How to be a winner on Race Day Wednesday

When racing, it is easy to get over-competitive and focus all of your energy on beating your opponents instead of doing the best you can. Instead of a sport it becomes a war, every man for himself, and in the end everyone besides one winner leaves feeling angry and disappointed. At Keeners we learn that this is not the right way to race (unless your aim is self-loathing and decline).

As the wise Nick Troutman once said:
"Race day isn't about beating the others, it's about beating yourself yesterday. Actually change that to 'it's about beating the man you were yesterday', that sounds better."

And he's right. On Race Day Wednesday, we put our effort into being the best we can rather than being better than someone else, so that we can continue to improve as kayakers. For example, when preparing for the final race of the day, the Great Colosseum Boatercross, I was feeling pretty optimistic. I recognized it as a challenge, but I thought I had a shot at winning because my planned line seemed "unique" and "fast". But when the race kicked off, I found myself stuck on a rock and then upside-down almost before Stephen could say "Go!". Also, literally everyone in my group did my "unique line". I finished the race last, but I was more disappointed about not sticking my line.
I was not alone, so we decided to have a "Loser's Cup", for those looking to end the day on a better note, and it was great! I didn't win, or even come second-- but I did my line exactly how I wanted without flipping or any major halts. It feels good man, to "beat yourself yesterday" (or in this case "yourself ten-minutes-earlier"). Racing not only tests your abilities, but also your mindset. And with the right mindset, you are always a winner.

Nick Troutman, keener coach and cool guy.

A different Nick Troutman, not as good at kayaking
or giving inspirational quotes.

David Koyrakh, Week 2

Race day! - Keegan Parker

Surfing at Garb! Not a Race, but still Awesome

Hello everyone! It's me again with another blog post. Specifically, a blog post about the fun and exciting race day! So what is race day? Race day is the one day of each week where the day is focused around racing in all sorts of ways in, through, and around rapids all along the river. Yesterday we had 3 different races but unlike last week we were put into teams for 2 of the 3 races. The first race was a 4 leg relay race through McCoy's rapid. The first person started with a small portion of a pool noodle and had to ferry across the river at the top of McCoys landing in the the eddie above sattlers and touch a boat that was stationed on the side and then make it to the bottom of the next eddie to hand the pool noodle off the second racer. The second racer would then take the noodle and ferry into either the safety eddie or the corner wave eddie on river right and then ferry back to river left and hand the noodle to the person stationed at the  bottom of the football eddie. The third racer would then go from the football eddie to river right at the bottom of McCoys, missing the meat of horseshoe and handing the noodle off to the fourth and final racer. The fourth racer would then have to ferry across the the other side of the river, touch the boat that was stationed there, and then race to the finish line at the point of swimmers island. I would love to tell you guys about the other two races but now it's time for fix the heater in the house and get ready to boat!

Race Day For Nick

Hello again its Nicholas!

Getting ready for Race Day

 This past wednesday was race day for us keeners. I was in a group with Clay and Juan and a whole bunch of other keeners and we were all really excited for racing! Our first race was held on the Iron Ring. This rapid is super awesome with challenging moves and eddies to catch. Clay Juan and the rest of us eddied out above the rapid to get out to scout and find a fun and exciting race line. Finding a race line can be tricky as I found out, there are a lot of things to take into account like, what eddies to catch, what landmarks do we need to touch with our paddles, and time penalties for missing them. After we all decided on a suitable race line, we started to head down one by one. When it came to my turn I was a little nervous as to how fast I could go and wondered how well I could do. After I heard Clay yell "GO!", I launched in and started paddling hard. As i dropped into the rapid, I threw a hard stroke on my left side which propelled me forward and I suddenly found myself in the first eddy. To move past the eddy, you must use your paddle to hit this big chain on a rock. As I went to attempt this, I found myself spinning completely around and immediately dug deep with my paddle to get myself back to the chain. After successfully hitting the chain, I paddled as hard as I could back into the current to reach the opposite shore to end my time. as I looked back at Clay, he signaled to me that I had done it in 47 seconds. This was enough to win and I was extremely thrilled with my performance, although, next time I hope to improve it!

Race-Day Wednesday

Hey its Maddie with my second blog ;)

 Depending on how familiar you are with the keener program, you may or may not have heard of Beatdown Thursdays, the day everybody at keeners voluntarily subjects themselves to scary lines usually involving even scarier holes. Evidence of Thursday's carnage is likely posted frequently on this blog, complete with floating paddles and (hopefully) floating paddlers. What you may not have heard of, however, is what happens on Wednesdays. The slightly less famous, yet no less entertaining day we all forget to be scared of that hole we got stuck in on Thursday; paddling right through it on the way to the finish line at the end of whatever rapid we happen to be racing. Believe it or not, Race-Day Wednesday is often responsible for more swimming kayakers than any other day of the week. If you imagine trying to hold you're breath while running a marathon then you might have an idea of what its like to flip during a race. Today we got especially lucky because we got to do a boater-cross down coliseum rapid, with many people getting lost in the foam pile that is Big Kahuna. I can only imagine how entertaining it was for our coaches.
The first race I participated in must have been particularly entertaining because almost everybody missed their line by varying degrees, resulting in multiple upside-down kayaks being surfed in the middle of Big Kahuna, all trying in vain to continue downstream. Because racing isn't my strongest point I was last coming down the rapid, and all I remember right before I got eaten by the wall of foam was the hull of another kayak coming down on my head. Needless to say I didn't finish that race very quickly.
Luckily my last race was more successful and I came in a very close second (like ridiculously close) and although I didn't win I had a much better line that didn't involve running through every hazard you could find. All in all race day was really fun and I think we all learned a lot of river running skills as well as the best way to knock someone out of your way on a frantic race to the finish.

I'm Back For More Banter

Once again ladies and gentlemen I am here for another blog-a-roo-ski, but this time you will be far more entertained because my stories have become that much more banterous. This blog will be about this weeks race day wednesday which was extremely entertaining and filled with a bit of harmless banter. It started with a boater cross relay on the one and only McCoy's Chute where there were 5 teams of 4 people in each team.

My Team of Katie, Jack, Myself and Jonny With Our Runaway Baton

Racer number one had to run to their kayak at the top of McCoy's and sprint into an eddy on the river left above Sattler's and Phil's hole and then back to the river right where the number 2 people were waiting to  receive the baton from  their team mate, which is located on the paddle. I was in the number two place and was off to a small eddy right above sattler's where I was in third place, coming out of the eddy through the tongue of Sattler's was extremely tight and was a move that could potentially win the race for your team if you get it right. Well lets just say that Max( in first), Isaiah (in second) and myself absolutely blew the line and ended up all getting a sexy back loop into beat down. I rolled up and was in front of Max and Isaiah! really happy I sprinted to the eddy of corner wave where the 3rd racer was ready, but I looked down to the baton on my paddle and it was gone!!!!!!!. Sattler's had stolen the baton and should be convicted for murder of the race. Utterly disappointed I went over to my team and told them the news =(     Anyway what a race and the banter that was included was rather healthy so it was a good day!!!

JEREMY.N

What Really Happened to Jack at Initition

Paddling on the Ottawa River

Once upon a time in a town called Keenerville lived a man called Jack. He had travelled from a far distant land called "Ireland" where white water is a distant memory. He traveled trough many lands and time zones to get to brave the wild river Ottawa. The first two days went well, but yet on the third day the so called "Race Wednesday" it did not go so well. The day was going well he had finished his runs flawlessly but then on his very last run it all went wrong . He started with power and force he bust through the first stopper and powered through but then a wave through him straight into Odyssey bam my skirt implodes knees pop out, he sees the light noooo..... the safety came to his rescue and they all lived happily ever after.

Jahn Pearson week 1

Hey guys its Jahn with the weekly post on Wednesdays. I thought instead of talking all about the paddling, I would talk about keener living. Keener living is truly amazing because you are right next to MCoy's and even better, baby face a really great wave. When you first get to keeners you will meet Anna your keener mom. Anna is a really good boater and a nice person in general.

Anna working in the Thunderdome. 

The accommodations at Keenerville are great ! You will be assigned a cabin which has 3 rooms with two beds a piece and a common area with a kitchen, couch and tv,  a bathroom and a kitchen table. I am living in Whitehouse, Yakistan belongs to the girls, and then there is Robertson's and Istanbul. Once you are here you will paddle with some of the greatest paddlers in the world. I must say that it is very humbling to paddle with such great paddlers. A side note is that no matter what, you will have an extremely hard time sleeping the first 2 nights.

On a personal note, I would like to thank my parents for allowing me to come here: dad I appreciate you.

David Aka muzzy thanks for the yo-yo and the stuff i really appreciate it.

Till next Wednesday- Jahn.

Race Day Wednesday By Canon Shaw

Hi my name is Canon Shaw and I am 16 from Ithaca New York. This is my second year at Keeners and its only gotten better since last time. Ive been kayaking for about 3 years and have kayaked all around the South Eastern US, Colorado and here on the Ottawa river. Wednesday Race day was today and it is one of the days where we specifically focus on our down river racing skills and techniques, starting with our basic strokes and through out the day moving up to an actual race where we competed in heats of four to 6 people at a time. All in all it was a very fun and Adrenaline filled day on the water here at keeners.

My First Race Day

Giving the Thumbs Up after Swimming in our Swim Fest! 

Every Wednesday at Keeners, we do race day. This Wednesday was no exception. The day started out with some great starting drills for the beginning of the race. After those drills, we headed up to McCoys and divided into teams. Once we were split up, we headed to the start. The first race consisted of ferrying across satlers rock, where we had to touch Deuce's boat. After that we had to run the Satlers punch, and do the Hero ferry to the  Corner Wave eddy. While Going down Satlers, I flipped over and lost the race- the worst part is I ended up in the Football Eddy, on the wrong side of the river! LOL.

 The second race was down the Lorne. We had to boof, touch moby dick rock, and then ferry across to touch the river right wall. I finished with a time of 1:06, despite being sucked back by the waterfall below the boof.

The third and final race was down the first part of coliseum. It was a fierce, free for all 8 ball race. It consisted of other Keeners trying to flip us over. Sadly, I got worked in the last hole, but at least I didn't swim this time!!

The day ended with surfing, and an all out swim war where we all made eachother swim. It was an awesome day!

Otis' Awesome Blog MK 2

Today was a day of all days. Like yesterday, but different. I neglected to put on sunscreen this morning, but made up for it at lunch site, where I put on sunscreen and found a turtle. The Turtle (which was actually found by Tino) was then referred to by the name Melvin, which we felt was more appropriate than Osama bin Turtle.

At race day today, I unfortunately chose the wrong line for the race, resulting in a 4th place victory. (There were 4 competitors). The race was positioned on the Lorne Rapid, home of the Garberator wave. The race bypassed the wave, forcing us to touch a gate behind the moby dick rock. Then we had to peel out and ferry to the other side of the river to touch the finish line gate. I felt nervous before the race, but it was still fun.

On Sunday night, it was Canada Day. We were given sparklers. I managed to get banned from sparklers approximately 1 minute after lighting my first one. We then watched the fireworks from the dock at WT. The fireworks were pretty cool, and higher than normal, because they were set off from the bungee tower. The height of the bungee tower helped, because the fireworks didn't go very high.

My coaches this week are TC, (thats Tyler Curtis to you), the famous Rush Sturges, Ben Marr, Joel, and Tino. They have all been very supportive and good. I have been given a lot of technical advice on how to spin on a wave- and I got a 540 spin at push button yesterday. I guess they know what they are talking about.

Archie and I pose with our new friend Melvin the Turtle of Mass Destruction. 

Melvin, even closer. And more dangerous-er. 

Tune in next time, for more amazing blogness.