It’s wet, cold and a strong freezing wind is blowing the raft off course – again.
It’s our 584th hour of training this year, and despite the mechanical repetitive drills and boat still veering off to the right it feels good. Spending this much time in a boat with 5 other determined and competitive girls puts you in some stressful situations but has great rewards when it all comes together.
On our 12th and final training session of the year we are focussing on maximising the efficiency of the blade and torso rotation, key skills for kayaking that you can directly transfer to whitewater rafting. With two sessions a day; two hours on flat water and two hours on whitewater with 10 minute off the water warm ups it’s an intense day. With no coach at present we spend time providing constructive criticism to each other on the flat, trying to create a balanced boat where everyone moves in symmetry with perfect vertical paddle shafts, matching torso rotation and sinking the blade to the same degree.
Timing is key to maintaining momentum and making moves on powerful water, and with two new squad members in the boat we spent a significant portion of the weekend working on synchronising all paddlers.
Over the next year we will be working on this and other skills, using video feedback and intense coaching in the hope that it might just give us that extra edge. In this game every second counts, and minute adjustments to the boat can make that difference between a medal placing, or nothing.
We’ll be bringing you updates from our training weekends over the next year as we prepare for the European Championships to be held on the River Vltava, in Czech Republic. We’ll be bringing you training tips and showing you what lengths we go to in order to stay fit and healthy and build up our fitness – it’s a real challenge! Follow our monthly blog to see how we’re getting on.
I know the gear can stand up to it – whether I can or not remains to be seen!
Safe.
Rosie Cripps
http://www.gbraftteam.co.uk
We’ve got 7 new exciting additions to the Palm fold this autumn in the form of the Senior Women’s GB Rafting Team and they’ve just arrived in Costa Rica for the World Rafting Championships. With nearly 80 years experience between them they’re strong contenders for the gold medal. Stay tuned here for updates during the competition.
For now though, here’s long time Palm paddler Rosie Cripps with a run down of the team and the competition.
We have arrived in Costa Rica – Pura Vida!
As a team of 7 from Wales, England and Scotland together we make up the GB ladies whitewater rafting team. Having been rafting or kayaking for most of our lives we are passionate about rivers and paddlesports, and have travelled to Costa Rica to compete in the World Rafting Championships. We’re proud to be sponsored by Palm, who have been incredible in kitting us out at short notice in matching kit just before we flew out – most importantly a set of super comfortable Helix PFDs, grippy neoprene Cartwheel Pants (don’t want to slip out of the raft!) and throwlines which are most definitely a must on the Pacuare river where the competition will be held.
We’ve already been here a week and have spent 5 days on the river, training and acclimatising to the intense heat and humidity before the competition begins. Over 30 countries will compete over three days and 3 disciplines for the title of World Champions.
Getting to the river is an endurance test in itself – and very exciting! Every day we leave camp around 7.30am for the first stage; a half hour bus ride through where we are deposited high above the Pacuare, just about able to glimpse its glistening brown form snaking though the dense jungle clad gorge below. An hour’s trek down to the river follows with discarded spider skins and bright green and red poison frogs underfoot. Yesterday there was an enormous tarantula on the track; it must have been special as even the local Tico’s stopped to look at this one.
Once at the river we’re surrounded by an intricate system of cables, pulleys and zip lines that criss-cross the river to transport the rafts upstream to the top of the sprint and slalom course. The rafts are loaded up onto the zip lines and fly across the river. We then clip it onto a series of other cables and hoist it a further around a km upriver through the jungle to the top of the sprint and slalom course. I think the first day it took us around 3.5 hours to get from the camp to on the water.
Once on the water the river is awesome! Huge boulder gardens in a tropical jungle set the scene with lanky vines and spider webs hanging overhead. Tight lines and numerous horizon lines maintain a super focussed and powerful boat. Never thought we would get so much boofing practise in a 16 foot raft. Ah well, Pura Vida as they say! The gorge section is big 4+ water, which will easily become class 5 with a bit more rain. And in Costa Rica it appears to rain like few other places on earth!
Return to the bull ring/camp where we’re staying after a full day on the river takes around 40minutes. Most of the teams taking part in the competition are staying at the camp, the Tico’s are super friendly and amazing hosts. Last night we were all treated to a bull riding show/rodeo. The skill and bravery of the cowboys, whilst riding incredibly well muscled bulls with enormous horns, along with their horsemanship was incredible to watch. Mike the owner of the bull ring was able to, without fail, lasso a full sized bull right around the horns whilst galloping at top speed past it on his Appoloosa stallion. Impressive indeed!
Finishing a day usually ends with a wildlife show starring the cleaner of the ladies loos at the camp – the top three items extracted from the toilets so far have been:
1. Enormous puffed up toad/frog as big as two fists that spits a milky substance into your eyes which may blind you
2. Huge beetle that looked very like a stag beetle but was around the size of a can of baked beans
3. Giant grasshopper/stick insect, masquerading very well as a leaf.
We’ll be posting more updates from training and the competition as much as we can, although rather like getting to the river, getting to the internet is more complicated than it first appears!
Hasta Luego! Rosie.
