PDs shine at the downlightwind Hoe Horo
On Sunday Mark and Lisa followed in Tara’s footsteps and took on not only their first OC1 race but their first ocean race. It was big challenge and a big step forward for both of them. Not only that, the 20km long course distance saw many PDs do their longest OC1 race ever. Keep an eye out for a race report from Annett as well results on ausoutrigger.com.

Festival of Single Craft Racing! In two weeks time we’ve got back to back OC1 and surfski races.

Saturday sees round two of the Ocean Surfski Series at Lion Is. This is traditionally the biggest race of the season and after over 150 entrants at the Dee Why race anything is possible!

On Sunday we’re heading to Newcastle for the fourth Hoe Horo race. The ‘super sprint’ format makes this one ideal for those wanting to do their first OC1 race.

Check out the PD Calendar for details on both of these.

Cold Water Research
The advantages of high altitude training are well understood in athletic circles. What you may not be aware of is parallel line of research that says training in extremely cold water can have a positive effect on a paddler’s aerobic capacity. To this end I’m putting myself under the microscope and am heading to Norway for the next 3 weeks. While I’m away, for training session queries please see those taking the sessions as listed on the Training Schedule. For use of club canoes for training or racing please see Gav.

Training

What should I be doing?
Base Building – With the aim of taking on longer races this season Pablo has been steadily building base over the last few weeks by adding 15mins each week to his longest Level 2 session. This week Pablo drops back 15mins to allow himself a bit of recovery time and to focus on giving the other PD single craft sessions a crack.

Free Speed – It’s Despina’s first season on an OC1 and she’s keen to learn all she can… as well as meet some guys. She’s heard that those that went to La Patada gained some free-speed by gradually moving their weight to the right during each and every warm-up. By the end of the warm-up they had their ama nicely skipping the water and could draw a line down the centre of their canoe that would split their body in half. Despina’s decide to give it a go this week as well as ask Fabio on a date.

Not-So-Free Speed – Carmela has been working hard on building her endurance base and realizes with just 7 weeks to go to the Hoe Horo State Titles it’s time to convert some of that base into speed. To get her body to adapt to paddling at a faster speed she needs to paddle at that faster speed. Simple! She now adds one session a week where she lets herself paddle above her normal race pace by building in appropriate rest. This week Carmela tries five sets of 8 minutes at Level 3 with 2 minutes rest in between each. Including the rest means she’s able to do the Level 3 at a much higher speed than if she did 50min continuously at Level 3.

Sign-up for PD single craft training sessions
Santo started out doing the Kirribilli base building session because Despina did. Surprisingly he’s found that with the onset of summer there’s no finer way to end the week then with an OC1ing on Sydney Harbour. What’s even more surprising is that as his interest in single craft has increased, his interest in Despina has started to wane.

Estaban has found he just loves the challenge of paddling in the ocean and wants to build on the skills he picked up at La Patada. He’s signed up for this Sunday’s Watsons Bay Ocean Session.

Pablo’s been talking with Carmela and also wants to work on some not-so-free speed. He’s signed up for all the Monday speed and endurance sessions.

See the PD Single Craft Training Session article below for details. Info on the tag-along sessions is also included here. Sign-up for PD sessions by going to the Training Schedule page.