Last weekend the XC Ottawa crew headed to OWL Rafting for our annual start of summer training camp. Most of the team arrived on Friday afternoon and did a classic rollerskiing workout then set up camp and enjoyed dinner.
Saturday morning started out with a “loosener” jog then breakfast. Once breakfast was semi digested we hit the road to do some skating rollerski strength and distance. Unfortunately, our competitive side came out when we did head to head sprints which led Andre getting a gnarly cut on his knee. After lunch most of us appreciated some rest/nap time before heading out for a second workout. The afternoon started with a run (or for those who were injured – Megan and Andre - a double pole workout) and then we met back at OWL for our strength workout. Since John couldn’t make it out this weekend we nominated Karl to take over the coaching task, which he loved. His coaching basically was just him giving us pointers in a slow Scandinavian accent.
He decided to pass the coaching role onto Anna for the strength workout though. She really wanted us to get some big “side abs”- so we did a tough strength workout and got some great beach bodies. Before we knew it, it was time for the infamous steak dinner at OWL which was followed by a riveting croquet match.
Sunday was our last and longest day of training at the camp. We started out early rollerskiing to the top of the river where you start rafting. This ended up taking about an hour and half. Once we arrived at the raft put-in we all changed into our wetsuits and rafting gear and jumped into some sport yaks. Sportyaking is slightly more intense than rafting because it is only two people per boat. Some people on the team are better at it than others- Karl is definitely the star sportyaker. Dirk Van Wijk led us down the river fairly quickly so we could beat the rafters of OWL and wouldn’t have to take their wonderful pontoon boat back to the company. Instead, we ran back- the run took about an hour and half and we didn’t get lost, which I am pretty sure is a first for the XC Ottawa training camp. Once we got back we enjoyed a great lunch and swim and packed up our stuff and headed back to Ottawa.
We would like to give a big thanks to Dirk, Claudia Van Wijk and all of the OWL staff for hosting us at OWL for the weekend. Also, for more information about whitewater rafting/ sport yaking check out the website at http://www.owl-mkc.ca/owl/.
Check out the video documenting our camp:
"OWL Rafting - The Mighty Ottawa River"