Last weekend, after being away for about a month, I did a marathon canoe Race in Craven on the Qu’Appelle River. This was the season-ender ‘rookie race’, where each boat needs to have a first-year novice in the boat. I qualify as a rookie, but since I have paddled and raced so much I didn’t think that was fair, so I recruited a local fellow to paddle the race with me. Dave and I paddled together throughout the summer, and he improved a TON over the summer! We had a good race on a slow, very twisty river with a lot of traffic. We didn’t win, but came in around the middle of the pack. Since rookies generally paddle with an experienced stern person, having a rookie stern person was a bit of a disadvantage on such a technical course. However, Dave is stronger and more skilled than a lot of the rookies, and he held on really well for the whole 100-minute race. (So did I, considering I paddled twice in the month before the race). 😉