Boater Chick Festival

The day after the Dragonboat Races, I took a trip down the Ocoee for the Boater Chick Festival. A few months before, I had messaged the wonderful Anne Connelly, who organizes BCF every year, and told her I'd love to volunteer. I brought my boys (Dad, Bryson, and Eliot) as safety boaters to help me manage things while on the river. I also met up with my friends Rick and Francheska, who helped me figure out the who's who and what's what of the trip. (Thanks guys!)

Francheska attempting Hell Hole

I met some really wonderful ladies at the put in of the Middle Ocoee, and once we figured out that everyone who was supposed to be there was in fact there, and had a shuttle, we headed down the ramp to the river as a group!

Oh, hey there. Don't mind me, taking candid pictures...

Total, we had 4 guys (geez, this was supposed to be Boater CHICK...just kidding, I love you guys!) and 9 girls, including myself. I really appreciated the help of the guys on the river because we had a couple swims in some of the bigger rapids.

Oh, look, our safety boater is playing... for shame.

We had a great trip down, full of playboating, floating, and trying out some of the more extreme moves (BOOF!) and I think everyone did great going down the river.

Miss Ruthie is all smiles today!

We stopped at Go Forth (a little more than halfway down) to switch out Rick for Francheska, because their cute baby Jackson needed watching over!

What an adorable river family they are :)

We stayed at Hell Hole awhile having a bunch of fun, and here's some morepictures!

If you want to volunteer or participate in Boater Chick Festival next year, check out the BCF website or contact Anne Connelly on Facebook!

Chattanooga Dragonboat Festival

Last year my Dad, sister, and I were invited to join the "Pallbearers", which is a dragonboating team sponsored by Heritage Funeral Home. Most of the people on this team are kayakers and canoeists from around Chattanooga; it is the toughest team to join because it has limited available spots every year, and you have to have some kind of connection to the other team members. Every year the Pallbearers compete in the Chattanooga Dragonboat Festival and for the past two years we had won and become the Grand Champions of the Festival.
If you don't know what a dragonboat is, it is a 46 foot long boat with seats for 20 racers, a drummer, and room for a steerer to stand up in the back. We had a great steerer by the name of Penny Behling who also organized the event and is generally just a great lady who is passionate about dragonboats!
The Pallbearers made it through the first two rounds before we realised we only had 7 women racing, and our 8th was a drummer... whoops! We were supposed to have 8 women actually racing. So, we were penalized on our first two rounds' times and then still had enough of a lead to continue onto finals. Each race is about a minute long, and usually 4 boats race at a time... We raised our paddles: "Are you ready?!?! ATTENTION PLEASE!" At the sound of the horn, we took off, Terry Smith leading us through 59.192 seconds of synchronized agony... to win by 5 seconds! We were all very excited to claim a 3rd consecutive title as Grand Champions of the event.

Me, Dad, and Selena, showing off our medals!

Afterwards, instead of docking, we turned the boat around and set up to pull a waterskiier behind us! We've seen attempts on Youtube and decided we should test our speed and strength for this challenge.

Penny on waterskis! (Photo Credit to Penny Behling)

First, we tried pulling Penny, but our more successful run came next when we pulled our teammate Philip Grymes for quite awhile! We paddled hard enough to keep him up for quite awhile, and he had a blast.
You can see the video of his ride right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S85K7w3GvMI#at=52
The Festival raised more than $106,000 for the Children's Hospital Foundation, which was the festival's charity. So great work to everyone who was involved and made this great event happen!
Here's Penny's blog: http://racedragonboats.com/blog/2011/05/25/dragons-alive-tuesday-may-24-2011/
Consider starting your own team next year! It is a blast, it raises money for a great cause, and all the info for it is right here on the Chattanooga Dragonboat Festival page!

March of the Riverbunnies

Every year my friends at Endless River Adventures host something called the Nantahala Open, and this year was their 7th annual event on April 16th! Basically, all you have to do to be in the Nantahala Open is sign up and run the Nantahala Falls as many times as you want. Most people throw something creative into their runs to try to win prizes later and to entertain the crowds watching down below the Falls.

Mischievous bunny :)

This year we had such awards as "Pimp My Boat" and "Best Boat Carnage" which are given by the judges (ERA staff) at the afterparty at their Outfitters Store. Kids and adults alike attended their killer party which included lots of food and a DJ before showing the annual video recap of the event. The video is a big hit because it includes carnage and comedy on every run. We had HIGH water that day, so it created chaos and big bouncing fun.

Carnage everywhere for everyone!

This year Team Popp came out in full force to win "The Family That Paddles Together/Ironman Award"! We brought our wildwater boats to train the next day, after the event.

Look how many boats we brought!

All on our signature Team Popp trailer :)

We brought our awesome blue and pink bunny ears in honor of the upcoming Easter weekend, and descended the falls as the Riverbunnies!

Hanging out in the Eddy...

Selena's such a cute little Riverbunny!

I paddled in my Liquidlogic Biscuit, and squirted my way through the falls, going for a couple surfs and backwards runs here in there, always having a blast doing so!

The look of intensity...

Oh dear, oh dear...

Here we go... again!

Good thing I had my super-warm NRS drytop on!

Bryson most notably had THE most runs of the day, 20 total! People always to stop him on the walk back up and ask him how many he had done, how many he was going to do. He began running as the day came to a close... He truly deserved the "Ironman" title!

Bryson did some crazy stunts, like this squirt...

He sure did have a lot of fun :)

Bryson, Selena and I had brought along our friend Alex Sumida, who is still a beginner-type kayaker, so we all cheered when he made it through on the first run.

I think he's gonna make it!!

He might've gotten munched a little bit too...

We also saw our friend Mary Mills, who had GREAT runs through the Falls!

Mary, cruising around cool as can be...

All in all it was a fantastic event, and we all grabbed some great swag for our awards, thanks to the MANY sponsors that donate every year. I ended up with an awesome Team Scum tshirt!

I think he's surfing that on purpose?!

I was pretty tired during my wildwater runs the next day...

But I kept those bunny ears!

Can't wait for next year, and I hope to see everybody there!
Here's some video of the event, by Sam and Max from ERA:
Part 1 and Part 2
Look for all those Riverbunnies!

US Junior Wildwater Team Trials 2011

I'd like to first start off by thanking every single one of you (my supporters, friends, family) for cheering me on and pushing me to be my best as I have been training this winter and for the past couple of years in wildwater. I owe a lot to the people who have been there in the darkest of times as well as the best of times, and I appreciate it and cannot thank you all enough.

March 25-26th was the weekend of the East Junior Team Trials, in conjunction with the US Open. This was my first race of the year because I have had had sickness and other commitments during the previous races and thus have missed them.
Getting on the course has not been a problem for me, as it was on the Nantahala River in North Carolina, a mere 2.5 hours from Chattanooga. I have trained there often in the past couple of years and know my lines well and am confident in my boat placement and control now.
My biggest worries for this race were not being able to mentally push myself enough to get the results I want, or to pace myself too fast and be too tired at the end of my race to finish well. Each day of the racing went a little differently; I wasn't 100% pleased with my performances, but I did what I came to do and made the team so that was OK.

Does it look cold here? It definitely was!

Saturday was the day of the sprint races. Two sprint runs were made down the rapid called Patton's Run, which is a fairly easy rapid with one major negotiation at the end of the course. The day was cold, and rain fell intermittenly during and between the races. The water was at a decent level, and I was ready to get moving by the time my coffee kicked in that morning. For this race I chose a new line, that I had only learned a couple of weeks previous to the event, so I was definitely nervous because it had a do-or-die element to it, slicing over a small wave, in between a hole and a rock, followed by sketchy eddy and current lines.

Sprint Race

Ultimately I was hoping this line would be faster than the past line I have used, but even with clean runs I ended up a few seconds slower than I wanted to be. I also mark up my times to the fact I was slowing down before the rapid due to nervousness. But hands down, no excuses, I was not racing at the level I should have been, and going into the next day I knew I would need to make a personal vow to step it up and put everything into my every stroke to be the best I could be. I had already made the US Junior Wildwater team by that point, but I knew within myself that I had not been racing what I was capable of.

Sunday was the day of the classic race. The weather was clearing up but the sun was not quite warm enough to shed layers of gear. With a longer race, I knew I would get hot quickly as opposed to the sprint runs where I needed to remain as warm as possible. To cool myself off I wore NRS Hydroskin and Wavelite shirts under an NRS Splash jacket, so that the layers would keep me cool but dry.

 Classic Race

Probably what shook me the most in the morning was not the temperature outside but the sudden understanding that the course I would be racing on was much shorter than I was prepared for. The course classically goes from Ferebee rapid to Ledges rapid, but last year it was moved further downstream by a few minutes, so I had been under the assumption it would remain that long for this years race. So I was shaken a bit by having to scramble to figure out a new pacing guideline for my race. I was okay because I know the course so well I was able to efficiently divide it into four sections and still knew what my pace should be at each quarter marker.

Start of the Classic... after the first stroke!

My race started fast, with a 100+ stroke rate into the first rapid, moderating my strokes as I eased into race pace for the rest of the course. I found myself on higher water due to the previous day's rain, which I enjoyed because I knew it meant I would have faster times that day than ever before. There was one rapid I unfortunately miscalculated my boat placement because I hadn't realised the full effect of the higher water yet... I definitely was disappointed being thrown off the wave several feet left of where I was supposed to be, and I am sad to say it probably cost me a few seconds to get back on line.
Then, at the top of the rapid we call the Ledges, I passed my little sister Selena, who had started a minute ahead of me. Keep in mind this is a 12 minute course, so moving a minute ahead is a huge leap and it took me the whole race to get there. I came up behind her and yelled upon my approach, but either she didn't hear me or I was unclear of my position... I ended up attempting to pass her in boiling water and had to pass to the left of a rock that is best run right of for a faster line. The boils pushed us together and we came to a full stop as I fustratedly tried to move around her. I must interject, my sister absolutely did nothing wrong, and the fault was mostly mine, but I am positive I lost 5-10 seconds slowing down, moving around her, and having to pick up my momentum once again to regain top glide speed.

Just after the passing move...

I finished hard but I knew I had lost anywhere from 10 to 15 seconds in that race, and 10 to 15 seconds ahead of my time was where I had been shooting for, time-wise. However I knew that in the better parts of the race I had pushed myself and I was mostly satisfied with the race as a whole. I may not have been number one this race, but I can do it in the future in the races to come. I am content being a few percent behind for now, but I will definitely be spending the months training to be the absolute best and fastest I can be.
My next big adventures are the NOC Dagger Freestyle Shootout later this month (no, I haven't decided whether I'm competing yet or not), guiding trips down the Ocoee for the Boater Chick Festival in May, traveling to Colorado for Fibark/Wildwater National Championships/epic Western creeking in June, and then the Junior Wildwater World Championships in July!

Training Update CONTINUED

Well earlier this month we got MORE SNOW! My siblings got out of school for a week so I spent a lot of time with them and less on training... but I didn't slack off!
Here's what I've been up to...
When the creek looks like THIS...

I tend not to want to freeze to death by paddling. So I've been doing a lot of weight training. It's rather pitiful... my coach discovered at the Nantahala training camp that I can't do a pull up! Yes... I admit it, I never have been able to. I've done weight training in the past but mostly for running so I didn't focus much on upper body. This is all quickly changing as I now hit the gym 3-4 times a week for weights, and any day that I don't do weights I'm running and doing ab/core work. I still paddle, just on days when it's exceedingly warmer than usual.
I also went to another training camp this month; this time I went down to Atlanta for the very famous Chute the Hooch camp hosted by the one and only John Pinyerd. Pinyerd did a great job putting on the camp, as always, and he also brought a flatwater coach with him, John DePalma, who was a great big help with my stroke work and refining my technique.
Chute the Hooch is for everyone willing and interested in improving their technique or learning about wildwater, so we had the pros and newbies all working together. I especially enjoyed meeting Alicia Rink, who was rocking in a pink Wavehopper (plastic wildwater boat) and Alec Mazzuckelli, a 15-year-old guy that Pinyerd's been putting in a C1 for awhile now... it's a good thing too because Alec is strong from being a wrestler and his smooth form shows he has a huge amount of potential if he chooses to race in the future.
I'll have you know that I am shamelessly recruiting junior paddlers left and right to try out wildwater, because I'd love to build up the junior US wildwater team for 2011 Junior Wildwater World Championships in Czech Republic... a race I am training hard for.
But back to the matter at hand; Chute the Hooch was a great weekend full of drills, video review, and great camraderie! Saturday John DePalma worked us till our arms didn't want to move anymore, with drills and constant advice to improve our form. John does a lot of great things with the flatwater program down at Lake Lanier, and I'm very tempted to go train with him some more this spring. Sunday I went to the morning session, an attainment workout no less. I was surprised to find I didn't have much trouble with this workout and I blasted back up the Chattahoochee River, albeit slightly behind the others but with no major problems, for sure. I had to head home that afternoon and missed the traditional Chute the Hooch race, but I'll be sure to be back next year!
Pictures of the event are included in Rick's coverage, linked below... I didn't want to take his photos for my blog, but definitely check his out!
Check out some media of the training camp:
A recap by Pinyerd: http://www.usawildwater.com/news/2011/110118_Chute-the-Hooch.html
A great WK article by Rick Thompson: http://regions.worldkayak.com/atlanta/2011/01/18/chute-the-hooch-training-camp-weekend/
And video review footage edited by Bartosz Ilkowski ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8lfwRN3Iew

Training Update January 2011

Snow, pogies, and chasing birds... what do these things have in common? Wildwater training! My hometown got snowed in pretty good (we are talking several inches!!) this month so it's been cold cold cold.
If you don't live in the South, then you probably don't know that we had a White Christmas for the first time in decades... perfect for snowkayaking!

The mini-ramp at my house...

Training has definitely kicked up as the racing season inches closer; I've been to 2 training camps already and I'm getting used to feeling constantly sore.
Over New Years, I went up to the Nantahala River in NC to train for about a week up in those snow-covered mountains. I had a group of a few US wildwater team members, plus two Italian boys, Paolo and Marco, to train with. I got there Wednesday afternoon and settled into our group cabin, excited for the camp to begin.
The next day we headed out to the NOC and met up with my coach- Chris Hipgrave- and the Italians to do an attainment workout. I've never had a lot of experience or skill with attainments so this was a major challenge, and a rough way to start off the week. We put in at the NOC and our attainments went all the way up to the bottom of Nanthala Falls. I definitely got used to being lapped by the guys and even by Tierney; I was getting more tired and fustrated each time I missed a move. I knew that in the future I'd have to put a heck of a lot more time in doing attainments if I was to have better boat control and strength.

I look a little cold, eh?

After that exhausting session the week went a little smoother. The only bummer was our major sprint workout, which ran from just below the Falls through NOC wave, was done in the mucky, cold RAIN! Now I've had my fair share of rain workouts but I haven't ever had to get out of my boat and carry it back upstream through mud puddles 5 times like that before (you can't REALLY attain NOC wave... or well, I'm never trying it!). I admit it, even though I was slightly miserable I still jumped in all the puddles... and maybe chased a duck or two.
Usually though, we would have a workout in the morning and a technique or video session in the afternoon, so I got a bit of rest time in between water time.
The last part of the week was the time trial/race, which we self-timed from Ferebee to the Ledges, one of the race courses we'll use later this spring. My time wasn't super brilliantly fast, but I did improve by about 15 seconds over the last time I did a time trial on this course. I'd say that's a success! :)

Okay, I'm exhausted, time to go home...

I love the Nantahala, it's a good training river... but I sure hope it warms up soon!

Slalom and Creeking

I usually post my own writing, but sometimes I find that other people can say it even better than I can!

I met Mary Mills in early 2010, when it was still freezing cold outside and paddling always depended on if we had rain. She contacted me on Facebook and then we met when she came to my slalom race up at the Nantahala River, called Glacier Breaker. I was nervous, trying the gates at the Falls, getting used to my new Toro Evo Piko from Galasport, and breaking in my AT Super Light paddle. It felt good that someone who barely knew me would cheer me on as I participated in my first slalom race, ever.

Training slalom at the Falls

Mary Mills is a great lady, she's come a long way skills-wise since I met her, and I enjoy playboating down the Ocoee River with her, or just talking to her at the take out of various rivers in the southeast. I saw her this past weekend while I was doing a wildwater workout on the Nanty, and it reminded me to post this awesome article she wrote about Creeking and Slalom!

Mary Mills -Photo by Cheryl Killman

I've also included a few other links about the subject you might want to check out. Slalom skills are the foundation of extreme creek races, so you'll often see participants in the Green Race or Adidas' Sickline that have extensive experience in slalom as well. But as she explains, everyone can utilize slalom skills, so this article is a MUST READ for anyone who wishes to be a better boater! :)

Links:
Extreme slalom/creeking... very cool blog post by Liquidlogic's Shane Benedict: http://shanesliquidlogic.blogspot.com/2010/07/giant-slalom-on-green-river.html
Endless River Adventures explores the concepts of slalom in their intruction, and they've written some great articles about it! http://www.endlessriveradventures.com/news?module=news&showitem=170


Slalom and Creeking

By Mary Mills

This year is my first winter running creeks after being introduced to slalom by Juliet Kastorff during an Endless River Adventures Private Instruction class in the summer. I admit I was skeptical when we headed for the gates at the Nantahala for the first time in June. I had always thought slalom was only for pros not paddlers of my skill level. I was in my FUSE, not a slalom boat. When would I ever need slalom skills or better yet run a slalom course?

Running the gates looks so easy when I watched people doing it, how hard could it be? I was so surprised by how hard it actually was. I thought I had good boat control till I tried to do slalom. I was hot even on the Nanty running those gates! I didn’t do so well that day and made it a point to go down there and run the gates at least once every time I ran the Nanty.

Often when I ran the Nanty I left time to run the gates multiple times. I spent days just running the gates. You can really see when you improve and what skills you need to work on to make the gates. I learned that to make the upstream and downsteam gates requires planning ahead, presetting the angle of the boat, and looking at the upcoming gates to make adjustments. Effective and precise paddle strokes are important, both for speed and turns. A fast, efficient eddy turn comes from a clean entrance and exit from the eddy, not sliding or dragging on the eddy line. Focus and good boat control will help you make the gates efficiently. Sometimes dropping the right edge without flipping over will make all the difference.

In the summer, I participated in the Canoe Clue Challenges and WOR slalom events offered on the Natahala. I had never been in a race of any type and it was so exciting to be at the starting line with all the other boaters. The first race I was nervous and scared with so many people watching, but I made every gate. I participated in about 6 races over the summer and fall. In one race there were 'pro' racers like the Team Popp family and Olympic gold-medalist Joe Jacobi were also lined waiting right night to me. I was never really great on time, but I was getting where I hardly ever missed a gate.

So why slalom? Well, I started to notice how much easier creeking was this winter. I look at the rocks as gates and challenge myself to get through cleanly without hitting the “gates”. Dec 21st I was on Clear Creek for the first time and I kept thinking how much running those gates really helped making those technical moves between the rocks and it hit me, this is why you run the gates. It was so much more fun when I thought of the creek like a slalom course.

So slaloming is for everyone, not just the pros. It will help improve your boating skills and to top it off it is just plain fun! If you don’t have gates where you paddle, make them up! Rocks, sticks, etc. make great gates. Have a lake? Set up floating gates. So get out there and run some gates. You will be amazed at how much better your kayaking skills improve, plus it is fun!