The Countdown Begins….
For our July training weekend we were headed to Nottingham, amid reports that the Trent was flooded due to the heavy rainfall that has characterised our British Summer so far. A diminished team gathered together for Saturday because Deb was off on expedition in Vietnam like the intrepid explorer, and all round action heroine that she is, and Rosie and Suzie were somewhere over Europe flying back from The Dajue Mountain Natural Water International Rafting Competition 2012 that took place in China!! Check out their blog below…SO proud of you girls!!
http://79.170.40.166/palmequipmenteurope.com/blogs/ww/we-still-love-china-raft-race-day/
Monty Python forms the basis for our warm ups.
We started off with some flat water slalom on Saturday morning, working on communication and NOT TOUCHING THE POLES! The only problem was that Fran hadn’t slept that well the night before due to too much coffee so communication was not her strong point; “I don’t like talking” she said nearly throwing all her toys out of the pram.
Bryony: Endurance training in the sunshine in our penultimate Euros training weekend. Muscle achingly, gut bustingly, will testingly awesome!!!
Fran "Who put that chocolate there? It wants me to eat it all"
The afternoon session was also of slalom, spent on what was available on the white water course. Lacking our buddies and their extra power we had a tough session, managing to get surfed almost every run in a hole where we almost ditched poor Alli a couple of times. It is all good practice though, take a look at where we are going to be racing for the Euros in a month’s time…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=Z9K0uwI15z8
What we needed that evening was a morale boost. Which we got in the form of Fajitas, Guacamole and Articulate : The Fast Talking Description game. But Sunday morning came around pretty quickly, Dave does love his early morning sessions, and with it came Suzie and Rosie!! Fresh from their awesome success in China, we were finally had 6 on the raft again! The smiles quickly turned into determined gurns as we set to our task of 10 x 5 minute sets at 6-6.5 km/hour with 1 minute rest in between each. Phew!!
Rosie’s take on her few days of excitement: ‘Flying in from a rafting competition in China for team training was completely bizarre…being plucked from the crystal rivers of Danjue Mountain under the care of Government Officials, then spending a night with a newfound friend in the towering heights of a Shanghai skyscraper, landing in Heathrow to travel straight up to Nottingham to be together with the team again, to raft again on the murky waters of Nottingham…I’m only having time now to reflect on the whole experience, its really hit home now how rafting gives us the opportunity to grow so much, and meet the most incredible people!’
DON'T HIT THAT POLE!!
Come lunch time Alli had to jet off to be important at a conference so we were lucky enough to have a guest appearance from GB Veteran Jenny Chrimes for our afternoon session. 6 timed runs of the course which included the run up the bank and paddle up the canal. It was a fantastic way to end the weekend with lots of smiles. We are now on the home straight for the Euros all going all out in our personal training over the next month. Thanks always to Palm for the kit we get to train in which keeps us warm and dry and keep the Nottingham sludge off us!
Thanks to Jen for standing in for the afternoon.
Keep your mouth closed!!
Words by Fran and the team.
Photos: Bryony, Rosie and Dave.
