Evening C4C readers,

I love this spring season! Even though it is pretty cold in the morning, I like waking up with the birds singing and the sun rising. Last weekend was really warm and calm water and it sounded to me like the perfect set up to train… and to float a raft.

Like Mark started to explain, we needed an extension for our pretty rustic dock and we found the perfect piece of old reinforced plywood right on the shore about 750m away from home. After making sure it was floating by adding at least 6 big dried logs underneath it, I pushed off the shore, heading in to the middle of the river to catch the main current. What could actually go wrong here? I did wear rubber boots after all. The journey down those 750m did not exactly go as planned. First of all there was way less current than expected so despite my best paddling efforts (with my long 2 by 4 paddle), I reached the middle of the river half an hour after my departure. Realizing that all I could do was wait for the current to take me home, I sat down on my piece of wood paddle to enjoy the last rays of the setting sun. After a couple of meters well traveled, a lovely lady starts to follow me on the West shore. “Hey you, what are you doing?” she yelled. “I’m floating my dock extension home” I casually answered. “Ok, that’s nice but how about you come to shore and we can talk about it” she continued. Then she pulled a electronic device and started talking into it. Only at this very moment I realized she was a cop.

Ten minutes later around 5 more officers were on shore with her and half of the fire department including their cold water rescue experts joined the festivities. I also could see an inflatable boat and a police rescue motor craft getting ready to give me assistance. “I’m fine mam” I explained, “I’m just going to paddle to the shore right by my house”. She did not seem to understand when I showed her the piece of 2 by 4. Meanwhile, 2 more trucks had pulled on the shore, one about a kilometre down river and one by the falls where I started my descent. Let’s just say I was as confused as them as to now what was happening here. They were seeing a guy floating in the middle of the Rideau river standing on a piece of wood at water level, and on my side I was wondering what kind of situation I put myself into to gather more police forces than I’ve ever seen in one place at the same time.

As I was slowly approaching my final destination, Jamie, Mark, Tessa, Jenna were enjoying the show taking pictures. Luckily for me, Ian sat down in our play boat kayak and paddled over to try to explain to them the situation. As my explanations seemed only to get me into more trouble, he was able to convince them I was sober, lucid and somewhat skilled enough to steer my piece of dock towards our home.

Lot’s of commotion for a Sunday afternoon, but our house ended up to with a bigger dock and my name is now in the Ottawa Police department files.. I better keep it quiet for a while. The lesson to be learned here is always think of safety first, wear a life jacket and bring a whistle but firstly, wait until August to float your raft.

Thanks for reading,

Chers lecteurs et lectrices,

Est-ce que je rêve ou c’est vraiment la fin de semaine de Pâques ? Ça fait du bien de voir le printemps arriver mais je dois dire que mes deux séjours en Floride ont passé à la vitesse de l’éclair. Même si je n’ai passé que la moitié moins de temps dans le sud comparativement à l’an dernier, je suis très satisfait de ma progression. Mon plus gros défi était d’être patient. Lorsque j’ai commencé ma deuxième session de stage, j’ai réalisé qu’il était grand temps de mettre les bouchées doubles. Je ne pouvais suivre mes coéquipiers qui eux étaient là depuis un bon nombre de semaines déjà. Mark et moi nous sommes réunis et après une semaine d’entraînement de plus longues distances et beaucoup de séances de course à pied, j’étais prêt à attaquer mes deux semaines suivantes.

Mon deuxième plus gros défi était de troquer ma sieste quotidienne pour quelques heures passées dans mes livres d’école. C’était difficile mais je suis bien content d’être demeuré à jour dans mes 4 cours surtout maintenant à la veille de mes examens finaux. Plusieurs questions nous ont été posées au sujet de la conciliation entraînement /étude. D’après mon expérience récente, étudier un peu jour après jour m’a rendu la tâche beaucoup plus facile en fin de semestre. Plus important encore, mon intérêt plus mes cours a aussi augmenté puisque je n’étais pas toujours en mode rattrapage mais en mode d’apprentissage.

Un matin, j’ai même trouvé la réponse de mon devoir de mécanique de fluide en plein milieu de ma séance d’entraînement. Je ne suggère pas cette méthode de résolution de problème mais ça démontre bien dans quel état d’esprit je me situais. Côté entraînement, Andrew et moi sommes satisfaits de notre camp. Le fait que nous étions quelque peu pressés dans le temps a fait en sorte que nous nous appliquions de notre mieux à chaque pratique. Nous avons été en mesure de bien travailler techniquement et j’ai hâte de le rejoindre en fin avril pour parfaire notre préparation physique en vue de la coupe du monde. Deux pratiques que nous aimons bien sont les 8x 1000m avec minimum de repos et 2x 1000, 2x 500m séparés en intervalles avec un minimum de repos. Lors de ces séances, le défi est de garder la vitesse et stabilité du bateau jusqu’à la toute dernière seconde. Cela aide beaucoup à développer l’endurance nécessaire pour parfaire nos fins de courses.

Je suis maintenant à la maison à Trois-Rivières et je viens de terminer un délicieux brunch avec toute la famille. Hier je suis allé faire des poids avec mes gars du club et j’étais content de voir qu’ils s’entraînent fort pour la saison prochaine. Vu que je ne suis pas encore en mesure de ramer, je fais les mêmes entraînements que le groupe encore en Floride mais hors de l’eau. J’alterne entre la course à pied, la natation et ma machine à ramer. L’important est que je garde la même intensité d’entraînement afin d’être au même niveau de préparation physique lorsque je rejoindrai mes coéquipiers de l’équipe nationale au début mai.

En passant, Tamas Buday Jr. est en très grande forme et je ne l’ai jamais vu aussi bâti et costaud. C'est de bonne augure pour les championnats canadiens !

À bientôt,

Dear C4C readers,

Is it really Easter bunny time already? Where did winter 09 go? This whole season passed by at light speed and that includes my Florida training camps. I am pretty happy about the way my training went down south. The biggest challenge for me was to be patient. I came back right in time for Yak for a Stack, which was by the way the best ever Yak costume wise, and realised the following week that I had to get back into serious training mode promptly. Mark and I gathered and had some really good wash ride steady paddles and intense running sessions and the week after I was ready to train with the group.

My second biggest challenge was to trade my traditional afternoon nap for a couple hours doing school work. It was hard but I feel good now that my exams are starting soon. A couple of questions were asked about how to deal with school work while away and after this camp, I can say that doing a bit everyday is the key. Reading and solving problems little by little helps to stay on track of the subject matter and it’s also way easier to deal with it at the end of the semester.

One day, I even found out the answer for my assignment while I was on the water. I don’t suggest trying this method of solving physics problems, but it describes well how school was an integral part of this year’s camp for me. Training wise, Andrew and I felt pretty good in C-2. Because my time spent south was relatively short, we had to make every workout count. We were able to find each other technically and I’m looking forward to meeting again shortly to prepare for the European tour. Two types of workouts we like are the 8 times 1000m turn and go, and the 2 times 1000m, 2 times 500m broken sets. While finishing those workouts we really focus on keeping it together even if all our body wants is to fall apart.

I am now home in Trois-Rivières for the Easter weekend and I just finished a weight pyramid with my canoe boys from the club. As I’m not able to paddle everyday here, I do the same workouts as the group in Florida but either running or swimming. It’s important to keep the intensity up to prepare for the following weeks.

Just so you guys know, Tommy Buday Jr. is in great shape and looks really strong and big! I’m just saying…

Cheers!

Gab