Kien

It was a sunny but bone-chilling windy day at Redwood Shores; a perfect day to catch a cold and a few championships BAD style.  The Masters and Men’s 1 set the cadence with no-questions-about-it 1^st place wins in their championships.   While some teams would have been happy to call it a day with that, we continued on with a strong pull and finish in practically every heat and division we paddled in.

This goes to show the extra focus, dedication, and practice is bearing fruit.  People say the start of the season began at day light savings time in March, but it actually started the week after Treasure Island as we loaded two boats filled with determined paddlers and kept them filled week in, and week out.

As mentioned in earlier comments our finishes historically have not been something to tell the grandkids about but on this day, wake’em up because strong, powerful finishes are the new bedtime stories to tell.  This was dramatically true in the Women’s final, as they pulled hard at the end.  With each blended stroke they were literally gaining a seat on the opponents.  Though they ran out of real estate and won a well deserved 2^nd place (seems real estate is to blame for a lot of things lately), my personal feeling is they would have won first if they didn’t have the cumulative effect of paddling an extra race, going nearly 400m to only to be called back due to a “timing malfunction”, Rolex where are you?

BAD2 wins their heat

For the races I paddled in, Mens 2 and BAD 2, I have a few nuggets of knowledge.  First, Mens 2 was a diverse group of paddlers from well seasoned members to members racing for the first time.  With this, the strokes (Ken and I) decided to keep the rate relatively low as a middle ground but some paddlers commented that they had more to give.  So the old saying that “you’re only as strong as your weakest point” doesn’t hold true in BAD.  We probably should have raised the rate a bit more and kept in mind the correct saying “keep the bar high as others will rise to the occasion.”

As for BAD 2, despite not hitting on all cylinders in the first two heats (I screwed up a stroke, oopps), we were able to bring it all together in the final heat.  With a well timed power call shortly after our start, we hung on to take the victory in division B.  Having a synced Drummer and Steers Person makes a world of difference and some say a world a better place.

Finally, a strong foundation has been laid this year with our early season start, with our increased focus in practice and with our continued dedication of the coaches.  It is clear this foundation has paid dividends in this race, and it is also clear we’re all ready to collect more as the season goes on.  Go BAD!

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