Some anti-thought on a windy day

I have been wanting to fly a kite but the all the ones here at the toy store are desperately ugly. Its too bad: its been rather windy, but my aesthetics prevent me from flying an ugly kite. I bought some sparklers instead, and an inflatable dolphin boat. 

There is a lot of time leftover in the day when all one is doing is paddling. I set out, this year, with the intention of making the most of it. Given that there isn’t a whole lot of useful activity that one can undertake so far from home, my labours were to be of a primarily intellectual sort. This was excellent in theory, but in reality proved troublesome. Trying to think of something worth thinking, I arrived at this: that life is futile, the rules arbitrary. Someone has already thought of this, and has moreover said it more eloquently than I am able. So my attempt at profundity, too, was futile, more futile than table-tennis, even, the most futile of all sports.

This trifle, acknowledged by all the thinkers of the world at one time or another, made me for close to a week increasingly melancholy-I wanted to put my head through a wall. Then yesterday, around 2:30 in the afternoon, I thought, if it doesn’t make a difference one way or another, one may as well be cheerful: it’s more pleasant. So I became cheerful. It was instantaneous. Dustin tells me I sometimes persecute him with my cheerfulness, but I had been persecuting myself with my melancholy.

The rational result of all contemplation is to cease thinking: to go fly a kite. To visit the circus. There’s nothing funnier than a poodle sitting atop a pony, nothing more spectacular than the acrobat, negotiating, as we do on every sunny day, that tightrope between shadow and the light.

 

Augsburg.

The camp is over and I am training on my own in Augsburg for a couple of weeks. I am staying at the piccolo (they are painting it pink) and I walk back and forth to workouts and to town to use the internet. It’s not a bad life.

I think I figured out some important things during the camp, and it’s good to watch the German girls practice, they really do know all the tricks. I have trouble with the up at zoom flume, but I am happy with how I am doing the up in the hole at the bottom. I am trying not to get frustrated when I keep making mistakes, I have a good couple of weeks to get it right, afterall.

I am reading The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad, who is a genius and very funny, even though he is so sad, and Ursula Le Guin’s The Wave in the Mind, which is a collection of essays on various subjects, including the books of others. She is not as much of a genius as Conrad, but she is a very wise old woman and I like her. I would like to have them both to tea.

I miss my bike.

Besieged by the interminable rain.

Today in the park the old men were playing table tennis. The people walk their dogs in the evening, everyone arm in arm. The dogs all stop to sniff each other but the people walk on by without smiling.

Everyone suffers from something. My friend Paula suffers from cold feet. Lately, I suffer from bad dreams. Last night it woke me up again. Through the window I could see the sky that never changes here: day and night, it is always the same pale gray. I once read somewhere that pain is relative and everyone is allotted only as much suffering as they can carry.

Augsburg on the 18th

Charlotte has been lovely post-trials. Not too hot, and it looks like it will be a rainy summer. With everyone going their separate ways after the race, we’ve had a small training group and training has been low-key and good, for the most part. I have undertaking not to get frustrated when I make mistakes. I like this sport, that’s why I do it, after all, so what’s the point of getting cranky over one dumb move? This is great in theory, and lasted me from the end of the workout Thursday to the beginning of the workout Friday morning.

Now I am leaving my dear Rafal and Aga, Pablo the Chilean Wonder and Billie the smelly dog, and am heading to Augsburg for an “acclimatization camp.” I’ll have almost 6 weeks there to get acclimatized, and although I am sorry to leave what is just now a great training situation, I am excited about spending some time on the Augsburg course.

I just hope they don’t think my poison ivy is some sort of a contagious disease, and let me on the plane. That’s one thing about North Carolina I’m not going to miss.

Olympic Trials

The 2008 US Olympic Trials were held April 25th through the 27th at the US National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, NC. The race decided the US National Slalom Team for this Olympic year, and was a major stepping stone in the Olympic qualification process. After three days of racing, the 2008 US National Team is as follows:

k1
Brett Heyl
Scott Parsons
Scott Mann

k1w
Zuzana Vanha
Heather Corey
Caroline Queen

c1
Jeff Larimer
Benn Fraker
Tad Dennis

c2
McClesky/Crane
Eichfeld/Powell
Kwanli/Poindexter

c1w
Colleen Hickey

In all the classes, the race was not decided until the final run on the last day, and I think that the pressure really brought out the best in us. A reporter asked me before the race what fans could expect of the event: “Racing,” I told her, and I know that, at least in the women’s class, we really raced our best. It worked out for some of us, others were disappointed. This is the nature of slalom, the nature of racing in general. I am proud of all of us.

I feel very grateful to have won this race, and I would like to thank my family and friends for their continued support as I proceed now with my preparation for the Augsburg World Cup, the final Olympic Qualifier, and most of all my coach Rafal, who is the greatest and knows it. Thanks also to my sponsors, without whom none of this would be possible.

Olympic Trials

I am happy I won today. I love my mom and dad.

Tennis

Olympic Team Trials begins Friday, April 25th. Today is my last day off before the race. I rode my bike to the center in the morning but resisted getting on the water. Instead I sat on the bank and watched the training and then rode home again. In the afternoon I played tennis with Aga. I may be the worst tennis player you have ever met, but Aga is desperate for a tennis partner so she is not mean to me when I hit five straight balls into the net or over the fence, and we have a good time.

Soon I will be a tennis champion.

Springtime.

I can’t believe that in Colorado it’s still snowing!

Today we had our first thunderstorm at night. I woke up around 3:00 AM, it was raining on me through the window. At six, when I woke up for real, it had cleared up and I took Billie Sweetheart running. At the end of Hawfield, a pomeranian ran out into the road and attacked her. I think she was just as shocked as I was, in any case, she didn’t bite it in half, which she could have done. I’ve seen Billie Sweetheart mad, and I wouldn’t put it past her to eat a pomeranian if she was feeling grumpy. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that today. Billie is such a good dog recently, I’m really happy with her, and consequently with myself: I’ve put a lot of work into her.

Two more weeks till race day. I’m feeling good on the water, and I’m going to use this time that I have to brush up on some of my favorite moves and feel even better.

Cheerio.

Springtime?

Today was the desperate last stand of winter. I walked to the river in the early morning. The wind was in my face as I paddled upstream, and my hands were cold, but it was clear that the weather would be unable to hold out for much longer. The bleak sky was somehow not fully convincing, the wind not so biting as I remembered.

Flatwater is the bread and butter of day-to-day training. Paddling on the course all the time is like eating a lot of rich foods: delicious, but after too long with the cheesecake and the lemon tarts and the crème Brule, you are left with a stomachache and a cavity. It was a relief today to sit down to this simple breakfast of dark bread and bitter tea.

I was alone on the river. The gray of the tree-lined banks was interrupted here and there by patches of green and I felt less stiff the longer I paddled. Near the take out, I saw twenty-one water birds, black and long-necked, on a bare black tree. Maybe it’s pollution from the chemical plant upstream, but the water in this river is always very green.

Full lengths

I have been demanding lots of full-length workouts for the past month or so, and it seems that this meso cycle, Smolen has finally taken my whining to heart: we’re doing fulls at least three times a week. I had some time errors today, but one run that was quite fast.