We had a great time at Nationals Champs in Oklahoma City (OKC) this year. It was kind of a unique year. The first day of racing went smoothly. My boat-mates and I took 3rd in the K2 500m race, and 2nd in the K4 race. Then a huge hail/thunderstorm ripped through OKC later that night. The next day was the K1 races, but the storm destroyed the course and specifically the super-expensive, brand new start gates (these are little boots that hold the front of your boat until the start official says go). They're estimating it at about $400,000 dollars in damage. Crazy how that can happen over night. It's too bad for OKC; what a terrible thing to happen in the middle of Nationals. We kind of took the 2nd day easy; my team just when out for a technical practice. OKC was able to get a few lines of buoys together for day 3: 200m day. These races went off pretty well even without start gates. It was a quick fix, good enough to race, but all of the 2nd day sprint races had to be cancelled.
The day after Nationals, I flew out to Romania: that was last Sunday. I came out here with two of my men's C1 training buddies. We're all having an awesome time out here. We started paddling Tuesday and did some easy technical paddles the first day just to get our feeling back in the boat after a long plane ride. I'm paddling a K1 decked out in the Romanian flag pattern: blue hull, yellow stripe, red deck. It's pretty cool.
Yesterday I started practicing with the Romanian national team girls. Man, they are fast. I could get really good with a year paddling here. The thing I love best about the Romanian style of training: they care purely about how hard you work. They don't have perfect technique (interestingly), but it's all about how hard you push on the water and in the weight room. I like that attitude.
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