Food Poisoning, Fun!

Imagine our delight when a very chic Italian restaurant opened four hundred meters from our hotel here in Prague the week we arrived. Great food, nice ambience, and close. We ate there a few times this week and always enjoyed our meals and our time there. Last night, as I was eating my Rigatoni Bolognese I noticed a large table of Australians, some other Canadians, a Chilean team athlete and others. What a nice international environment on the eve of the World Cup Qualifier.

 

Unfortunately I woke at eleven pm feeling a little queasy, the queasiness rapidly escalated to full blown nausea, followed by very violent projectile vomiting. Since I have only been sick a few times in my life you can imagine how sick I must have been. In total I only got a few hours of sleep.

 

Friday morning came as it always does and I was not feeling at my best to say the least. Fortunately my qualification runs were not until the afternoon so I went to the course relying heavily on Kelly’s support to get me there and watched the C-1s first run. James had a solid morning and finished in a strong 10^th place. I learned that I was not the only person who ate at the Italian restaurant who got food poisoning, one of the Australians and a Suisse competitor also fell ill. I then returned to the hotel and went back to bed to try and find some strength for the afternoon.

 

I was still feeling really tired and achy with a swooning stomach for first runs and just cruised it down the course. The times were extremely tight and I was happy to still be in the top 30 sitting in 25^th place. I felt a little worse for second runs and again just tried to survive and was a little quicker moving up to 17^th. John Hastings had a very good day finishing in 13^th but Pierre unfortunately had a 50 to drop him out of the qualifying top 40.

 

Now my focus is rest and recuperation, lots of fluids and sleep. I know that I should eat but the thought of food right now is not sitting to well. I have a rest day tomorrow with semis and finals on Sunday. I will cheer on James as he races for another top ten and lay as low as possible in the hopes of finding some form for Sunday.

 

No more pasta for a while.

The start is here!

Prague. The site of the first world cup of the season, a city steeped in history, charm and tradition.

 

We arrived here on Saturday to begin preparations for the competition and having spent a considerable amount of time here preparing for last years world championships I feel like I still have a good feel for the place. A couple of sessions in and the normal feelings of being lost on the course are few and far between and it has been fun to rev it up with Helmut Oblinger, a top ranked competitor and sometimes training partner from Austria. I say that it is easy to get lost on this course because unlike most of the artificial slalom stadiums being built these days, Prague is dead straight. The gradient is constant and the 75 gates hung for training make it a sea of poles that are hard to differentiate from one section to another. I have always had trouble the first few days figuring out where I am on the river. The race actually is easier because there are only 20 gates out there and the course becomes obvious. Still, this year has been easier and I am enjoying my time out there.

 

The weather has been hit and miss with either scorching heat or drizzly rain. At least the nights are cool for sleeping in either case so all is good.

 

I will update as the week goes on so tune in.

 

Watch for stories of lost boats in transit and missing athletes…hopefully the old saying, alls well that ends well will apply.