This past weekend I spent 4 cold, rainy and miserable days in Seattle. It was fantastic.
Nearly a decade ago when I was still coaching at the Calgary Canoe Club and Serving as the Southern Alberta Provincial Coach I ‘mistakenly’ started what is now called the Seattle Frostbite Training Camp. At the time, I was looking for a reason, a carrot, a tool to motivate my atheltes until the end of the fall season but there were no events left to train for. I knew from experience motivation and even attendance at training started to drop around this time. I needed an event. So by partner provincial coach, Joanne Devlin, and I gave the coach in Seattle call. Seattle was just a day’s drive away (16 hours) so just close enough and perhaps even exotic enough to get out group psyched up for a road trip.
Hi Aasim (pronounce Awesome), I know right… ‘Hi there, I’m Awesome (Aasim)’. Anyway, so I called Aasim and asked if he would mind us showing up for a week and mixing in with his training. We could end the week with a fun, yet casual, 10km race. It will be great! So in 1st week of November, Joanne and I with 13 paddlers crammed into a van and towing a trailer full of kayaks headed for the border.
Well, we had a fantastic time! The people at the Seattle Canoe Club are some of the best I have ever met. So kind and giving. They welcomed us, put us up in their homes, organized meals and well…. we loved it. Yes, we did train and even did that 10km race.
The next 4 years we returned with more and more people and each year we found others were wanting to join us. We saw BC paddlers making the trip, Californians, and even paddlers from Georgia and Washington DC on the east coast. Eventually, we even saw Canoe Kayak Canada’s Coach Development Director come see what was going on in this rainy and cold corner of the US. The year after a USA National Team coach made it part of his annual plan.
Why all the buildup, any word that got out was simply word of mouth. Well, it was the people. Despite the bitter chill from being out all day in the cold Seattle rain you just feel great to be around these people. Yes, the training and coaching were good, we made sure of that but it is not what I value most.
Until this year, I have been away from Alberta and 5 or 6 Frostbite camps have gone by. While in Ottawa, I was not about to load up a van and make that kind of drive, so I have not been back. Aasim has been gone too and is now in Oklahoma City coaching a team there.
This year, however, I am a little closer and my good friend Jason gave me a call. No van but a flight this time. I was to travel in luxury, 6 hours rather than 16. The invitation to be a guest coach was one I gladly took up. Soon I was back in under the grey skies in the cold rain with the warm paddlers of the Seattle Canoe and Kayak Team. If I can I’ll be back shivering in the rain again next year.
Below are my two super wet, cold and cute athletes, Emma and Zoey, loving it too.
At the end of the camp we had a 2.5 hour drive north to Vancouver where we would catch our flight back to Regina. What do you think they talked about? It was how nice their billet family was!
In only a few days of returning I already hearing rumours that more paddlers have heard about the experience from last week and are talking about attending in 2017. Kindness makes a difference and word travels fast.
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