Hey everyone,

I'm back in Burlington/Oakville for the week after an exciting weekend of racing in Montreal. The first two days I enjoyed watching some exciting races, and was happy to see two of my roommates, Jamie and Morty, win the C1 1000m and C1 500m respectively. Both C1 races were exciting the whole way, and the 500m especially came down to a 5 boat race right until the last few strokes. The girls K1 was also exciting, with special shout out going to Genevieve Beauchesne Sevigny, who is back on her game after taking some time to become a nurse.

After watching for two days, I was very excited to finally get on the starting line on Sunday for the 200m races, where every race was a qualification for the World Championships. It was a simple selection process, whoever wins gets to race at the Worlds. The only exception was in the singles events, where the top 4 would qualify for the newly added relay event. C1 was first, and in my heat I false started, which made me hesitant on the second start, and in a 200 that can cost you the race. I advanced to the semis, and had a decent race there, winning my semi and advancing to the finals. For the final, I wanted to win, but the main goal was just to come top 4, as it is the relay that I want to race at Worlds, not the individual. Again I false started, but this time I wasn't going to hesitate on the restart, as it was do or die time. The second start wasn't great, but I got going pretty well in the middle. I was a few lanes away from Gab and Rich, who were winning, so I couldn't really tell where I was. Aruss started to make a charge late in the race, so I did everything I could to hold him off, and threw down a pretty mean boat shoot that ended up putting me in second, just ahead of Gab. Rich had a great race to take the win, but I was a little frustrated because I didn't feel as fast as I had earlier in the week. Still, I achieved my goal and made the relay team, along with Rich, Gab and Aruss. It will be a really exciting race at Worlds, and I think we could be a pretty competitive team.

Once C1 was over, it was time to get down to the real business of the day, C4 200m! This is the race that Canoe 4 Canada has wanted to race for 2 years, and finally the day had come for us to try to qualify it. I felt a lot of pressure leading up to the race, it would look pretty silly if we had made a website and everything and then not even gotten the entry. Once we started setting up the boat and getting in the zone though, the nerves started to fade a bit, replaced by excitement. We all put on our separate club jerseys, and were stretching in the boat bay before the race, and I looked around and realized how cool it was that we could all race together like this. Even though we were all from different parts of the country, paddling had brought us together and made us best friends, and now we had the chance to qualify to race at the World Championships together. Once on the water, we felt great, and I knew that as long as we didn't screw things up, we would be able to win. The speed was there, we just had to execute. The start ended up being less than good, I'm not sure what happened, but it kind of just felt like it was slow motion and not quite together. That didn't last long though, and after about ten strokes we got together and started to really move. It was an exhilerating feeling as we quickly moved to the front of the race, with the boat moving really smoothly. We kept charging it the second half of the race, and that's when I heard someone (who turned out to be my brother) scream out C4C! I knew then that we were going to win, and it was hard not to smile. It was a great feeling crossing the line and finally knowing for sure that we would be racing at the Worlds after wanting it for so long. I let out a yell and slapped Aruss on the back in celebration. As usual, Aruss had drained himself during the race, so my slap on the back sent his exhausted body heading for the water, dropping the paddle and almost falling in. The crowd had a good laugh, but I managed to grab him before he went in. Taking a lesson from our team rockstar Tom Hall, Aruss left right from boat control, getting in a cab to catch his afternoon flight. Very rad.

After that it was time to pack up the boats, and the feeling around the course felt more like Nationals than Trials. It was a great day, and the atmosphere was very positive and everyone was really charged up watching the 200s. There were so many close, exciting races, that I won't go into them all here, but if you weren't there, you definitely missed out on a great day of racing. I'm excited to see our team race at the Worlds, where hopefully the home crowd will create and even bigger and more exciting vibe for our team to feed off of.

I'm now back home training at Burloak. It's been great so far, as it always is when I get back on the creek. I've been feeling really good the last few days on the water, and am getting really excited for Worlds. I'm also looking forward to the next few weeks of preparation, focusing on every practice to get myself 100% ready to race. This week I'll be helping out at the Canadian Open Golf Tournament, and attending Tamas Buday Jr's stag party as well, which should be a fun night. I'll head back to Ottawa for training camp next week. I'll be updating a lot more regularly now, to keep everyone up to date on our journey to the Worlds, so check back soon. Thanks for reading and keep your paddle in the water!