yearbook

11th Annual Tempe - March 22-23, 2014

Squad Division Place
race results
LARD 1 Open 500m 5th 2:10.07
LARD 1 500m Div B Finals 13th overall 2:15.17
LARD 2 500m Div A Finals 9th overall 2:12.37
LARD 1 250m Div A 11th 1:09.30
LARD 2 250m Div A 4th 1:06.52
LARD 1 1000m 6th 4:45.13
LARD 2 1000m 8th 4:48.15
CAU 500m Open 1st 2:04.85

holding a pose to win a Burnwater

What? No drama?

Kenny Kim (March 29, 2014)

I can't believe it.

There were no boat crashes.

No race cancellations due to high winds.

No, what this race was was a great opportunity to have our experienced crew mentor our new paddlers. We performed admirably and learned a lot of things along the way. While it made me sad that I was injured prior to the race, in some ways it was a god send. The frantic schedule, often back to back, combined with pulling in caller, steerers, and paddlers from multiple donor teams was very stressful and required me to run around most of the day. And to make things more interesting, we had 3 new coaches learning how to seat, and run a race. Good times.

A burn in the sun

Jason Cheng (March 25, 2014)

Hello Team,

Hope all of you roadies made it back safely last night and were able to reward yourselves with some good eats on the way home in addition to chugging plenty of water. Before the rest of this day flies by, just wanted to mention how good it was to see and feel, as a steersperson, the strength of our team at this point into the season. For all of the various short-handed mixed crew configurations we ran throughout the weekend given just 38 paddlers (which included 8 from CAU's Open crew), I believe we fully met our goals of using this race to initiate new members (welcome!) and experiment a bit with seating so newer members and paddlers alike were somewhat forced to work on blending together in a race setting. Add to that the rotating pairs of callers and steerers (TK/Crystal, Connie/myself), and it should become pretty clear that what you can affect is how well each of you connects with the water from stroke to stroke with your teammates.

I don't recall our respective division placements, just that given the 50/50 split of guys/gals for our Mixed crews of 18-20 (and an Open crew with a rotation of 5 women), I was generally impressed by our crews' performances either as the active steersperson or watching from an outbound heat. Definitely impressed that all of the guys had at least 5x 500m races on Saturday. Not to be outdone, a handful of our strong women and Masters paddlers tacked on an additional 2-3 500m races(!). I think LARD2/LARD1 ended up in Mixed A/Mixed B, respectively, and LARD Open made it to the Open consolation final with a mixed crew. In several heats, many elements from start to finish were executed very well; others highlighted areas we'll need to address both with individuals and as a crew.

A big thanks again to Crystal, TK, and Connie for their invaluable help by making it even possible for our mixed crews to compete back-to-back in every single race, not to mention enabling same-heat LARD Open and CAU Open races. I will communicate as much to Alex Yu and the CAU paddlers who also positively impacted our mixed crews, as we certainly could not have run 2 crews otherwise. CAU Open, by the way, won their Open division Final on Sunday. Off the water, a big thanks to our Captains and Directors for keeping the machine oiled and making these things happen: registration, travel & team dinner info, bringing our team gear (paddles, TENT!), picking up essential provisions like water & gatorade and snacks for each race day...you get the idea.

Happy post-race weekend Monday...dried lips, (mild) sunburns, sore muscles and all! Looking forward to seeing you all on the water again. In the mean time, keep up your weekly training and putting in water time at practices. Tempe was just a starting point!

Sue Safinoff (March 25, 2014)

Hello, LARDies!

I hope you all had a safe trip back, and safe journey wishes for those who are traveling today. Thanks to all who came out and put together a strong showing for our first race of the season!

We ran two even mixed boats with paddler experience ranging from under a year, to a lot of highly experienced paddlers, CAU and LARD alike. With you guys working together, one mixed group (LARD 2) made it all the way to comp A semi finals. Our other mixed boat (LARD 1) made it to comp B finals and had a very tight race, just placing outside of the medals.

Our Open boat was for the most part a legitimate mixed boat. We had a lot of ladies from LARD and CAU step up to help out the guys, and the result was a very strong boat. The boat felt powerful, and I think we managed to make some of the full boats of guys a little uncomfortable :) We also had a chance to pass on our 'paddle wooping' knowledge to other teams during our wait under the bridge :)

Crystal C. coaching our BCS Division LAPD

More LARD ladies stepped up and helped out the Pinks with calling and paddling in the women's division. Your attitude and willingness to help out another team was fantastic.

We are also lucky to have very strong Masters paddlers who were involved in an incredible amount of races this weekend.

Our first race of the season has come to an end! I hope you guys take the knowledge and experience you've gained this weekend and carry it with you to the next race.

Baby Long Beach is only one month away!



Screen captured from AZ Family.com .



LARD

Tempe Newbies

And a big thank you to our CAU division for helping out!

Men

Aaron Fong
Willie Peng
Butch Lucero
Jason Cheng
Kenny Kim
Kristof Erkiletian
Matt Najera
Michael Espino
Ken Wang
Eric Li
John Z
Justin Chi
Dan Gee
Taylor Mar
Manny Favela
Christopher Louie
Scott Matsunami
Patrick Espino
Fred
John C

Women

Alex-Arlene Talactac
Erricka Peden
Michelle Yu
Sue Safianoff
Tabitha Huang
Vinnie Wu
Jessica Lee
Lili Hsu
Sue Burtner
Diane McCabe
Nina Chou
Cheryl Schmid
Dolores Covarrubias
Jeannie Lin
Lynda Razo
Peggy Voong
Wendy Louie
Sarah Leung
Sally Chou
Karen N. Chen
Suzanne Dayrit
Lisa Chou
TK Kimura
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