More details

I'm told the pressure is on this blog since other team members are
giving the address to friends. So, welcome Cascades team supporters.
I'll give you some more 2000m race impressions.

First, and I can't believe I didn't put this in the last post, our
steersperson, Joce, steered the perfect race. We were 1/2 meter from
the turning buoys at each turn, and snuck inside at least one team to
overtake on the corner.

The rate in the boat was long and strong the whole way. We aimed for a
quick stroke rate upwind, and a slower one downwind with lots of
sitting up to let the wind push us. We may have been able to bring it
up a little higher than we did, but with only 18 paddlers, it was hard.

We made our first pass on the first 500m, and reeled in the next 4 of
6 boats in front on each leg. Nobody passed us, but we may have been
slightly cut off at the end. Montreal on the other hand started 3rd in
their heat, so they passed their two boats and had clean water after
the first 1000m.

The last boat to start in the 2nd heat was china. They had a crazy
fast stroke rate and in one of the turns as they were coming up on a
boat blocking their way, their strokes actually put their paddles in
to check the boat as the rest of the team kept paddling. We've heard
that this may be the Chinese national team, a professional team.

The last boat to finish was the Malaysian team, who probably had never
seen such a long race before. They didn't look as if the were going to
make it over the line, but they dug deep and did it.

Aaron said that at the start line our boat went out like a rocket.
Considering that I was not bringing the start rate up as fast as I
would on the 200 and 500m races, we'll really take off tomorrow.

Sent from my iPhone