Summer season, done!

Hi guys!

Tired hellos from training in the south. I have officially made it through a summer season of sprint training. We just completed 3 months of 2 paddles a day, runs, lifts, circuits, and a paddler’s version of what can somewhat be recognized as “soccer.” This is what we do for practice in the event of thunderstorms. It’s just as competitive as any water workout, and it tends to be a hilarious sight for any bystander as they watch a bunch of upperbody-dominant athletes trying to play a foot sport. There tends to be a lot of hand-balls, and I trust any team of skilled 2nd graders would give us a good run.

Anyway, I feel stronger. In past summers, I’ve always committed months of tireless miles to surfski training, but this new sprint/flatwater training makes me feel more versatile, agile, efficient, and stronger as an all-types-of-water paddler. We take multiple sprint workouts and make large workloads for each day which builds both strength and endurance helping both sprint and marathon paddling. I’m hoping it will also help me make huge gains in my ski and I will soon find that out with surfski champs this weekend. I can’t wait to see the ocean!

We had national sprint championships this past weekend which allowed us to see how much our progress has hurt or helped us. I unfortunately felt tired and past my peak at these races. My times have gotten a bit slower than earlier this summer; this seems to be a crude awakening and tough lesson in over training. I think my body is still getting use to the intensity of this new life style, but even if the hard training didn’t benefit me for these nationals, I need to realize that my commitment from the past season will only help me grow stronger for the upcoming years. This sport requires long term commitment, long term gains, and long term planning. I’m patient.

Ahead for this fall, I am extremely excited that I have been awarded the opportunity to compete in Marathon Flatwater Worlds which will be in Singapore in October. I will be competing in a K2 with my partner Anne Blanchard. Marathon trials were last June in North Carolina. Together in our boat, we had an amazing first 18k; then with about 8k to go, one of our rudder cables broke. We finished the race the way most crazy, relentless marathon paddlers would in that situation: by rapping the rudder cable around the heel of a foot, and leaning the boat for buoy turns. It’s exciting how rudder trouble can completely take your mind of the little body aches during a race. It was really fun. Anyway, Marathon Worlds will be my first opportunity representing the USA in flatwater paddling. Our training from here through October will be more marathon focused.

We have about two weeks off now and a month off in the winter, but we are otherwise training year round. Bellow, I’ve attached a clip from a 15k time trial I did last week with two teammates (both of which will also be heading to marathon worlds). You can see me leading with my two teammates on either side of my wake, and our coach following us in a john-boat. I think trading off wake can be an extremely helpful part of training. We practice sprinting when we’re pulling and efficiently resting while on a wake. This will be a huge skill to gain for Singapore.