Leanne Stanley

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Random Roadtrip

October 2nd, 2009

Upcoming Events

Oct 1-5 - Training in Calgary

Oct 10 - Sprint Time Trials, Vancouver, BC

Oct 11 - National Sprint Outrigger Championships

Oct 17/18 - ORPC Bridges, Victoria

Oct 19 - Who knows?!

Race Schedules

So much for having time to update everything! I apologize for not getting stuff up. It's amazing how busy you can get even when you don't have a day job!

I had a fantastic visit to Boylen last week. Had the opportunity to chat with administration and staff as well as many of my former students. I got to see the boys soccer team play their first league game of the season. They were victorious but have a lot of different aspects of their game to work on. I'm quite interested to see how the rest of their seasons goes. Now that a lot of them know what it takes to be a successful team I'm hoping that they take what happened last season and run with it. They know that hard work pays off and that no individual can do it all by themselves. They need each other in order to win.

I flew into Kelowna last Friday, got to hang around Vernon for the afternoon and meet my teammates for the Length of the Lake as they arrived from Oregon, Vancouver, Hawaii, California and Penticton. What a fantastic group of women! The collective experiences of these women is astounding. Listening to their stories was almost as enjoyable as paddling with them. Mother nature had a little fun with us during the race. She gave us a lot of wind but sadly it was in the wrong direction. A race that usually takes about 8.5 hrs ended up taking the winners 10.5 hrs! Talk about a headwind! The part of the crew I was on had leg 2 and 4 to do. Leg 2 is about 24km and took us way longer than it should have! 2.5 hrs later we rolled into the beach to change to the other ladies to take the next 24km. The head wind we had was nothing compared to what the other half of our crew had to go through. They had a "3 hour tour" that's right, a "three hour tour". But they were troopers and still got back in the boat for the final leg to Penticton. We were actually the first womens relay team to ever do the race. We placed 2nd which was groovy.

Sunday was an off day, got to have breakfast with the ladies before heading back to Kelowna to help pack up the Kelowna OC6s and watch Sandra's son play hockey. Monday was a dryland workout down on the field while I was playing with Sandra's dog Harley then some running around town to get stuff done. During which time, my car decides it doesn't want to work properly. It starts sputtering and losing power then the engine light comes on. I was having flashbacks of July in Victoria when the same thing happened. So I was all set to fix it myself as I had a pretty good idea of what the issue was but then thought better of it thinking of the money it would cost me to fix it if I happened to screw up. So had to wait till Tuesday to take it to a Ford dealer. The first one had no time for me, the second looked into it and said it was the same issue as before and likely just a wiring thing. So I'm guessing that when I was fiddling with it the day before, I fiddled enough that the wire was connected again cuz the engine light was out when I woke up on Tuesday and it's been driving fine ever since!

Anyways, had a good paddle on Tuesday with no rudder out on the lake. Packed up and took off on a roadtrip Wednesday morning to Calgary. Got here late afternoon, went for a paddle in the Calgary Teva Nui then met up with Kelly for climbing. My gawd has it been a while since I climbed! And it showed sadly. Really thinking that I'll look into the Kelowna climbing gym more and get back at it. I think it's a great offseason activity that helps my strength and my balance. Thursday was a double paddle day, one in the morning and another workout with the Calgary group in the evening. Today was a single paddle day with Yoga afterwards. Tomorrow morning will be another group workout then some birthday shananigans for my best friend. Apparently we're heading to an indoor water park. Sunday will bring more paddling and climbing. Likely head back to Kelowna Monday or Tuesday depending on the weather.

Vancouver is the next big stop for me. The National Team Time Trials to qualify for the World IVF Sprints in New Caledonia. This is one of the main reasons I decided to come to Calgary, to have the opportunity to get some practice in the model of boat that we'll be time trialing in next weekend. Huge thanks to Lynda Roberts and the folks at the Calgary Canoe Club for welcoming me to their practices and for use of their boat. Even after not paddling so much while I was in Europe, I'm starting to get my confidence back after a few good hard workouts here. So yeah, Thanksgiving in Vancouver ... sadly no turkey is looking to be in my future :(

After Vancouver it's onto Victoria for the final race of the season. Really going out there is more to visit with friends than it is to paddle. I'm really enjoying having the time to spend with people that I may not have seen in the past while as I was crazy busy.

Off for a Friday night in Calgary!