Waterside A (19th February 2017)

Sunday (19/02/17) saw several members of the Club take part in Waterside A, the first of 4 races in the Waterside Series which cover a large section of the Devizes to Westminster course on the Kennet & Avon Canal. Race A takes place between Great Bedwyn and Newbury covering 13.5 miles with 21 portages. This race annually has the highest attendance of any one day marathon race with large entries from Clubs all over the country. This is also the first real test of how well the winters training has gone and everybody performed as well as or better than expected.

The club results are as follows:
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Matt Parkes – 6th Senior K1 – 1:52:56 (out of 23)
Octavia Abbott – 12th Ladies K1 – 2:33:37 (out of 24)
James Smythe – 3rd Veteran K1 – 1:58:25 (out of 40)
Dave Hallam – 5th Veteran K1 – 2:00:14 (out of 40)
Danny Beazley / Rodrigo Hortal (CAM) – 2nd Senior K2 – 1:45:40 (out of 42)
David Gurney / Danielle Clifford (BAD) – 14th Mixed K2 – 2:27:57 (out of 29)
Chris Sze / Euan Caton – 6th Veteran/Junior K2 – 2:16:05 (out of 14)
Congratulations should go to Matt Parkes for taking 5:49 of his PB set last year, Octavia Abbott who took 7:18 off her time from last year and Dave Hallam who went 9:09 quicker than 2016. Also well done to the 3 young juniors completing the course for the first time. This is one of the toughest 13 mile races on the calendar.

​The following regular training group paddlers also did well racing for their respective Clubs. We hope to see them down the club more often as the Waterside series continues and the Hasler series restarts for the 2017/2018 season:
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Gaz Wilson (RDG) – 17th Senior K1 – 2:19:50
Gordon Bullock (BAD) – 24th Veteran K1 – 2:29:07
Kat Wilson / James New (RDG) – 1st Mixed K2 – 1:52:05

The full results can be found here.