Importance of warming up

At competitions I don’t really like hanging around in my kayaking kit for too long before competing so usually leave it quite late before getting ready. Last weekend at the British Championships I strolled out of the changing rooms to see that my heat had already started. I started my runs without any warming up and managed to pull my carve muscle whilst finishing off a phonix monkey. At the time it felt like the worst cramp ever and I had to abort my run. Luckily I managed to get another run in and just made it through to the next round. It goes to show how much you actually use your legs in freestyle and I’ll make more of an effort to do some leg stretches next time. The next day the leg was fine for paddling and I finished the brit champs in 3rd behind pringle and ed smith.

A very windy hpp

World Championships - Thun, Switzerland

The worlds at Thun was a great experience but also pretty frustrating at times.

The area was well nice we were camping on the edge of lake thun and had views of the snow covered mountains in the distance despite it being really hot. The city was also nice with really pretty buildings etc. The wave and trying to get on it was the annoying part. The wave is set by adjusting the gates upstream to a certain setting whilst maintaining a steady level of the lake. First off it was tuned late which meant no wave until wednesday morning after being promised it Monday afternoon. The organisers claimed to know how to set the wave but through the training week it was really inconsistent sometimes completely greening out resulting in some countries having to abandon there training sessions. Each paddler was given 3 mins a day training on the wave which makes it hard to learn a new feature. So the only other option was to paddle outside of the team training slots which ran from 8am to 8pm. I got up at 4am to paddle one night and halfway through my sleep at 1am another night but even in the middle of the night when the city was completely dead the wave was packed and eddy queues lasted around 15mins so it was a nightmare.
In the end I finished 39th out of 110, initially I was a bit disappointed with this as I could have done better but in the world it’s a decent ranking.

Chertsey Summer

This summer is starting to feel really long. Hurley hasn’t bounced back to 2 gates once since it dropped to 1 early in April. The only paddling available round here has been the pourovers Boulters and Chertsey. Although, Chertsey has been on good form this year and at one point earlier in the summer I was willing to claim that I preferred paddling Chertsey in the warm to Hurley in the cold but two months later and I’m not so sure. It has been good practice for combo moves though and I’ve been playing about with a move I’ve not seen before that’s kind of a split monkey.

GB Team Selections

This weekend saw the GB Team selections take place at Hurley weir. Hurley was on a sweet green 3 gates which meant big wave moves like pan-ams and helix’s were going. I managed to make the top 5 which means I’m part of the British Team heading to Thun in Switzerland in the summer to complete in the world champs against the likes of EJ!

Full team: http://www.ukfreestyle.com/team.php

Me with a clean blunt (Photo: Emily Wall)

Somewhere Different - River Fowey

On Saturday with the Dart pretty low me and Will headed down to the River Fowey near Liskeard to try out a playspot that came highly recommended from Cornwall expert Denzil Pearce. As soon as we saw the river we were thinking it was going to be crap, as the river looked pretty small from the road. Whilst getting changed by neck seal ripped on my Cagdeck and Will realised he’d forgotten his lunch then the walk through the woods was a nightmare in partly bare feet - this trip was going to be the worst day ever. Once we got on the river though it was apparent there was quite a strong deep current and around the corner a large stream entered it. We got to the playspot and it looked quite nice but after a few flushy cartwheels I was undecided as to whether it was worth it. I started to get into it though and once I realised it was great for loops I was loving it. Apparently, its a lot sticker when its lower and when its higher which would make it excellent for learning new moves.

Early morning sessions at Hurley

Now I’m living up near Hurley I often get up early and have Hurley to myself before work. Getting changed is a bit of an effort and it usually takes me at least 10mins to get warmed up but once I’m into it it easily beats sitting in queues of an evening or at weekends. Last week I was up extra early so I took my video camera down. Here’s the footage:

British Championships 2008: Bronze (and a swim)

I’m happy to have taken 3rd place at this weekend’s British Champs. It didn’t start off that well though after I SWAM!!! in the prelims. Luckily it was on my last ride, my deck popped after landing a McNasty (most likely due to the power of it!), I noticed it had gone but went for a loop anyway. It wasn’t the greatest idea, I swam from the Muncher down to where the course re-enters the Trent (thanks to Chris Chapman for rescuing me). I qualified for the Semi’s (top 10) in 4th place. In the Semi’s my first ride was awful; I flushed after less than 10 seconds. The pressure was on my second ride but luckily I put in my best ride of the weekend to qualify for the final 5.

Results:
1st Ed Smith
2nd Alan Ward
3rd Me
4th Ben Brayfield
5th Jon Best

Below is a video of me doing a bit of practise before the competition.