2011 season seems to be flying by… We have now raced all our pre world champs races and we are now left with 2 months of really hard training preparing for our attempt to qualify for the London Olympic Games, when we race off against the rest of the world at the world champs in Szeged this August.
We raced world cups 2 and 3 and we had mixed feelings about our results. We ended up coming 2nd in the B-final at the 2nd world cup in Racice and while we were very disappointed with the result we spent a lot of time analyzing where we were losing time on our main competition. We spend the following week trying to put our new lessons into practice. The 3rd world cup in Germany went a lot better for us and we felt as if we were racing well and competitive with all the other top crews. We made the A final and even though we had a shocker of a start in the final we had a solid race, coming 8th but not too far off the medals.
Since then we have been back home in Cape Town, training really hard and focusing very hard on perfecting absolutely every part of our race. While it has been a bit chilly, we have had pretty good weather most of the time allowing us to train at high level. We will be here for 4 more weeks before we head off to Szolnok in Hungary to do our final preparations in a hot climate, preparing our bodies for the heat in Szeged. For now its head down and focus on speed…
The pic above is of the sunrise that we are treated to every morning before training!
SA champs 2011 is now a thing of the past and I really pleased with how Mike and I raced our K2′s. Most people we suprised to see that Mike and I have swapped places in our boat, with Mike taking up the stroke position with me in the back. This was our first time ever racing like this so we were pretty excited to see how we went and we have definitely seen some good improvements. Our first race together was the 500m K2 which we won very comfortably in a time of 1:29,6 a full 3 seconds ahead of 2nd place. Our next race together was the 200m K2 which again went very well. We clocked 32,7 and finished 1,8 seconds clear of 2nd place. At this stage however times and winning margins are just numbers as our focus is on racing the best crews in the world. The biggest plus that we can take out of our racing at SA champs is that our new combination is working well and that our boat is running very smoothly. We will only be able to see whether the new max speeds that we are achieving now are competitive against the rest of the world in 2 weeks time when we race World Cup 2 in Czech.
In the K1 races, I only raced the 500m and 200m, but Nick Stubbs was in a league of his own. He won the 1000m very convincingly and in the 500m I got to feel just how well he is paddling. Nick and I broke well clear of the rest of the field and got to the final 100m’s neck and neck. Nick however controlled his raced perfectly and started pulling away in the final 50m with me coming in 2nd. The 200m K1 was a very tight race with Nick, Mike and myself. Nick suprised everyone here by matching Mike and my acceleration and top speed and true to his 1000m form he managed to keep his top speed up longer than Mike and I, edging Mike into 2nd and me into 3rd. We were all a second clear of the rest of the field. I am very stoked with how well Nick is paddling. Qualifying in the 1000m K1 is a very tough task, but it looks as if Nick is heading that way. I am very excited to see him race in the world cups. I think he might just continue to spring some suprises.
All in all it was a good weekend out for our little core team coached by Marcus. The 1000m, 500m and 200m K1 and K2 was won by Marcus’s athletes which is a good confidence booster for all of us, knowing that our training is going well and according to plan. The pic above was taken of our team after all our races.
2011 racing season is upon us. The sprinting season this year is starting about 2 weeks later than usual, which has just added to the excitement of actually getting on the water and seeing how fast we are going in an actual race. Mike and I are going well. We have been doing a few 200m K2 time trials which we are pretty happy with and once again excited to put all our training into practice in an actual race. On the 3rd and 4th of May we will race in our national selections followed by our national championships on the weekend after. We will have 1 week in South Africa after nationals before we head to Europe for the 2nd and 3rd world cups of the season. We will then head back to SA for a few weeks before heading to Europe a couple weeks before Worlds and the Olympic Qualifiers.
For the next week we will still be training hard as our focus is on achieving good results at the world cups, but as the weather starts to head into winter we are also very cautious not to over do it and get sick. At this stage of the season it is so important to find a good balance between training and rest.
Time seems to have just flown by and now its time for Ronny and the rest of the German team to head back home. We have had a great time training with them once again and I must admit, I would like them to stay for a little while longer so that we can continue to match ourselves up against some of the best in the world. Mike and I have definitely lifted our performances since training with Ronny last year which is very exciting. Mike and I normally train together everyday, so its hard to notice any improvements but having some other guys to train with gives you a good indication as to you current level of performance.
We have also spent a couple days in the lab at the Sports Science Institute testing our current levels of strength, speed and fitness. First up I did a 200m ergo test and I got a PB time which obviously made me happy. We also did a VO2 max test in which I got a fairly good score which was kind of suprising since our main focus on the water has been more on speed and power than endurance and finally we did bench press, bench pull and a core strength test, all of which I performed better in than this time last year, so I am pretty happy with how my off season has gone. I definitely feel as if I am in a good position to head into the racing season confident that every base has been covered over the last few months. We will start off our racing season in just 2 weeks time with Western Province champs.
For now we will just keep our heads down and keep putting in some solid training, leading up to our selection races in the beginning of May. Tim Brabants is now back in Cape Town so hopefully we can do some training sessions together (when he does his speed work and we do our endurance work).
I cannot believe that the German sprinters have come for a 3 week camp and gone already! We managed to fit in a good few sessions with Ronny and once again we learned a lot and enjoyed our time training with arguably the worlds best paddler, as he has proved over the last 12 years! The good news is that he is only going back to Berlin for 1 week before returning for another 3 week camp. This next training block will be focused a bit more on speed which will be really good for us as we will be able to match up and find out exactly how fast we are going at the moment. The last 3 weeks training was mainly endurance and strength based training.
Besides for training everything else is going really well. Mike and I held a technical coaching clinic at Peninsula Canoe club last weekend which turned out to be very popular and successful. It was great to be able to give back a bit and actually see the guys attending make some real improvements to their techniques. We will be hosting some more in the future which will be cool.
Well done to Andy Birkett and Ant Stott on an incredible race down the Dusi! While it was tough sitting in Cape Town following the race via twitter, I was really impressed with how both athletes slogged it out all the way to the end. I am also stoked for my mate Mike Mbanjwa for coming in 3rd. He had a disaster day 1 by his standards but managed to pick himself up and put a great day 2 and 3 together to hold on for 3rd.
As February starts to come to an end, the realisation that the racing season is almost upon us is starting to kick in. Approximately 1 more month and will be starting our first local races. Exciting year ahead!
