A scot over the border....

It’s less than 3 weeks until the 2014 slalom season kicks off. I cannot wait to race!

The winter has gone better than I could expect. I have been continuously increasing the training sessions of each new block, with more sessions on the white water. My New coach, Neil Buckley, has been great at communicating with me day to day to maximise each session and anayle it to gain every ounce of potential.

This winter I have been working on 4 aims. Becoming a dynamic paddler was a main aim for me over the last few months. I told my coach that I wanted to paddle like Schubert (a German Kayak Man who won the Slalom World Cup 2013 series). So I spent the winter focusing on doing staggers on forward strokes than turning strokes to keep the speed on the boat. Controlling injury was a big one to manage. Over the summer I had problems with my nerves so I had a weakness in my right arm. To overcome this I had to manage my chimp (a technique I use with my psychologist from Dr Steve Peter’s book ‘The Chimp Paradox’) and to know that pain is always perceived worse than it is and know that I can bare it for the short period of a full run. At this moment in time, my body is in good shape and the injury has calmed down, I hardly acknowledge it training on the water and is has not been an issue the last couple of weeks. Holding inside pole on the up streams during training was where most of my time was given away. This was a big focus where I’d do up tech sessions once to even twice a week, until I was comfortable so close to the poles, and not hitting them. In January this focus was moved onto optimising these up streams, where I’d take them on as sweeps, reverses and one stroke rudders. The aim is to up in less than 2.5 seconds, which is the world class standard. All this would not have been achievable with committing 100% every time which was the main focus around the whole winter. I truly did give it my all; this would not have been achievable without your support. Travelling to Lea Valley, London, most weeks to train for selection and kitting up for the new season coming would not have been possible.

On another note, life in Nottingham is great: choosing to study Sport and Exercise Science at Nottingham Trent University. I have my first year exams at the end of May/June so plenty of time to study. In the meantime I have had in class assessments and some coursework. We did a Laboratory experiment on the Ingestion of beetroot juice and how it aids cycling performance by increasing time to exhaustion. It was very interesting as we actually got to do the study on participants within the year. Let’s just say the beetroot juice tasted like dirt but at least I achieved a Mid First in the Report and was top 4 in the year.

On the 15th and 16th February I raced at the Canoe Slalom BUCS 2014. It was a Different year, a different university (foreverNTU). I raced four classes over the weekend; it was a good laugh seeing all the universities there from novices to GB athletes racing together. On the Saturday I did 2 mixed team runs where I finished 1st and 3rd. This is where 3 boats go down the course at once. In the 3rd

place I was asked to do C2, this is where two people kneel in a boat with a single blade on each side. I’ll just let you know I have never paddle C2 on moving water never mind a team run. What a laugh it was but we got down without capsizing. On Sunday, where the sun decided to show, I had my individual K1W run, which I won against another GB team mate and also my individual C2 run, where we finished 2nd against a more experienced crew (also from our university). Overall, Nottingham Trent’s 7 man team won.