Winter training for 1.000 meters

It's winter time (and if you're in the Southern hemisphere... it will be, sometime...) and many times you find difficult to go paddling because of the few hours of daylight, cold, bad weather, work schedules, etc. The gym becomes then one of the most demanded training places. Nowadays, technics and apparels have developed into a wide range of possibilities, starting from the great kayakergometres to more simple but useful items like the TRX, the Fitball or the Bosu, these last two very used in Pilates training.

In this video, our good friend Pepe Mota, former National Junior Team Coach in Spain and one of our Master's specialists now in the 1.000 metres, shows from his Gym in Madrid (website http://pilatesvida.com) how to combine strength and balance, something so important in our sport, in some gym exercises, starting with TRX, Bosu and Fitball and then doing a 1.000 in the Kayakergometer at position 5. He recomends to do it three times in a row (sorry, just Spanish subtitles this time).

Pinta and Mozzicafredo face as leaders the last stage of Río Negro Regatta

After holding stages 3 to 6 of the Río NegroRegatta, the favorites, Néstor Pinta and Martín Mozzicafredo, face as the last stage in the leadership, to celebrate in the city of Viedma. This time there's a new course, replacing the usual arrival to Viedma by circuit between the bridges of the city, with eight portages along the 30 km.

Photo by Carolyn J. Cooper

 
The leadership of Kiko Vega and Santiago Scalesi after the first two stages was frustrated during the third, the longest of the competition with 68 km. At one point during the race, Vega took the wrong path through a longer route, something seized by Pinta and Mozzicafredo using their very good knowledge of the river to launch their attack and get away. After their mistake, Vega and Scalesi were relegated to third place, behind the U23 Balboa and Guerrero, and finished the stage with a minute and a half disadvantage, which also relegated them to third place overall.

And after the stage, before facing the well-deserved day off, there was the great controversy of this year, when a complaint was officially set against Vega-Scalesi by skipping a mandatory flag when they were trying to recover the time lost. After an entire day of investigation, they were penalized with five minutes, practically ruining all their options for overall victory.

The 4th stage (the shortest, only 22 km.), 5th and 6th were established following the same script from the first day, with the K2s main triplet in the lead and tight sprint finishes. 

Kiko Vega and Santiago Scalesi lead the Rio Negro Regatta (ARG) after two stages

Vega and Scalesi after winning 1st stage. Photo: Claudio Espinoza

It began last Saturday the 36th Río Negro Regatta, in Argentina: 7 stages adding 277 km. Entries record, with 128 canoes, including the great champions of this race, the Argentinians Néstor Pinta and Martin Mozzicafredo, 11-time winners. However, this year, a new duo formed by Argentinian Santiago Scalesi and Spanish Federico "Kiko" Vega are trying to cut off the reign of the Patagonians, along with the promising young pair formed by U23 Franco Balboa and José Guerrero.

Saturday was the opening stage between Senillosa and Neuquén. Under hot sunny weather, the first kilometers of the stage were as usual at Río Negro, with a large number of K2s in the front bunch, as the race is long, with not much rest options from one day to the next one, so nobody wants to expend unnecesary fuel from the start.

However, at half stage it got clear that this year, unless major surprises, the podium will be decided among the three favorites, the thrill is just knowing what the order will be. Ahead were Pinta-Mozzicafredo, Vega-Scalesi and Balboa-Guerrero, leaving behind, in no man's land, the locals Vázquez & Reyes, who seem to e the only one able to seize any mistake from the leaders.

McGregor and Eray claim again a hard Cape Point Challenge

On December 22nd finished the Cape Town Surfski Festival with the celebration of the classic Cape Point Challenge, one of the toughest races on the international scene, where paddlers go around the Cape from the Atlantic side to finish in False Bay, on the Indic Ocean, at the beach at Fish Hoek.And victory went to two of the favorites, Hank McGregor in men (for the third time individually, fifth overall) and Michele Eray in women, who got her fourth title in this exigent race.

McGregor enters the finish line with Rice (left) and van vdWalt (right) behind. Photo: Owen Middleton / Gameplan Media

The main character was the wind, which, contrary to what happened during the World Series the week before, turned this time to blow from Northwest, which made the whole second half of the race a hard headwind. If the test is long and this made for some factor should become almost endless. Not surprisingly, the winner was a time of 4h02'27 ".At the start, paddlers already knew the upwind conditions they were going to find after turning around Cape point, something that didn't encourage too many adventures during the first half of the race.