World Cup 1 - FRANCE and Training in Szeged

A quick update on our World Cup Tour:

Our week in France was quite an experience. After having convinced ourselves it would be warm in Vichy for our weeks stay we were horribly mistaken. We had near freezing conditions with rain and wind nearly every day and a flowing river to race on which was melted snow from up in the mountains to add to it. With only being aloud 20kg luggage we were limited for space to cater for all the different conditions. That 20kg had to include our paddles as well which didn't help the cause. After one days training we had used ALL our paddling gear in an attempt to try keep warm. Thanks to the hotels room heating, we put them on full tilt while we were out to dry the clothes which worked like a charm. Race day was something else with tempretures still down but with all the excitement of racing our first international senior sprint regatta our minds had switched off to everything else and all focus was on racing. Lining up with the world's best paddlers on the start line was something else. Sitting at the back of the K4 you get to see all the other competitors facial expressions determination before heading to the line. Chrisjan being the youngest had the huge responsibility of keeping us ina straight line and holding the stroke rate according to plan. Fouche and PW are the two bigger guys in the K4 and deliver the power when needed. One minute to start and game on. START WITHIN 10 SECONDS 'GO'. We were off in our first senior sprint reggata. We had an awesome start and were with the guys for most of the way but unfortunatly lacked the strength the other boats had at the finish but sneaked into the semi finals. With nothing to lose we went out the blocks flat outand held it for 700m where we were in contention but once again lacking power to finish strongly. We were knocked out in the semi finals and hugely disappointed but now knew what we had to do to get to the top. The following day we went out to support our 200m specialists who were there to show the world a thing or two. Sunday morning we were up early for our trip to Szeged Hungary. What a long trip it was. Arriving at the venue around 9pm that night. The following morning we woke up to the most amazing venue. We are staying at the Hungarian Olympic training village. We have a perfect training course to train on, food is awesome and never short in quantities and bedrooms are really comfortable for a good nights sleep. We as the SA team were very fortunate to receive brand new NELO Vanquish III to train and race in. Zoltan and Adro, the two coaches are doing a brilliant job in setting us programs and helping us improve in all ways for the next world cup. At the moment we training up to 4 times a day with running, gyming and paddling all mixed up to make a long hard days training. The general training day consists of getting up at 7am for the first session, 8am breakfast, 10am second session, 12pm lunch, afternoon nap, 5pm third training session and sometimes a fourth session just before dinner. With all this training our bodies take a huge amount of punishment and we are fortunate to have a full time phsio, Julia. She is unbelievable in aiding in healing our pain and injuries. The team as a whole are combining really well and we all in good company. Only two more weeks till the second world cup and still a lot of hard work ahead.