2012 National Rowing Championships PREDICTIONS

The entry list is out:  The 2012 NRC's list of elite athletes making the trip to Victoria, BC for the best in Canada! It is time to make the researched and peer-reviewed list about the details of the 1-2-3 prediction in each category.  These names below are the opinion of me, and me alone. It is not a judge of character or popularity. Just straight performance based on the entry list of Nov. 1st at Regatta Central.

Entry List online here

Women: A more difficult-to-predict section, due to not coming in contact with many females rowers (they exist?) other than the lwt's based out of Victoria.

• Lwt F 1x: Due to the fact that the two Olympians, Lindsay Jennerich and Patricia Obee, are out of the entry list it has made for an even more difficult choice.  I'm surprised that Lindsay is representing BC, but I like it.  Possibly a BC sweep! 

1. Lindsay Sferrazza
2. Teresa Berkholtz
3. Erin Snelgrove/Trish Mara 

• Hwt F 1x:  Difficult, I do know know many of these talented and powerful women. The ones I do are impressive! A late addition, I had missed that Carling was in the mix. 

1. Kerry Shaffer 
2. Emily Cameron
3. Alyssa Weninger / (Carling Zeeman!)

• Hwt F 2-: Who really knows these, I have to say I do not know the stats. I read a certain M.McCabe on the entry for the start. Is this swimming Olympian, Martha, cousin to Conlin!? But, this is my prediction:

1. Black/Ganes
2. DeBoef/Roper
3. Goodfellow/Martins

Men: 

• Lwt 1x: This would have been my category if I was around to race. I, however, will unfortunately not be in a boat. I have a strong connection to these guys and I have been keeping a keen eye on the guys out west.  And yes, I think a Mexican will be the Canadian National Champion. Bold prediction - yes. 

1. Saul Garcia
2. Nick Pratt* (possible injury!?)  Mark Henry
3. Taylor Pluzak

• Lwt 2-: This is the category I raced in last year with Eric Woelfl. I enjoyed it immensely but feel the competition has increased in the past year. I got to see the U23 lwt men through the summer training at VTC and watched with shock how fast these boys men got within a short period of time. But, with years of rowing together Rares and Matt will pull through ahead. John and Eric have a year of rowing together and performing well at Sr. Worlds in Bulgaria this August! Eric also has the super-human hulk style strength that can show up with the right combination of stress and fatigue. Watch out! 

1. Sasi/Woelfl
2. Crisan/Jensen
3. Schenck/Addison  or (Lattimer/Cheng) if they get bumped into lwt again. 

• Hwt 1x: Some guys have been training steadily through the summer, others took a few months off. Hard to predict. I'm quite torn on the 2nd place and 3rd place (runner-up) Very difficult. Who knows! 

1. SNV Van Knotsenburg
2. Jamie Abbass
3.  David Wakulich (Buie)

•  Hwt 2-: I feel this will be a large gap between 1st and everyone else. I'm also torn on the 2nd and 3rd place (runner-up). But, that's it. Also, I posted up the former lwts Max and Evan, due to my view of lwt's taking over the world someday. Go get 'em boys. 

1. Dean/Crowley
2. Brazeau/Schudlo 
3. Alm/Schrijver - (Lattimer/Cheng)

The opinions in the above predictions are my own. This is in no way binding or a judge of character.   Send me a message if you think otherwise.

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Hartland Sessions

Keeping variability in my outdoor activities has been the theme of the past two months.  It seems as if I don't want to do repetitive actions or activities, even close as between two successive workouts.  For example, if I go for a run in the morning I definitely don't want to go for a run that evening and even the next day really have an urge to do something different.  This may be the exact shift that I needed for multi-sport enjoyment (and performance).  I think that I'm going to an early morning swim workout (let's see if I wake-up for it!)

Just the other day I had a great run with my pal Clay around Elk Lake. The classic 10km loop is a good one to push the pace on and test out what the legs are feeling like. We followed the run up with a 2hour loop of Hartland Mtn Bike trails with GPS to track it.

Hartland trails system 15min N of Victoria. 

Follow along with the link:

Rowing has been on the backburner as of recently. I find that I get myself thinking about rowing and its quality as a full body workout. But, yet I find myself not scheduling in the time to get at it. 

Why Is This?

The 2012 Canadian National Rowing Championships are in two weeks (Nov. 10 - 11) at Elk Lake. I notice the excitement building and athletes peaking for this while also trying to complete RADAR testing at the same time.  Good Luck!