Where is Dane Now, and Now What? (lost worlds story)

Last night Dane didn’t eat dinner with the family because he wanted to do an 8pm training session. After dinner, at almost 10pm he still wasn’t back, but I went to bed. I woke at midnight and looked in his bed and it was empty… Uh oh, where is he? I went out on the balcony and there he was on the wave still. "Crazy!" i am thinking. I went back to bed and woke up again at 2am to see how many people were on the wave considering training then and there were about 12. I figured I would wait a little longer so checked Dane’s bed again and still no Dane. i went back out and waited for about 5 minutes until Dane popped out from under the stands to go surf the wave, still out there! I woke again at 4am and checked the bed, still no Dane! I looked out and now he was in his Kayak instead of the C1… I got dressed and ran down to train with practically no line. I met up with Dane in the eddy and he said it was his goal to train until the end of free training, at 7am.

At 5:45am the Japanese and Canadians showed up in force and the line jumped up to about 14 people and I think Dane had all he could handle and finally went back to the room and went to bed. Wow- what a marathon of paddling! Every ride he was doing his routine and looking good. His face is all chapped and he has a nice latex burn on his neck. Last night got fairly cold too. We had our windows and doors open and I woke up cold. It was about 4 degrees Celcius (40 F) and I had my shorty on and it was dark and in the middle of the night.

At about 5:45 the morning star (it is actually Venus) comes out and really looks cool as it comes over the mountain and the signals the coming of dawn.

The training here has been unique to say the least as a typical Team Training Slot affords you only about 5 rides. If you want more, you have to pay attention to when the open training times are. Some days Team Training starts at 7am and closes at 10pm, some days at 8am to 8pm. You can’t just show up at 6:30 am and think you’ll have 90 minutes to paddle, because you might only have 30 minutes if it starts at 7am. You can count on the best training between 2-5:30am in terms of short line. Today there was an open session from 12:30 right after the Uganda, Korean, and Polish training slot. Peter Csonka and Nina were first in line, followed by me, Emily, Nick, etc. and we had about a 2 minute wait in line for a single ride, but then the lineup jumped as it was mid day and nearly 30 people showed up for some training. I got out after a single good ride doing my entire routine except for my final move that I didn’t stick. It felt pretty good to me…

The weather is supposed to warm up again here into the 80’s by tomorrow. It is a beautiful 75 f right now and not a cloud in the sky. A lot of people are showing up and the stands have a good 100+ people in all day long just hanging out during training times, cycling through. It is a beautiful place to hang out. Most restaurants have 90% of their patrons eating outside on the sidewalks or patios. Today we ate breakfast inside as it was only in the 50’s by 8am.

There are plenty of minor stresses along the way. The build up gives you plenty of time to play out all of the “what ifs”.

What if you break a paddle? What if you flush two times in a row? What if you get your entire routine in 40 seconds, what extra moves can you throw in to blow everyone away? What if the wave is not in properly for your heat, what if… Whew… what ifs are a waste of thinking!

OK so it is Sunday- tomorrow are the opening ceremonies in the city center. 35+ countries in their team uniforms, and plenty of “pomp and circumstance” followed the national anthem of Switzerland, and then the “games are declared open” by the Mayor. Oh yea! I almost forgot, yesterday was a demonstration by the Skinheads! Their primary message was “kill capitalism” which is like saying, “kill your family” to me. Fascist is their party, not a derogatory term, it is their ideals, not a reminder of what Hitler did with that party. It was a peaceful demonstration as far as we could tell. What kind of skinheads have a peaceful demonstration I was thinking? Not what we see in the states as they add the racial aspect of it there.

Time to go as my battery is about dead!

J

EJ