::SPRING TRAINING 2009::

(photo credit: Fredrik the Fysio... L2R: Martin "I paddled in the 80's" Hunter, Anders "Latissimus Dorsi" Gustafsson, Kalle "345" Mikkonen, Adam "people in glass houses..." van Beaverdam, Eirik "I paddled in the 80's, too" Veras Larsen, and Mika "not the Calgary Flames' Goalie, or the massive finnish guy who won K1 in 1992" Hokajarvi)...

So I have been in Florida for some time now, about 4 weeks. After a record-low for kilometers in my kayak last fall, it has been a bit of a challenge getting back into on-water training, but I am finally starting to feel like myself again. As I have previously written, (I'm cheating here, cut-and-pasting from a previous blog, but it's MY blog, so I can do whatever I want, self-plagiarism included) getting back on the water after a few months of dryland off-season training is a process which requires a bit of patience, which is not my most glaring virtue. Reflecting back on the ease and finesse with which I pilot my small craft following a few thousand kilometres of preparation by mid-summer race season provides little consolation, as my blistered hands and sore back infantilize my "World Class Athlete" ego. As the kilometres pass under my boat, blisters mature to callouses and paddling my kayak feels increasingly natural, stringing strokes together like footsteps.

Humans did not evolve in kayaks; our bodies were not designed to paddle these skinny boats around for hours a day. It is for this reason that I am most thankful for the human body's ability to adapt when stressed with hard work. Bill Bowerman coached the University of Oregon Track and Field Team for the majority of the 20th century, including well-known middle distance runner Steve Prefontaine. He described this training process succinctly with four words; stress, rest, adapt, improve. It is the fourth word with which I am most fascinated.

The more I use my paddle to pull my boat forward, the tougher my hands will get, the stronger my back will become. The more my lungs extract oxygen from the air, the more my heart pumps blood around my body; the more the enzymes in my muscles turn carbs into energy, the better my body is prepared to race my kayak for Canada this summer. It's a demanding process, and one that I'm (thankfully) lovingly addicted to. We train for months and years and race for minutes and seconds, so enjoying and embracing the process is of prime importance.

As the good people of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia prepare to host the Canoe-Kayak World Championships this summer, the Canadian Canoe-Kayak team is preparing to compete on home turf upon the always-friendly yet often gusty little lake of Banook. Whatever the opposite of a raindance is, we should all learn one, and jig-away everyday until August.

A couple more weeks down here and it's home for a few weeks before skipping across the Atlantic Pond for Eurotour 09...
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