Whitewater Kayaking in its Purest Form

First off, I would like to apologize to my devout following. I'm sure this past week has been boring and uneventful for you - I know most of you thrive on reading my blog and hearing about the exciting and adventurous times of John Hastings.

With a hard week of training in Augsburg coming to an end this past Friday, we were off to Bovec, Slovenia to race our ultralight whitewater slalom boats down the Soca (pronounced So-Cha) River against some of the worlds best. The Soca river, situated in the heart of the Slovenian Alps was by far one of the most beautiful rivers I had ever paddled on in my life. The water was cool and crisp and clean enough you could drink it. The actual river was littered with massive boulders which put to test the kayaking and river-running skills of any kayaker of any level brave enough to navigate it.

Although water levels have been very low this year (due to the lack of snow in Europe), today's torrential rain remedied the problem significantly. In fact, the rain became a bit of a problem. Between our first and second runs, the water rose at least 0.5 - 1m and completely changed the course even though the gates were in the same place. Simply, rocks were hidden under the water, new waves and currents formed...it was pretty crazy. Anyways, after our first runs, I was ranked 6th, but dropped two positions and ended up 8th after the second runs. Although I had wished to be ranked higher, this race was incredibly fun. Normally, when racing on artificial courses, variables such as changing water level are non-existent. However, today we had a whole new challenge to deal with. We were forced to read and react to the changing conditions as we went, with the only game plan to try and make it to the bottom in one piece.

We are now in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. We will train at the course here (named Tacen) all week in preparation for the double-header race next weekend.

Until next time race fans!