Seth's Kayak blog: National Student Rodeo 2010

The weekend just gone played host to the worlds largest and funniest freestyle kayaking competition, the National Student Rodeo. As ever 'My Lot' from the Buxton, Derby University Canoe and Kayak (D.U.C.K) were in attendance with more than double the amount of people than the previous year.

For those not in the know, NSR is a freestyle kayaking competition for uni students from all over the country, tailored to suit all abilities from novice to expert.

Since its a student event the Friday evening when everyone arrives is a big party, even though it goes on well into the night the competition still began on time at 8:30am the following morning. The format of the competition begins with an extreme slalom, this puts people into there respective categories either novice, intermediate or expert. Heats would then happen across each category throughout the afternoon. I was in the expert heats and paddled well enough to get to the final the following day.

Sofa Cross race

Saturday Evening, after a dinner had the premier of the new Rush Sturges/Tyler Bradt Film: Dream Result, the second this was over we hit the bar, a number of others had headed up for the party including Pete "The Scud" Scutt, Ed "Egg" Kay, Sam "Rambo" Ellis and a load of other people who don't have good nicknames.

General camping shinanigans.

The following morning with a stinking hangover I took up a bean bag at the Pyranha stand and began watching the days events, starting with the Topo Duo semi-finals. Eventually it was time to get on for the Men's Expert Final. It was a fun eddy with many familiar faces including two other D.U.C.K.s. Regrettably the amount of alcohol consumed the previous evening ment that i struggled to avoid being sick and needless to say did not paddle that well.