O-Cup #1: All's well that ends well

I realize that this is a little late, but here's a post I started on the Sunday after that disasterous race in Thunder Bay and didn't get a chance to finish:

I'm sitting in the Maple Leaf Lounge at Pearson Airport, trying to do a blong entry between bites.


After yesterday's pessimistic entry, things started looking up. My coach Harris, my guide Robert and I had a very productive discussion late last night about guiding. We analyzed yesterday's race from a guiding perspective and came up with a strategy to learn from every race. So in that sense, yesterday's crappy race was actually very useful. We learned from it what we needed to work on in terms of guiding, and as a resutl, today's race went so much better. Robert stayed much closer to me because we were able to decide on a comfortable distance between us. And he gave me a lot more specific and precise verbal cues that we had agreed on last night. ...

So, as you can see, that race was actually not a total waste or a disaster. We learned a lot from it and were able to apply that knowledge in the next race.

Here are also a few pictures from after the Dec. 20 race in Thunder Bay.

This is most of the Para-Nordic group.
left to right: Harris Kirby, Kanata Nordic coach; Alex Novikov, blind skier; Frank, blind skier; Nathan Kirby, Alex's guide; Margarita Gorbounova, blind skier; Mike Scholte, amputee skier; Jerry King, blind skier; and Robert D'Arras, my guide. 

And just the Kanata Nordic group. I think you can figure out who's who.

It was a cold day for a race, but the sun was out and everyone had a good race! And we all had a chance to show off our new awesome Kanata gear!