With little or no real slalom experience (or boat), I set off for Bala, Wales. I had arranged to get ranked into one of the divisions in the UK, everyone over there has been very friendly and helpful.
1 practice run in a demo boat, plenty of tips from some new and an old friend helped me to 18th place in just over 20 paddlers in Division 1. Similar times in both runs , with two penalties (two seconds each) in both runs I was very happy just to have made it through all of the gates. 30 sec behind first place meant I was slow but I was very happy knowing I could improve.
Looking back now, it would have been very easy just to say its going to be too much hard work to get to where I want to be (Premier Division), being so far off the pace at the bottom of the division 1.
