Winter panorama in England: the Waterside Series

As Elite Kayak is a Spanish based web, we use to think that everything everywhere works the same way we do it here. But as soon as you open your eyes to other countries, the landscape is much more different from what you thought. It's usual to hear from friends who have gone to the Ardèche in France, or down to South Africa, the sentence "that's something different, man". Not only racing, but managing too.

I wouldn't like to go very deep today about this matter (hope to be able to in future posts), but we can already talk today about England, where there's a growing passion for Marathon, even though it already was the country where we could say that "officialy" started the huge growth of this discipline over the last 25 years (they held in 1988 the first official ICF Marathon World Championships, at Nottingham). The parallel competition panorama is not small at all and every weekend there's a frenzy activity with races all around the country,many of them under the MRC (Marathon Races Commitee), an organization ruled by the clubs and paddlers themselves.


A good example are the Waterside Series, four Marathon races that in the cold winter kick off the season. Held along the country channels, where the level dams mark the portages. The distances are also not a joke, with races that could surpass the 30 miles. This tough racing conditions make this competitions only appropiate for paddlers from level 1 to 3, as indicated in the British ranking lists (they go up to level 9) depending on results and performance.


So, this last Sunday it was held the forth and last race of the Waterside Series, between Devizes Wharf and Newbury, along 34 miles with 35 portages (yes, it's correct... 35). After this last competition, the paddlers from the Reading CC (club well know in Spain as they use to go down for the Sella Descent every summer) Dan Seaford and James Keeble claimed victory in the overall results 2012. The winners in each category were as follows:

Senior Mens K2  - Dan Seaford and James Keeble - Reading CC

Junior Mens K2 - Connor Peters & Michael Southey - Fowey

Senior Ladies K2 - Shuna Braithwaite & Kat Burbeck - Nottingham CC

Junior Ladies K2 - Isobel Smith & Naomi Smith - Basingstoke Canal CC

Senior Men K1 - Adam Norfolk  - Nottingham CC

Junior Men K1 - James Escott - Bradford On Avon

Senior Ladies K1 - Lena Kraus - Fowey 

C1 - Marcin Ponomarenkow -  Richmond CC

You may check the full list at this link.