The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights. – Muhammed Ali
With only 10 weeks to go till the World Champs my training is becoming even more focused and precise than ever before. As the quote by Muhammed Ali above points out, it’s the sweat and tears earned in the gym and out on the water that are happening now that matter the most. I’ve pretty much wound down my Photography and Design business to a low hum while I throw everything at my training and more so in the recent few weeks nutrition,mental training and recovery techniques. I’m really excited about the next 7 weeks I still have in NZ to really get the most out myself both physically and mentally.
Every year the White Water Canoe Club runs a freezing cold kayak race on the lower branches of the Waimakariri River known as the Brass Monkey Kayak Race. A 12km time trial in the middle of winter with what ever weather Mother Nature wants to throw at you is always an enticing concept. There are four races held over two weekends. With the level of training I’m doing at the moment I thought it would be a cool idea to test my ‘Polo’ fitness against the others who are training more specifically in longer race boats (approx 6 metres in length).
Brass Monkey Kayak Race. Photo by Kate Cambie
Thankfully Mother Nature was kind over the weekend and only blew up a slight easterly on Saturday’s race and produced a stunning warm winters morning on the Sunday. Having not paddled my race boat for some time it was exciting to get it out and onto the water again…and to clean off some of the dust it had been acquiring! Getting on the river was awesome, but it did take Saturday’s paddle for me to get my groove fully back into swing.
To put my Canoe Polo training verses this race into context…Canoe Polo is very much a strength/power/speed game. It’s short hard sprints, lots of turning and moving your kayak left, right and center. Our fitness sessions involve lots of short sharp sprints and turns and plenty of rest to remove the lactic from our muscles and a game only lasts for 20mins. Moving onto the river for a 12km time trial requires consistent speed and endurance, and you don’t get to rest! It’s 45mins of solid, lung busting paddling, no turning and definitely no resting. So I was intrigued to see how my training was going to play out in the race. Much as I thought I got to about 25mins and then really started to feel the burn both in the muscles and the lungs. It was such an amazing opportunity to put my mental skills into practise. When the burn really started to kick in I would start visualising myself playing in a final at the World Champs and feeling the burn, feeling exhausted but having to just keep pushing and pushing and pushing, knowing if I stop, or slow the pace down there’s a real possibility I could loose both in this race and in my visual game. It’s pressure like this that’s so hard to generate in training and by visualising myself in a Polo game I was able to use the pressure of a time trial kayak race to give me benefits for Canoe Polo. Plus I got awesome fitness benefits from pushing myself through and past that 25/30 min threshold at a super high intensity.
Coming over the finish line at the Brass Monkey
Results wise on day one I came in second just a mere 5 seconds behind Wendy Riach in a time of 45.56. Wendy’s a great paddler and off to compete in the Yukon 1000 next week. It’s a 1000 mile kayak race completed over a week! That’s some seriously long and fast paddling to be had. Good Luck Wendy!
Day two dawned much warmer and with a lot less head wind. I had my groove of the river back with me this time and I felt much stronger in the boat, albeit a little more fatigued from the day before’s race. Again I hit the pain barrier at the 25 minuteish mark and used visualisation to really make the most of the ‘hurt zone’ and build my mental skills for Canoe Polo. This time I again came in second, but this time I was 24 seconds behind World Adventure Racing Champion Sophie Hart and 26 seconds in front of Wendy in a time of 42.27. The river was rising slowly from rain in the hills hence why I was 3 and a half minutes quicker on day 2. Big thanks to Thule for the entry into the race and my little brother for driving for me both days! Super stars!
Well that’s another week of training under my belt. I’m feeling good and after today’s rest day I’ll be ready to dive into another big week starting on Tuesday! 7 weeks till we leave…BOOM let’s do this!
Au revoir
Liv x
