Hey folks,
This week I’m back training in Ottawa. Last week it was nice to get home and have some nice home cooked meals and be around the club and rest up a little bit for the race last weekend. Our second National Team Trials were being held in Montreal, and while I have already qualified for the team because of my Olympic Team nomination, I decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to tune up for next month. I went into the weekend with almost no stress, but still focused on having strong performances. The first day was the 1000m, which I haven’t been specifically training for the last month, but a race is a race and I wanted to give Tom Hall, Canada’s Olympic entry in the event, a good race. I had a great start and was ahead of Tom for the first three or four hundred metres, but then the wind really picked up for a bit and I couldn’t keep up the same pace. Tom certainly did keep it up, he got ahead and stayed ahead, racing very well and showing that he is in top form and ready for Beijing. I finished second and was happy with my race. A thousand metres can feel like a long way though when you’ve been training more for the five hundred, that’s for sure. The next day I got to race what I have been training for, so I put a little more focus on each race and tried to work on different things in the heats and semifinals. Tom had to bow out of the five hundred because of a sore shoulder, but I still had plenty of competition from the rest of a very deep Canadian Canoe Team. I felt pretty good in the race and made a good move around half way that put me in control of the race, but I still have to work on really nailing the start so that I can be amongst the leaders during the first half at the Olympics. The key for me will be to get out to a good start without wasting too much energy for the first half of the race, then digging deep and just giving ‘er for the second half. If I can do that I believe I will be in the hunt for a medal. I had to chance to chat with Richard Dalton, who raced C1 500 at the last Olympics, placing an impressive 6th place. He was telling me and Tom how much fun racing at the Olympics is and how the crowd will pull you through the last part of the race so don’t be afraid to go for it. It really got me excited not just to be going to the Olympics, but for the actual racing, and that excitement has helped in training this week.
I’ve been lucky to have Jamie Andison, Kyle Jeffrey and Ian Mortimer here to help me train this week. Even though they just finished Trials and usually would be taking some time off, they really stepped up for me and agreed to help me out. So thanks a lot to them, I couldn’t work as hard as I need to without them. Tomorrow we are doing 300m pieces, and they are proposing that I do a three hundred while they do a 3 x 100m relay against me. It should be fun, hopefully we can get some video of it and I’ll put it up on here.
Also, in case you’ve been living under a rock with internet access limited to canoe4canada.com, Adam van Koeverden has been nominated as the flag bearer for Canada at the Opening Ceremonies. Congratulations to him, it is well deserved and I know he will represent us all well.
Alright, that’s all for now, time to get to bed and rest up for tomorrow’s relay. Until next time, keep your paddle in the water.