So this past Monday instead of our normal practice, I came in on a rainy cold day and met up with a bunch of paddlers of all ages at the club. I guess this practice was an informal training session to prepare for the Oct. 17, 2010 Prairie crew qualifier. We had enough for 3 boats and the way Jan made up the teams was to have everyone line up as a right or left paddler and he counted each person 1-2-3 and whatever number you were given you sat on the assigned boat.

I chose left and I was on boat 1. The people that I can recall and know by name were Dene, Lori, Mike, Debbie, Ed and Gord, Mike was our steersperson (he's also the main steersperson for the Eh Team). There were about 16 paddlers for each boat, Jan steered one boat and Taz was steering the last boat. I know that on Taz's boat Skippy and Carolyn were the pacers and I believe Big Wayne was there too. We did starts to 500m then a pursuit to 500m and another start to 500m up to the St. Vital Bridge.

I sat in the 4th position left behind Dene and my rightie was a young girl. When we got to the St. Vital Bridge we turned back and I asked Gord if I can come up front to pace. So Ed graciously gave up his spot for me so I can see what the front of the boat was all about...and things got blurry. First off, I'm not a tall person at 5' 6" and I had no footing at the front. Now I know why Carolyn, who is our right pacer carries around this 'pillow' when we paddle, it's used as a foot brace to keep yourself stable...more on this later. Second thing is you have to pull A LOT of water when you start off. And the difference is quite noticeable (at least to me). Paddling in the back the water is moving so fast, I don't feel too much resistance in paddling. It's only when you have to do a power up that you have to 'pull' the boat out of the water to give it that vrooom. Seeing the water rush past you is kinda neat, but having no brace or footing and almost falling into the Red River is pretty damn embarrassing.

As we were coming back to the docks we were doing a start to 500m. And as we were called to attention and go! Since I didn't have that foot brace, I literally slipped went forward and half my body was leaning over the side of the damn boat. Swearing under my breath, I flopped around and was able to get myself stable (not going to lie and say I was able to quickly get up...) and continue paddling, Lori told me she lost 3 strokes when I went down. We fell back terribly from that start and Gord decided he needed to go to a 65 pace to catch up and catch up we did and eventually pulled away...but man I tell you. I literally had NO breath at the end of that practice. Plus I was soaked to the bone and cold. But pacing was fun...