USA Canoe/Kayak Coaches Conference

Another year, another ski race missed due to the annual coaching conference!  Not a big deal.  I know my personal interests have shifted from coaching and racing XC to more single focus on coaching paddlers.

This year's conference was split into a coule of major areas for me: Paracanoe, Physiology/psychology of racing, and technique.  And some sessions on the what's going on with USA Canoe/Kayak, the OKC venue and such.  All good stuff, and well worth attending.  I only found a couple of sessions hard to stay focused, and that was more an issue with me fighting the back side of bad URI.

So to accentuate the positives:
The always impressive Dr Neil Fleming of Ireland and Indiana on energy systems and matching training for different events.  Neil is a great speaker, and understands paddling from an athlete's point of view.
Shaun Spanbauer, USOC nutritionist on eating for competition. Pretty basic nutritional stuff if you've been around coaching for a while, but it was nice to see his talk reinforce the same points Neil made - and Neil challenged him a couple of times as well - it made for really good dialog, not lively debate.  Bottom line - as a junior, supplements will do a lot less for you than focused training.
Good presentations by OKC staff strength coach and psychologist.

Best presentation of the conference for me was Megan Blunk, a paracanoe athlete who won two silver medals at Worlds last year.  Megan is a typical college student athlete, she just happens to be in a chair.  She plays hoops for Illinois (and Team USA), and paddles for Gig Harbor (and Team USA). She gave her first ever public speech to the group, and while certainly not a hostile crowd, it took a lot to get up there and essentially bare her soul to an audience.   I was moved to tears.  She is an amazing young woman.

And a big Mahalo to everyone who came, presented or helped set this up. It takes a lot of work to do so, and I'm glad to have been there.

Lowlights:
Having a hacking cough wears you out, so I passed on stepping out for drinks and socializing after work.  It was already late, and the noise level in Toby Keith's is absurd most of the time.

Airport food:
The good - Cheese Steak at Charley's Philly Grill - actually, quite good.  Well seasoned, cooked to order. Fries were perfect. Service was quick and friendly.
The bad - Salt Lick in OKC main terminal.  I've eaten at multiple Salt Lick locations over the years, including at the Austin airport.  Salt Lick does brisket and sausage pretty well, and pretty consistently.  This is definitely an outlier.  Warmish meat, limp fries, mediocre service.  I'll go to Schlotzky's next time.

OKC - I'll do a whole post sometime on how I became a huge booster of Oklahoma City.  Oklahoma is the reddest of the red, and yet they have levied civic improvement taxes on themselves 3 consecutive times.  This has built the convention center, arena, minor league ball park, downtown improvements, parks, the boathouse district - and all paid for the day each item breaks ground.
This year  permanent, retractable lane markers and buoys. Lighting and audio improvements, better scoreboard, improved access.  Lots of 'icing on the cake' items before Marathon Worlds in September.
Next year - opening of the Whitewater Center!!! Directly adjacent to the flatwater course, it'll be the only such venue in the world.  That will add a new restaurant, venue building, and other cool amenities.