US Open, and Hobbes

      This past weekend we had the US Open down at NOC in western NC, it was a good race for some and a not so good race for others. For Mariah it was a really bad race, as she flipped really hard upstream in the falls, and got a pretty bad concussion unfortunately, so she won't be able to boat for quite some time. It was on her first run of the first day as well, which made it hard on her for the rest of the weekend, as she was forced to sit on shore and take some really good pictures (which was both good and bad). But we all want her to take as much time as she needs so that she can fully recover and not hurt herself any more. 

    For me personally it was a blessing in disguise, as I was able to figure some stuff out that was really good for my boating, concerning both my technique and my mental preparation for race runs. On the other hand though I wasn't able to put together two solid runs either day. On day one I had a very poor start to my first run missing two gates resulting in 100 seconds worth of penalties, but was able to pull it together for the bottom thankfully, as well as having an ok second run on day one. Then on day two after a solid first run with some very good boating for me, I flipped missing a gate and needing to loop two more, so it was a poor finish to a good start. 

     So on the whole our trip down to NOC wasn't phenomenal by any standards but some of us were able to accomplish some good things. 

     Then yesterday I spent a remarkably short amount of time in the Dulles Airport just west of DC, picking up my nice new Vajda Gyro (since named "hobbes" for its tiger-esk look, however I'm yet to figure out if this is a good or bad thing, hopefully good). And now that he's all outfitted I can't wait to get on some water and do some boating.

So I'm off, till next time

Dodge