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RSVP for Portland race, training sessions and dinner

Published Tue 05 Aug 2025
Action items for the Portland race:
  1. Check your RSVP  for the Portland race and update it as needed. 
  2. If you're racing, attend as many training sessions as possible and RSVP for training sessions early. We need to ensure we have steerspersons if we need two boats. We're also experimenting with a new start sequence, and having an almost full boat will help determine if it's beneficial.
  3. Think now about your nutrition and fueling plan, which should start a couple of days before race day.  Electrolytes are recommended and necessary on race days. Brands with some actual sugar, rather than artificial sweeteners, are appropriate. The brain needs glucose to function; maintaining focus and knowing where you should be when requires brain power.  Sports gels and blocks have their place on days with repeated intense bouts of exercise.  We can have more discussion on this topic in the WAM Fitness Signal group.
  4. RSVP for the post race dinner at Dough Zone Dumpling house; this helps determine how many people to ask for when getting tables
 
You will get a boat load of race opportunities at this festival; some on our regular crews will get over 10 races for the weekend across the following categories:
Regular divisions
  • Women - 4x500m races, and potential for qualifying for Around the Bridges race end of day Saturday; top 8 women's teams after first two rounds of races will qualify.
  • Mixed - 4x500m races, and potential for qualifying for Around the Bridges race end of day Sunday; top 8 mixed teams after all 500m races will qualify; be prepared to stay 'late' for this race - it is a privilege to qualify.
Special category races - depending on the number of crews in each of these categories, some may be just a single race; those with more than 5 crews entered will have one round, and the top 4 will go to the final for that category.
  • Open - partnering with Team Taiwan as we did last year (and won gold, barely), and adding Paul who is paddling mixed with KDBA
  • Masters Women - age 40 and up; need to check but might be full with our regular division womens crew
  • Grandmasters Women - age 50 and up; likely will add some paddlers from other teams
  • Masters Mixed - age 40 and up; adding Paul who is paddling mixed with KDBA
  • Grandmasters Mixed - age 50 and up; adding Taz and John from Team Taiwan, and maybe a couple of other men; we have enough women
  • Pride Cup Open - this is a new special category and we have registered; while an all male crew would be great, seats are available to anyone; bring a brightly coloured shirt to wear just for this category instead of WAM blue shirt; not sure yet how we'll manage signups for this specific crew; likely be be just a single race.