Identifying and recruiting talented athletes to sprint kayaking

Give us your tired, your broken of body, yearning to do something other than the sport their parents have been dragging them to since they were four...
Or words to that effect anyway.

I coach Olympic style sprint kayaking.  I love doing it. I love working with some of the best young athletes around.  But it's a pretty limited pool around Minnesota. For one thing, the water's a little hard to paddle on about 5 months of the year since it's frozen 3 feet thick.  For another, a lot of people have this obsession with hockey in this state, and a firm conviction in parent's minds that if little Jane or Johnny doesn't make the traveling team by six, it's going to be so hard to keep up and be on that State Championship team when they are juniors, so that they can take their senior year to try for the National team and... and...

I'm starting to think I need to steal a page from the ambulance chasing lawyers and start hanging out at the ortho clinics.  "Hey buddy, sorry to hear you blew out your ACL, MCL and patella.  Why don't you come out and try paddling? With your power, I bet you can make the National team in 2 years" and "It's OK Mom, it's cheaper than a season's ice time" (not to mention a lot easier on the medical insurance co-pays).
All kidding aside, I am starting to talk to ortho friends and am working with one of the clinics to get a talk scheduled on 'competition alternatives' for their clients.  A couple of target sports are football and hockey, gymnastics, and basketball.  You might not think about basketballers, but anybody who can post up and drive the key has awesome physical attributes.

We've got 2 K-4s --  35 feet long, 20" wide and tippy beyond belief until you get enough core strength to paddle them.  My goal is to find enough athletes to paddle them well that we can take podiums at Nationals this year.

Give me your strong of heart, burning still with desire to compete.  We just might have a seat for you.

USA Canoe/Kayak Nationals! (Pt 1 - the journey)

I'll admit that when I coach or officiate at a big event, I'm pretty much oblivious to anything going on in the 'real world'.  I can also count on one had the number of times I even *thought* about work while I was down there!
I did not get a lot of photos, but I will share what I have and hopefully back-fill some others as the next week goes on.  It's hard to get good quality photos with your phone when the action is 100-200 meters away!

Kermit - a belly full of gas and ready to go again!

Trip summary - 8 athletes total, ranging from 12-18, (three of whom were stuck riding with me), various parents, my sainted wife who came along to visit her cousins, see some racing, and maybe get in a bike ride.  22 hours over 2 days driving.
The first day's drive was easy - down the Madison-Rockford-Bloomington pipeline to Madison, IN

New bridge over the Ohio River at Madison

for the night.  A little out of the most direct route, but a nice visit with relatives instead of a motel.  Getting up the next morning, we had to wait for one thunderstorm to roll up the Ohio Valley, and then near disaster.  Pulling into Frankfort, KY I heard/felt that ominous whup-whup-whup that can only mean a bad tire or worse.  I glanced back to see the trailer wheel wobble.  Fortunately, there was a gas station just ahead.  Worse than I'd guessed - the wheel was only held on by a single (and very loose) lug nut!  Now 10 miles before, we were in the middle of very rural (and hilly) Kentucky.  Fortunately a customer had a 'proper' lug wrench, and helped swipe a bolt from the other side so we could limp up to AutoZone and buy the only two lug bolts they had - and a lug wrench.  That was enough to get us to Lexington where we bought the only bolt *that* AutoZone had, and we left town with a rip-roaring thunderstorm hot on our heels.  Did I mention how great it was having smart phone literate athletes in the back seat to *find* the freaking parts store and navigate us to it?
Onward.  A late - and much anticipated - lunch at Bradley's BBQ (mentioned in an earlier post) and we headed south for B*tchin' Betty's recommended route to get us into Buford GA without driving all the way down to the 285 and back up through Atlanta traffic.  I believe the 'real' name of the Garmin voice is 'Samantha'. We used to call her 'Lady Garmin', but after several wrong routes, bad turns and a particular trip where she wanted us to cut across an Iowa soybean field, she became Betty.  Well... Betty decided that the best way to go was via Elijay, GA.  Now any idiot can look at the map and see that the route to Elijay is over a mountain county road, while the smart route stays on a US highway and State Highway.  But, I was driving, so I didn't *look* at the map - and we did the scenic drive up and over the lower reaches of the north Georgia mountains, over the river and through the woods, taking more than one 'short cut'.  I'd really like to get my hands on the clown who wrote the algorithm that punked us with this route. Eventually, we did get to town, followed yet another 'short cut', and finally after 12 hours of adventure for an 8 hour drive - arrived.
I had a 40 minute commute to the venue - one of the very few relatively straightforward driving experiences in north Georgia!  We set up Monday morning on the 1996 Olympic Games venue, right in between new friends from South Florida and Washington (DC) Canoe Club.  Racing was not to start until Thursday, so we had a couple of days to paddle, weigh boats, sort out partners for a couple of races, and generally take it easy.  Carol and I did get one good ride in - on a loop recommended by the nearest bike shop Habersham Bicycles to the race venue. The route was great - 20 miles plus an attempted extension that ended in big gravel (not for road bikes), so we backtracked and finished the posted Lula route.
The team rented a house on Lake Lanier that was 2.5 miles from the venue - as the crow flies.  As the rabbit runs, it was more like 15, and took 30 minutes to get there.  Even so, a house on the lake that sleeps 15, and only costs 1500/week is a deal! This also let parents plan much better meals and kids/athletes have better options on what to do (other than watch TV).
More to come about the event itself.  Enough for tonight.

USA Canoe/Kayak Trials weekend

Results can be found elsewhere.  Congratulations to the folks that I know/have heard made teams - Ross boys, Kaitlyn, Maggie, Farran, Alison, Austin, Ryan, and probably a couple of others!

My friends in Oklahoma City tell me the wind always blows there, but in the past few years of being down there, it hasn't been quite so noticeable, nor so obstinately across the course.  It made Toli's 2nd place dead heat with Gavin all the more impressive, since he's an international and gets stuck with lane 9 on the outside edge!

Murphy proved to have a ready hand again, hanging the actuator on lane 9 at the 200m line.  This meant no boats used the gates, and really put pressure on the officials to get the starts off quickly - which they really did. I've some small amount of experience as a starter in other sports, and I was impressed by the calm demeanor and great control on the line.

The announcer really needed to spend a little time with the Hawaiian contingent and learn pronunciation of names - including a number of mainlanders as well. But by and large, he did fine, and a couple of people probably have new nicknames as a result.

So lots of racing, lots of wind, and a fair amount of sun.  The left side of my face and neck is noticeably redder than the right side.  

One of the great things about this trip was that I had no real responsibilities.  One of my athletes was there, but since she was competing in the club races on Saturday instead of Trials, I had no pressure and could visit with people and pay attention to a lot of external things instead of focusing on my club, which can sometimes feel like you are this guy:

I did make a few excursions into the entertainment side of Oklahoma City.  A little setup is in order here.  OKC is the possibly the reddest city in the reddest state in the country.  Mostly it's conservative, and you'd figure there isn't a tax they generally wouldn't want to kill.  But, they have a civic pride that seems to have overcome the reluctance to be taxed for things like ballparks, convention centers, boathouses, rowing and kayaking venues, a whitewater park.  This stuff is all paid for before it's built!  So why does this matter to me?  20 years or so ago, I was in downtown OKC for a day - seemed a whole lot longer...  And I must say, I understand the imagery from Grapes of Wrath, Last Picture Show and other films get their inspiration.  Dusty, decaying and depressing.  But they have brought OKC around to where, while I don't want to live there, I do enjoy visiting!

Downtown has really done a job of rehabbing a lot of the old, and inbuilding new - preserving a lot of the character while still featuring the new and vibrant areas.  Bricktown has a feel very similar to San Antonio's River Walk - bars, restaurants and shops bordering a mile long promenade and canal (complete with tour boats).   There's a botanical garden/conservatory that has lots of street fest type vendors, all sorts of other goings on, and then there's the American Banjo Museum.  I know - lots of folks think *all* banjos should be in museums, but I like them.  I was blown away by the variety and particularly by the glitz that went into early 20th century instruments.  

Food was decidedly not part of my trip this time.  Cafe Kacao, which is _the_ spot for breakfast doesn't open until 8:00, and since we needed to be at the venue at 7:30...  Fuzzy's Tacos is always dependable, and Earl's BBQ isn't bad, but it's just OK.  Dinner was covered nicely by my friend's mom, who was in town to run the marathon on Sunday after trials.  Awesome cooking, Ms M!

And there I was - kidnapped by a bunch of pretty good looking paddlers, dragged off to a bar called Cowboys, which offered 25 cent domestics and bull riding shows at 11:00 and 12:30.  And dancing.  Well, some people danced.  My wife puts up with me, but she won't let me do two things in public - play basketball, and dance.  And there's a pretty good reason for it.  I mean really - N - sorry about the toes, but I did warn you I danced worse than this guy:

Thanks again to my good friends who let me couch surf, made me drink cheap beer and tried in vain to teach me to dance.  It was a pleasure and a fun weekend - we'll do it again.  Mi casa, su casa.

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.