Well the race team have been out and about a lot since my last post - where did the time go?
First of all there was Worcester with grey overcast skies and a cold wind . We had Ellie racing in Div 7 K1, Sam and Andy in Div 8 K1, and Kate & Dave and Deb & Cameron in Div 8 K2. Deb and Cam got promoted to Div 7 - so that's two promotions in two races for Cam !
Then we went off to the sunshine of Leamington Spa. For those of you who've not been to the Leamington race it's a short course between two weirs and so the lower divisions do three loops - that's six turns ! This race also saw the very welcome return of Cat Jones to the race team racing Div 7 K2 with Deb and producing a very credible 4th place. We also had Ellie with a comfortable second in Div 7 K1 while Andy struggled along at the back of Div 8 somewhere and eventually got in after they had all packed up and gone home 
Last weekend was the blazing sunshine of Nottingham and the usual suspects assembled on the banks of the Trent for a glorious (but very hot) day out. Dave and Kate revealed their new world class training programme and still got into a neck and neck race to the line for second place with Jenny & Jo from Solihull but were just pipped at the post. Ellie was racing C2 with Nottingham's Kath Nadal and they came second despite Ellie admitting that she'd never canoed 4 miles before. Deb had the joyous experience of her first Div 7 K1 race, accompanied for most of the distance by old friend and nemesis Archie Miles from Lincoln. Afterwards she was heard vainly pleading with Mick Nadal to be allowed to go back to Div 8, a sentiment supported only by Ethan Troy whom she managed to capsize on the home straight. Sam had an "incident" with another paddler who managed to turn her boat around and force her onto the side. She recovered and continued of course, but ended up much further down the list than she's used to. Andy, as usual, pottered along somewhere in the middle of Div 8 although apparently there is video of the finish which has Louise Clive saying to Catherine "Look - here comes Daddy ... oh he looks about done in).
By the way I should mention that Louise and Chris Pretswood are being complete stars by looking after Catherine for us which enables both Deb and I to race.
So - as it stands at the moment we are on track for a trip to the Hasler finals. We have the last qualifying place, just above the cut and so if we can maintain that over the next couple of races then we'll be eligible to go to Worcester on October 10th.
Congrarulations to Cameron on his win at Rhug Division 3/4 slalom at the weekend. A clean run in a time of 143 seconds secured promotion to division 3.
