Fall Training

Fall training is back underway in Gainesville, GA. Time to get stronger! As the weather gets cooler, we turn our focus to the gym. Follow our team on our new Instagram (Performancepaddlers) and Facebook pages (performancepaddlersoflanier) !! See the crazy stuff the 7 of us do day to day.

North Shore Cup

I had an awesome day of racing at the North Shore Cup in Summerton, SC today. The conditions were brutal! I heard it was a race on a lake; so I mistakenly figured I could get away with my sprint boat. Big mistake! I got a clean start; we started in an inlet protected from the wind and waves. I took off with a hard sprint, but the waves began to build as I headed out towards the hot-spot. I felt my pace dropping and the rhythm in my stroke breaking as I saved my butt on a few hard braces. Shortly after the hot-spot, we rounded a buoy and headed with the wind and waves. I caught rides as best I could in my narrow little sprint boat, but for the most part, I spent more time bracing than I did paddling.

It was insane! I've never seen such a rough lake. But on the bright side, I've also never surfed a sprint boat as hard as I did here. My mantras for the day: "Stay in the boat, stay in the boat" and "Harden up, harden up." This was a whole new type of race; I felt like it was me against the elements. I kept giggling to myself about how silly I was to try and do this in a sprint boat - the runs I could have gotten on these waves in a surfski! I truly missed out in that reguard. I sacrificed my shoulders with aggressive braces and saves; those muscles were completely beat by the end - "just stay in the boat, just keep moving forward." Somehow I miraculously kept myself upright, or the very least, slightly above horizontal. In the last mile, we approached the protected shore, and I have NEVER been happier to see flat water. With one mile to go, I took off for a final sprint to get across the finish line in first. So thankful I stayed in the boat.

This races was incredibly fun, and one of the biggest races I've seen on the east coast. There were 10 women in the 12 mile race! Enough for us to have our own start. That's insane! Thanks to all the guys who helped put on such a great event. This is a great race; one I will definitely do again in the future. Check out their site! http://www.northshorepaddlerace.com/

LCKC Fungatta

This weekend we hung out with the little athletes at the Fungatta. Middle-schoolers from all over the area trained for weeks to compete in these races - first regatta for most of them. Really fun to meet and hang out with this little pros. We got to hang out in a tent and tell them stories about our summer races. Even with the endless rain, they seemed to have a great time, and paddled hard! Congrats everybody!

World Championships 2015

World Championships - the best in the World. We really saw that this week. This regatta was the first qualifier for the Olympics next year. Everyone was on their A-Game. Some of the fiercest racing of the past 4 years happened right here this weekend. I'm happy to say that I improved in my racing, but so did the rest of the world. For that, I know I still have a lot of training still to go. This life is an endless fight, but I am thankful for my little improvements.

We've finally come to the end of the 2015 race season. I'll take a couple weeks off before I head back to Georgia, USA to start up the next year of training. I'm stoked I'll be touring around Italy for a little bit with my mom this next week, and enjoy some good rest time! 2016 Season, here I come.

World Champs - Milan, Italy

We're hanging in Milan Italy this week for World Championships. The competitions is fierce! I'm stoked to race the women's 500m K1 for team USA. Good to see old friends. Milan is Beautiful. This is where the accumulation of the past year of work all comes together.

Erg Technique Session

A little clip from a recent technique session I did on the erg. Even in the summer, erg work is super valuable for technique training. Things I'm working on these days: exaggerated rotation, connection with the top hand, keeping my hands higher through the stroke.

Training in Pitesti, Romania

With one month to go until World Champs in Milan, we have moved to the town of Pitesti, Romania. The training center here is perfect for our 4 weeks (our last cycle) of pre-race training. The center is built on a 2km lake dammed off on both sides with a permanent 1000m course. As we approach Milan, there's nothing better than training on buoyed lanes complete with start gates. Practice like you play! There is often no wind on this course, and the boat traffic is minimal. It has been great going out for the first paddle of the day on glassy water: stirring up the first ripples of the day. My training group and I are still training with the Romanian National team. Even from a language away, we've all become pretty close. Jokes and laughs can cross any language barrier; it's amazing how much paddlers have in common even from opposite sides of the world!