Clifton

The conditions were good & we had a timekeeper this week! Altogether there were 43 people racing in addition to Beth C's group which was the biggest yet. The club was the busiest as it has been all summer despite some obvious faces missing. Hayleigh is on her way to Hungary for the Worlds!
Shob confirmed her unofficial PB from last week with a slightly slower 44:58 & Beth took nearly 2 minutes off her time with a new PB of 45:26. Simon & Barry also managed new PBs in K1 while Jenny C & Adam did a new K2 PB for them.

Lovely weather - lovely day.

The evening was the best so far this year with near perfect conditions for Round the Bridges. Norman had quite a large group for the casual paddling & Kath accompanied the younger junior/Lightnings down to the sailing club. It was good to see Ben back after his illness in July. He couldn't find the old battered left handed wings he has used for a year, so used flats & ended up with one blade dropping off. Kath swopped him for her left handed wings & paddled back most of the way C1 style!
Shobhanaa & Beth did Round the Bridges with Cathy, Ralph, Graham and a few more. Ricky & I joined them after our paddle to the sailing club.
Cathy was rewarded by a PB, Shobhanaa, on Cathy's wash & Ricky clipped a bit more off theirs while Beth managed to take about 20 seconds off hers with her first time sub 7:00 minutes on my wash. I managed to prove that mine was not a fluke last week by equalling it!

Clifton

The Trent was at normal levels, there was no thunderstorm, it was fairly sunny if a bit breezy, in fact almost what we would expect for the time trial this time of year. This could account for the whole crop of PBs, Season's Bests & a World Record.
The straight PBs in K1 were from Michelle, Beth & Simon. The K2 PBs were from Dave & Alice, Martin & Minnie, Michael & Becky, Kath & Laura, Mick & Ricky.
The season's bests were Norman & Des who did a PB and now hold the Over 50s K2 time for this season. Paul & Shobhanaa took the Veteran Junior season's best with their PB of 35:50. Dave & Matt captured the Mens K2 time for this season.
The truly great performance came yet again from from Hayleigh, this time in K2 with Tina who now hold the all time World record for Ladies K2. Well done Tina that's a neat way to stay in the record books after Hayleigh broke your other World Records in the past few weeks.
Altogether there were 37 people paddling tonight.

Friday Night Round the Bridges

Considering that this was the first week for a while that the Trent has been back to normal summer levels for Round the Bridges, there was a "thin" turnout this evening. An added dimention of the Nottingham Water Festival offered a few extra hazards, with boats moored in odd places, a continual stream of narrow boats & rather too many little rubber boats wizzing round to make paddling above Trent Bridge a particularly pleasant option.
To add to the distractions of loud music & assorted boats, there was a noticable downstream breeze. Des, Tom, Tim & Shobhanaa were the main participants in the time trials, with Tim recording a PB of 6:18. Kath, Laura, Alice, Ricky & I did a steady paddle to the Sailing Club, with all the juniors showing the results of having trained with Beth C on Tuesday nights. Their technique & speed shows real progress & they have all made the transition from Lightnings into full size K1s without any difficulties.
Kath, Ricky & I opted to do a couple of times Round the Bridges when we got back from our "long warm up." Kath did a season's best, while Ricky & I managed a PB each. Ricky is now on 7:36, while I went 3 seconds faster than my PB set in 1984 with a 5:47!
Thanks as always to Dave for the timing.

Tuesday Night

Now the Times Book is available, it is possible to record just how successful the Tuesday evening Clifton race was this week!
At the top of the list is Hayleigh's outstanding result of 34:59 which is both a PB & a new "World Record" for Ladies K1. Well done Hayleigh from all of us.
Shobhanaa, now with a PB of 45:22 took over a minute off her time. Simon managed a PB of 43:48, Tom is now down to 36:44 & Michael, despite his aborted attempt on the White Water boat World Record, did manage a PB of 38:19. Perhaps he needs to approach it a little more "quietly" to get the result he wants!