Selection, Exams, racing and road-trips...

After confirming my place on the team to race, on some amazing white water courses, it’s been all go; from selection and exams to racing and road trips. It’s turning out to be the best summer ever!!! By this, I mean, I have been given many opportunities to race within a sport I love, along with representing my country, learning more about myself, and progressing as a paddler on the world class circuits. I also passed first year of uni with a first (72% overall), which I am very happy about, as my exams were only a week after selection.

Glamping (1)

London Demos

GB Team Opening Ceremony

Scottish squad augsburg

Sea Kayaking west coast of scotland.

Lea Valley World Cup:

The day after my last exam I packed my bags and headed home for a few days of downtime, before a busy summer. Last year I was a demo boat at the Cardiff World cup, this year I got one even better, to demo the race course on the Lee Valley London Olympic Course. This was such a thrilling experience for me. Although I get to train on it as much as I want to and British Selection has been held on it for the last 4 years, I still find it such an exciting course to paddle on. It truly is one of the best courses in the world. Along with d

emo boating, I helped out for the whole week setting up tam tents and putting the gates out, it makes you appreciate even more the time and effort what goes into these events to make them as spectacular as they are. Being a part of the action behind the scenes gave me an insight to how much hard work goes into hosting such crowd pleasing events.

Tacen World Cup:From London it was a change of hotel (Sunday) and a 3am start (Monday), hopping on the plane to hopping off it, straight into the boat and down the second biggest drop in canoe slalom on.( It really did happen all that fast too!!!) When we arrived at the hotel after the session I hit the pillow and had a 2 hour sleep (too long to be considered a power nap). Tacen is a tricky site as your race could be over by gate two if you get a bad surge down the drop. Watching the top boats experience the waters force, reinforced, that canoe slalom is a very unpredictable sport and mistakes are inevitable. Unfortunately I never qualified into the semi-finals as I too was swept away on my second run. My first run was quick enough, but not clean enough. I picked up silly touches and caught up the girl in front of , on both my runs. This was something new to me, so now I have a new skill in the bank: concentrating on my run and not getting distracted if/when I catch up the paddler in front. I also experienced the night parallel slalom that took place in the heart of Ljubljana; why not take it all in while I can. My coach said it was important to enjoy the sport too, so two days before racing we took a drive into the city and raced head to head with fellow paddlers from other nations. It was a great meet.Europeans:This year I took the Europeans as a great opportunity to apply the skills and Psychological points I've taken on board, mostly, since selection. It has been one of the best trips I have been on. I really felt like I was a part of the team and belonged there. What a championships!!! I cannot express how much I enjoyed it and took every bit of new information in. I used my support team to the absolute max and the outcome showed it: I MADE THE FINAL!!! Let me start by being honest, I flew to Skopje feeling I had to prove myself, as a paddler, (since I officially wasn’t in the top 3 British boats. That was quickly sorted with a chat to my coach of my progression and other people’s comments of my passion and commitment to the sport. With a good mind-set I hit training hard and had some of my best sessions, mentally and technically, out there. I learned a lot by watching others, and reflected too from Tacen that mistakes are going to happen in such a sport. So when racing started I was in a good place, I was solely focused and ready to do my best. This involved: 1. Putting a good plan together. 2. Committing 100% to the plan. 3. Enjoy it! I placed 6th in both qualification and semi’s which put a massive smile on my face, not only because I had made the final but because I had just loved every minute of the racing and had stuck by my values. Unfortunately my final run was actually my slowest and I was given a 50 second penalty by the judges, whom neither I nor the coaches agreed with, (the protest was rejected). This placed me 9th in the final, but it portrays that in the final anything can happen, it’s where you try to push yourself that little bit extra. At the end of the championship my coach asked me to email him with two learning points and three positives from the championship. I found this quite hard as I had had such a good week of training and racing. I found myself admitting and accepting that it was a successful 12 days in Skopje. It is often hard for an athlete to praise themselves without feeling or sounding arrogant; to me in means I have gained faith and trust in my ability as a paddler. In the end I managed three points. Learning point: I control my happiness. This was and is my main psychological control at the moment. When I am happy, I can be me and enjoy my paddling and life outside paddling, but this has often been difficult lately with my mum not being well. I have learned that this does not mean I should be upset to be away, that knowing I am happy and doing the things I love will make her happy in return. Positive points: The way I conducted myself overall. Recently I have been working on self-awareness. I can get quite excitable sometimes (on too high a level) and have been trying to bring it down to a good level, ‘happy Alice’. This does not mean I am taking happiness away, but going to a happy place where I can get the most out of what I am doing at that moment in time. Who wouldn’t get overly excited at the prospect of paddling down rapids in an 8kg carbon boat!? Another point was; having the confidence to go to the right people for guidance. As I have grown and developed in the year I have been living in Nottingham I have learnt a lot about myself and how to use my resources. To create the best team environment and image of GB Canoe Slalom we follow the three P’s: Professionalism, precision and pride. I now have the confidence to live by my values and show the three P’s of GB Canoe Slalom in my actions. Prague training:What a place!! We couldn’t have had a more perfect week of training: convenient accommodation (above the boat store), a Tesco extra just a few miles away and not a single drop of rain. You don’t question why some of the top athletes have been produced here. With sun shining from 6am-9pm, you have the whole day to paddle and explore. Paddling on this course is so valuable to learning and applying the skills of the sport. It’s an exciting course where you have options to be snappy and explosive, but also practice making the boat flow with the water through the staggers. There was no doubt we were sad to leave such a productive course, but we were headed to Augsburg, another classic. Augsburg training and coaching:I can’t quite emphasise the difference between Prague and Augsburg: from Prague’s flow to Augsburg’s challenging swirls. Until you learn to use the water to your advantage Augsburg can be quite frustrating the first session or two. You have to think ahead and watch the water, to constantly adapt, but also keep your plan in mind. I was also helping coach some Scottish Juniors whilst we were based here. I have previously been on a training camp on the course 4-5 years ago and let’s just say it was hard to feel comfortable on it, but it was great to see the enthusiasm the juniors had at firing themselves on down.

I am now catching up on the commonwealth games, and have been screaming at my computer screen, especially watching Eilidh Child win her silver medal (along with singing along to the proclaimers famous song, I will walk 500 miles).In the weeks to come I will be having some downtime at home until it’s off on a second road trip of training to Augsburg, Prague and competing in Bratislava!