I just won a SPOT at Odyssey/Gear Junkies Scavenger Hunt. I am hoping to start wearing it during races so everyone can see exactly where we are while we are racing. I should also be able to send a message or two while out on the course to let everyone know we are doing well.

I have been testing it during some training runs and rides this week. You can see my “tracks” and follow us during the Odyssey Race and Lionheart at the website below. No promises as it seems to have trouble picking up a signal unless it is outside my pack and not in the woods. Hopefully it will at least be a somewhat better update of us on the course though.

TeamSOG SPOT Tracker

-Brian

Steep, Technical and Fast: Miracle Mile near Eugene, Oregon

With only one week left in the Eddyflower Total Vertical Challenge, Susan continues to push to keep her top 10 position. In addition to reaching more than 20,000 vertical feet of challengeing Class III-V whitewater throughout the Pacific Northwest, this TeamSOG member has also managed to raise over $700 for First Descents.

Check out the Standings throughout the next few days to see how she finishes out!  Don’t forget to show your support and make a tax-deductible contribution to her team as well!

I was down in Blacksburg on the anniversary of the April 16th shootings. They now hold an annual 3.2 mile run/walk in honor of the 32 live lost that day. I was able to participate in this event with my fiance Katie. We didn’t race but enjoyed the event and the camaraderie of all the other people participating.

We Are Virginia Tech!

-Brian

Awesome Race!

For me, this event really began back in December. Looking for a reason to be somewhere for the winter, I used the excuse of Team Trials being held on the Nantahala to move to Asheville for 3 months. It also helped that my dad and sister lived in the area and I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be surrogate mother to Hudson, Andria and Leland Davis’ dog. (By the way, their new North America Guidebook is one of the coolest books any paddler can own)
The thought that the southeast might we warmer (and therefore more conducive to training on the water during the winter) also enticed me. After weeks and weeks of freezing temperatures and a ridiculous amount of snow, I have learned to never expect anything out of the weather anymore.

Yet, somehow I bucked up enough to gain a semblance of control over this craft, enough to stay in it and keep it relatively straight. I actually found using a wing blade to help a lot with this, in addition to the flatwater workouts I put myself through.
The race weekend turned out to be a blast. Something about competition is just really exciting for me, every time, no matter how much physical torture I know I am going to endure. I couldn’t help but talk to all the other racers I hadn’t met yet, just oozing with enthusiasm.

Sprints were first, 2 trials on a 80-90 second course through one rapid.

I really just tried to paddle as hard as I could for the sprint. Considering that my boat control is still fairly non-existent I thought I might as well just rely on my strength for this one. Blasting through the top hole (as opposed to slicing to the right of it) slowed me down, but made for a great photo.

I placed 3rd out of the ladies in the sprint, only 1.67% off of Tierney-the numba-one lady. For those of you who don’t get this comparison, that is REALLY close. Haley, second-place-jr-racer, was only 1.13% off Tierney.

Pushing to the finish line on the Classic race course

Sunday’s Classic race, a 12-15 minute race, was a bit more of my speed. Give me the longer endurance race and I’m a happy ‘yaker. Of course, the tornado that threw me into the shore as I pulled away from the start, picking up water from the river to spit in my face, made for an interesting beginning to my first Classic event.

Every time I felt myself backing off, I made myself go faster. Every time I came out of a rapid, I made myself go faster. And every time I thought of Tierney a few spots behind me, I made myself go faster. Although I was barely breathing across the finish line, I think I could have gone faster.

I pulled it up a bit for the class, allowing me to jump to 2nd place for the final rankings. Amazingly enough I was still just 1.65% off of Tierney. What is with that number?

It feels pretty good to make the Team, even if I can’t make it to World’s in Spain this year. I’m looking forward to working out the kinks over the next 2 years and hitting an international event in 2012!

Thanks to Adam Elliott for the great photos!  For more shots from the event click here.

TeamSOG training in the southeast on the Nantahala River

How often do you get to genuinely feel like a true beginner again, after practicing a sport for nearly a decade? Almost never.

You can fake it, like letting a 6 year old catch you in a game of tag, or…

You can fudge it, like using only one arm to shoot hoops.

But rarely do you get to feel the excitement and anticipation of square one again.

If you have been kayaking for as long as I have try sitting in a wildwater boat and you’ll know exactly what I mean.  Throw everything you know about the forward stroke, torso rotation and edge control out with the trash.  Get the slate as blank as possible, you’re going to need it.

Perhaps this doesn’t sound like a very good idea?  You spend years developing skills and techniques and reach a fairly advanced level within a sport.  Why would you want to throw it all out the window.

To get better.

It also makes class III really REALLY exciting again.

The boat is going to teach me a lot about kayaking that I might have assumed I already knew. Just trying to get a proper forward stroke is sometimes too much for me to think about. I find myself returning to taking it in pieces, just like how I recommend my students approach learning to paddle.

I continue to struggle finding a sufficient level of comfort in the boat so that I’m not just using correctional strokes the whole way down. A little padding here, a new seat from the Czech Republic and many, many more days on the water should help out a lot. I can only imagine what this is going to feel like when I have my ducks in a row and can work on paddling as hard as I possibly can.

My sister did comment that the boat looked like a torpedo. I answered “that’s because it is.”

Check out the developing TeamSOG website via the SOG website.  You can see some videos as well as purchase some sweet TeamSOG gear.

SOG

Check out the picture of Baker.  He finally made it as a model!!!

Baker

While the last year of my life has been filled with paddling my kayak in beautiful, exotic locations, I have not been able to go fast.

Working for the World Class Kayak Academy allowed me to share my passion for the sport with some of the most talented junior kayakers in the nation.  On the water I would help them tweak their strokes, reminding them that efficiency in body movement produces stronger and smoother paddlers.  They, in turn, would remind me to push beyond my comfort zone, reminding me that challenging myself brings me more confidence in my own skills.  Every morning we began our day with dry-land training.  This provided strength and endurance training as well as a nice surge of energy for both the students and teachers before classes each day.   Although I was not able to train specifically for racing during this time, I was fortunate enough to play the reverse roll of coach.

Now, as I step away from my position as a teacher and coach, I grow with excitement about getting back into the pattern of training and raceing.  I only began this path a few months before taking this job, and can’t wait to pick it up again. I begin this journey in Flagstaff, AZ where an elevation of 7,000+ feet will help build a solid endurance foundation.  From there, I will head to Asheville, NC where I will live, and train, for three months, competing in USA Downriver Team Trials at the end of March.

One of the most exciting aspects of coming back to raceing is seeing my TeamSOG teammates absolutely rocking the adventure raceing scene!  I think how incredible it is that all of us can come together from our different sports, under a great sponsor, and support each other in the common goal of pushing our minds and body through raceing.

2010 is going to be a great year!  Be sure to check out updates on my blog, SusansEvolution…getting a re-vamp soon!

-Susan

Here is the new SOG Promo Poster.  It clearly lists all the SOG events for 2010.

Also there is a promo code at the bottom: TMSG.  Use this code when shopping on SOG online and receive 25% off on all purchases made before Christmas.

Check out the link to our own Maggie Hamill’s climbing video on Adventure World Magazine.

http://www.adventureworldmagazineonline.com/climbing/team-sogs-maggie-hamill-makes-it-look-easy/

While you are there you can sign up for a subscription to this completely “Green” magazine.  No more stuffed mailboxes.  Get your issue by email or log in to the website whenever you want.