The GB Women’s Path to the Worlds Part Three: February and March, Flipping Awesome!

What a month! 2 training weekends in one month which included snow (no change there then), the Youth and Junior Raft Race at Lee Valley, international ladies teams training together, 2 different venues, 1 flip and EVERYONE swimming!

The British Raft Race series were holding a Youth and Junior event at the Lee Valley one very cold weekend in February, so we joined in too to share our experience with the teams, do some coaching, and get some training in ourselves. The fab thing was that the ladies teams from  Holland and Belgium joined in so we could get some race practice under real conditions and perfect our start line ‘trash talking’.

See the battle of the minds between the GB Women and the GB Men!! Scary stuff!!

The youth races went really well, and despite the cold a great time was had by all. The results of the event were

1st place – Hertford Mariners – 937 points
2nd place – Clueless Six – 859 points
3rd place – Riverside Rafters- 844 points
4th place – Paddle Pirates – 734 points
5th place -Hereford Academy- 706 points

and hopefully we will have even more Youth and Junior teams turn up for the selections in May to see who will be eligible to join the senior teams in New Zealand!

Our training that weekend was mixed, mainly because, in the first session of day one we flipped. Serves us right for practicing some hard slalom moves! But the water was freezing and I’m sure we all just looked like deer caught in headlights as we floated silently down the rest of the course pretty much paralysed with cold. But to make matters worse, and because Georgie hadn’t been on the raft for that run, clearly she had to get a bit wet too! and we ended up almost flipping AGAIN but instead ditching Georgie and Bryony out of the raft!

Oh dear, oh dear. Everyone is allowed a bad day right?

Here is the evidence

Our Nottingham Weekend 2 weeks later was much more successful, but no less hard. We had Coach Dave back with us who set us some awesome Slalom sessions. It is great when you finish a session achieving something that on the first run down had seemed impossible!

check out this video of one of our slalom runs.

Coach put us through our paces on the Saturday night in a circuits session which included pressups (do-able), tricep dips (painful), running (standard), burpies (ugh!!), dragon walks (what!?), lunges and a whole host of other painful exercises  ( I’m pretty sure it is his way of punishing us for making him stand in the cold and snow all day). These are the only photos we could show of that session…pretty sure you don’t want to see our sweaty horrible faces, and we certainly don’t want you to!

The weekend was awesome and after our endurance session we came away seeing how far we have come, our fitness has improved amazingly and, thanks to Nezza’s new Workout Plan, we are going to be a slick machine!!

Talking of Nezza, Its interview time!!

Nerys Blue sits Back Right of the raft and is our Welsh Wonder Woman! 

 

Nezza you must be one of the busiest members of the team, being a teacher, a mum of 2 very cute kids, on the GBR Rafting Team and a fitness guru all at the same time. How do you fit it all in?

I must admit some weeks are pretty manic, it means training early in the morning, lunch time, straight after work or late in the evening once the little ones have gone to bed.  It does help being married to Matt who is on the men’s team as motivation in our house is at an all time high so if the time of the session is not the best we will still get the sessions in.  We have various cardio machines in the house and garage, pull up bars, a dip machine, fitball and weights which makes training at home easy, then we live 2 minutes away from a leisure centre and Crossfit Carmarthen which we can use free of charge.  I tend to work smart and many of my sessions only last 30 minutes but they are high intensity, with about 2-3 of my sessions lasting an hour or more.  Being focused and organised with kit to train early in the morning or straight after work helps prevent any time wasting.

 

You were on the team for a long time before you had the kids, what drew you back after that break?

I love rafting, challenges, being part of a team and being at the top end. I also enjoy training and competing.

 

We are all in awe of the training plans you create for us, where did you learn the knowledge of putting these training programs together?

 

My background of slalom racing for which I would have monthly and weekly training programmes.  Speaking to lots of people about what sort of training is best for the sport of rafting. We are required to have a good endurance base but without compromising our speed for the sprint and slalom disciplines.

 

 

 

What is your most memorable rafting experience ?

Being picked up by the American’s men team at my first Rafting World Championships in S. Africa in 1999 – after being catapulted out of the raft in a massive stopper.  Okay on a more serious note winning my first gold medal in the head to head at the 2008 Euro’s at receiving a standing ovation and a roar of clapping by all nations as we walked into the presentation tent (Men’s GB team having done the same).  But if I had to pick a different one to the captain, winning our first ever medal at the Korean World Championships in 2007, disbelief as the NZ girls congratulated us for our bronze medal in the slalom, we had to go and see the result board for ourselves.  It’s so difficult not to mention our best overall achievement ever at the R4 World Championships in Dutch Water Dream, finishing 3rd (1st,3rd,8th,2nd).

 

 

 

What is your most memorable moment with the team ?

Would have to be my rafting Hen Do in Austria, was definitely an adventurous evening, followed by asking to stop the minibus on route to the Europeans the next day because I wasn’t feeling too well.

 

 

Brilliant, so what is the best thing anout being on the team?

Friendship

 

and finally the worst thing?

Mixing up our kit as we now have a lot the same.  This is also brilliant at the same time.

Thanks Nez!

Our next weekend training is in Wales, lets hope the snow has melted by then and it is a bit warmer!!

Words by Fran Kohn

Thanks to G and R Photography Bideford for their amazing photos and Dave Brown and Jess Evans for videoing.