered. Halfway through the week, I flipped and swam out of the hole at the m-wave. Unlike a paddler earlier that morning, I got out with only scraped knuckles. My boat was not so lucky. The stern got crunched, and the seam tape along 3 feet of the bow blew apart. Ugly. Some good friends helped me repair my boat that evening (thanks, guys!) so I could finish up an important paper I was working on. I was back on the water the next day.

9. Put a Suit Back On

The new year also brought a new job for me, and a return to politics. Now I am one of those people who is actually in the field of their college degree (a small minority among my friends). I am thrilled to be back doing work I care so deeply about. For now, this means focusing on healthcare legislation in Missouri and plenty of drives to Jefferson City, our state capitol, 2.5 hours away from St. Louis. I am working alongside other intelligent, passionate people, and I can already feel the fervent buzz of energy building around the election this fall. This is going to be a lot of hard work, and a lot of fun.

10. Family Visits

So, I show up last Friday, thinking I am going out on a date, and there is my little sister! She lives 9 hours to the north in Minneapolis, and drove down just to surprise me. Thankfully, she coordinated with my friends to pick a weekend that would be open. It worked out perfectly; it was a fantastic few days! Having Jenna around is always a grand adventure. We had a few mis-adventures as well, but what would a weekend with a sister be without them?! I have only grown closer to my sister and brother over the years and it rocks.

My Dad and Tess also visited me the weekend before to bring me some furniture they did not need from Detroit, where they live. The furniture really filled up my empty apartment (I was using boxes and boats as chairs and tables). It was great to have them come stay with me, and they really helped me settle in to my new home. Even if the trailer my Dad borrowed looked like a giant metal robot or something!