Colorado!

Being out in Colorado is an amazing experience! I have just started to get used to living and being active at 9,000 plus feet. I worked out today for the first time and hope to do a large mountain climb on my bike tomorrow! It was a essential that I came out early for this competition because of the high altitude. The first day was brutal, the 10% oxygen kept me on the coach the entire day feeling like if I moved too fast I might lose my lunch.

Now though, I am going to start training on Lake Dillon, keep pushing my body to acclimate to the altitude and keep having fun in the endless activities that the Colorado Rockies have to offer!

District Champs/ New Program

Last weekend was the District 19 Championships at Gull Lake. This is a small lake near Kalamazoo, MI. When I arrived I realized I would be the only radial sailing against 25 other full rigs(meaning my sail was 33% smaller than everyone elses)... not the most exciting thing to think of at a small lake light air event. But since I was doing it for Grand Prix points and I was already there I decided to make a learning experience out of it. Since I knew I would be the slowest boat on the course the trick would be to do very smart sailing and catch every advantage possible!

The first race I was able to have a beautiful start and was able to hold out for fourth which I was pretty happy with considering. The next race I was able to get another very fast, clean start and was able to lead the race for two legs until I was over taken by two sailors on the second upwind. After these two races I had trouble getting nice starts and after it was hard to pick my perfect race to stay ahead of the full rigs. I also think people got irritated with the little sail beating them. Overall I finished 9th and won my fleet of course.

I have also lately taken some personal lessons on weight lifting for mass gain with a very knowledgeable guy at my gym. Just having completed my lessons I will work on gaining my goal of 15lbs by November in order for my body to peak at Midwinters East in February, 2011. I am very excited to start some new things and keep moving forward.

North Americans 2010

Coming home to the cooler weather of Michigan has been a very nice contrast to the Texas sauna! But down to the regatta. After the first day of racing I was in 10th place overall out of about 100 radials. Since that qualified me for gold fleet in the morning when I went to the club, checked the scores again, and saw over the night they had given me two black flags. This means the race committee thought I was over the line early with the black flag up which gives me the number of people sailing plus a couple points. Which means I was now in 59 bumping me back to Silver fleet.

I was very disappointed to say the least, it ruined my chances for placing above 50th and also I could not gather any grand prix points for this regatta. But I went out for the day, thinking that I might as well sail my best and learn what I could and I had a 1-2-1 on the day. I tried different starting techniques to not get called over the line and they payed off. I also learned some valuable strategy for all around racing. So what I got from North Americans was invaluable experience that I can carry on to all my future regattas.