11.5 miles today

The plan is to race the last Gibson's race which is more formally known International Howe Sound Outrigger Race held at Gibsons, BC. This year will be both the 10th anniversary and final running of the race. The race is 18 miles long so we need to beef up our training. We are aiming for longer distances on our Saturday practices.

This morning Chantelle, Meilee, Nancy, me, Rives, and Kristen headed north off the SSP beach and up towards Kenmore and into the Sammamish River slough, which connects Lake Sammamish to Lake Washington. Up in the slough it's quite pretty, very peaceful. We saw 3 or 4 herons today, a momma duck with her ducklings, some geese with their babies, too. I thought I'd seen a raptor of some type but it turned out to be a heron way up high in a tree.

As we passed under the bridge in Kenmore we smiled and waved to Nancy's husband, Mike, who snapped a few pictures of us. I hope to get copies and post them. When we came back around Mike was now under the bridge at the boat launch snapping pictures from near water level. At that point we were nearly out of the slough and back into Lake Washington where Kristen went from steering to sitting stroke and Rives steered us back into port. Following Kristen as stroke was wonderful. She was a fantastically long reach and rotation. And she is so consistent about putting that barely perceptible pause at the top of the stroke allowing us to set up properly and really maximize our pull. Wow, never mind we were at the back half of an 11.5 mile paddle, it felt so easy.

It was an excellent workout. Thank you ladies. I'm thinking about planning an OC1 adventure exploring more of the slough. It's approximately 12-13 miles to Lake Sammamish from Kenmore. Might be fun to go with someone and leave one car at the finish so we can drive back. Next weekend we are heading for I-90!