Race time!

The big days start tomorrow!

Thursday and Friday will be the days that decide who is the best Canadian kayak man to go to London to represent Canada at the 2012 Olympic Games.

Although the Olympics is not in my focus, I am still pretty nervous for the race.

I am feeling good on the water and off the water. I feel like the taper for the competition has been the best yet. I truly have not felt more physically ready for a competition before.

Now, that being said, just because my body is ready it does not mean my mind is.

The mere thought that the race that I have been working for since September is just in 30 hours is starting to frighten me. I am not worried for the actual race but I am definitely anxious for the outcome.

Not to mention, it will be pretty hard to actually focus for the race when I see friends and team mates racing for that opportunity at Olympic gold.

"Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records."
William Arthur Ward

Morning off

Today has been a fairly slow day.

I started off with drinking way too much coffee and hammering out 5 chapters of math. During the third cup of coffee I spilled the last third of it all over my book. I decided that was probably enough for a day.

I came back up to the room and slammed on some bengay for the shoulder then woke Andreas up because I was bored.

Now here we are, waiting for our 4 o'clock session to come around.

The day before when you find out you have the morning or the afternoon off, you are thrilled to hear it. Then, when it is actually happening you try to find anyway possible to make the time pass. especially when it's Easter Sunday and there is nothing to do.

Andi and I will probably end up watching two episodes of "Game of Thrones"

It was a bit of a rough morning for race sim yesterday. It was a tough course, and not very warm weather either. So it was a tough combination to try and lock in and focus.

None the less, we all managed through it and for those of us who paddled in the afternoon, ended up having a great session.

Anyway, I must get back to doing nothing.

Happy Easter everyone :)

Aj

Day...I'm not sure

Hey guys!

I just really wanted to share something that Andreas told me.

Tomorrow we are doing the notorious workout, race sim.

When I say notorious, it really isn't that bad. The only problem with it, is it so happens to be the one workout where I can never piece together two good runs.

The way a race sim works is the night before we prepare our pre-race meals (for me steak, and an easy salad) then we sleep and wake up the next day and go about our race routine. We get to the course, set the course, walk it, memorize it, warm up, then do one run. After this run, we do a short cool down paddle maybe, then run back up to Mike and receive feedback.

After the feedback we go over the course one thousand times then get back on the water etc.

So just 5 minutes ago, Andreas and I were talking about what time we need to wake up and so on, and I mentioned how I even get nervous for race sim workouts.

He then said this to me;

"It does not make sense to get nervous or anxious before a race. No one will ever remember your race. The race is for you only, so make sure you are most importantly having fun. This is the reason why you race, yeah?"

Add a German accent to that and you get the full effect.

I'm sure Mike has said this to me once, twice, maybe three times. But for some reason it might stick this time.

Anyway, have a goodnight :)

Aj

Charlotte North Carolina!

Hey everyone!

Charlotte ROCKS!

It is the most difficult, exciting, and awesome course I have paddled yet!

With the eddies and features changing constantly it makes it difficult to read what is going on at any given time.

This makes for sessions to be extremely exciting and unpredictable.

Other then that though, life off the water has been fairly relaxed. Finally meeting my roomie for the summer, Andreas, has been awesome. It should turn out to be a good summer.

My first session on the water, I felt a little shaky and nervous. With all the talk I'd heard of Charlotte, I made it out to be a beast that was unconquerable. What I have learned in the passed three days is that it is a beast but can be defeated. With patience, and proper technique, it is quite easy to navigate the water and get the moves down.

Unfortunately, Aj and patience don't get a long.

Today was my first full's session and I truly learned the power of the water. I struggled on the first run, blew out on the second, but managed to piece together the third, fourth and fifth runs.

It has been quite the learning experience so far but am looking forward to the race.

Well, other then that not much else to report!

Hope everyone is surviving the winter storm at home.

Hope all's well

Aj