Nick Stubbs

2011-08-20T14:05:00.001-07:00

1 Day to go

2011-08-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

Today was the last day where I would be getting into my boat for a training session before racing begins. Everything kicks off with the opening ceremony tonight then tomorrow its D-Day. For me this season has probably been the most complete, and fulfilling season. Three overseas tours in 8 months, no sickness and no time off due to injury so technically I am going into this regatta better prepared then ever! By the end of tomorrow I will be able to tell if it has ended as successfully as it began. The all important semi final, where I will need to place in the top 2 to make it into the A final. A final means Olympic Qualification. There are a few people who I must thank before tomorrow, who have been part of my support team and have delivered me here in the best possible shape.

Canoeing South Africa and SASCOC - The funding they have invested in me over the last few years (CSA) and this year (SASCOC) is astonishing and without it there is no way I would be doing this.

Coach Marcus - The best coach in the country in my eyes. The proof is in the pudding, Marcus has the top 3 athletes in the country under his wing and its a privilege to be part of his team. In the last 3 years he has taken me from being a half decent river paddler and turned me into a World Class sprinter, well done coach.

Garth Oliver - Bongo from EAP Active is one of two people who I will let touch my body (in a non dodgy, completely professional way). His physio treatments have kept my back in check and have allowed me to train as hard as I have this year. Best physio in Natal, without a doubt.

Julia Thomas - (The other person!) Jigs has been my physio whilst in Cape Town and on tour and has done as good a job as Bongo in keeping my body on top form during the rigours of overseas training and racing. As a team we would be at a loss without her.

Alex Joiner and the team at Sports Science - Bokkie has been monitoring us for the last few years and has done a great job in terms of sports science and the advice he gives Marcus. Without this scientific approach that we have adopted I don't think I would be in the same form as I am in now.

Greg van Heerden - Our High Performance Coordinator and manager whilst on tour. Greg runs around us needy, spoilt athletes on a daily basis and still seems to like us!

Garth Halgreen - My biokinetisist based down in Durban. For the last 2 years he has been helping to get my core strength up. It has been a pleasure driving down to Durbs on Thursdays for our core training sessions, well worth the effort.

Mr Price - The support I get for Mr Price is awesome. This sport doesn't attract much media coverage so for them to have invested in me was a huge gamble, I hope it has paid off. It has been a pleasure being associated with one of the biggest and most recognised brands in SA.

Timber 24 - Andrew Nicholson possibly the most generous person I know.

PVM - The supplements I have been using this year have definitely made all the difference. No failed drug tests, energy during sessions, optimal recovery after sessions. Quality, quality products.

My Folks - For letting me live on the farm and come and go as I please. Unquestionable support that has allowed me to keep being a professional athlete in a minority sport for the last couple years.

I hope I haven't left anyone off this list, if I have and you have been a pert of this team, thank you. You have all gotten me this far. Tomorrow its time for me to do my job.

I will keep my twitter and facebook profiles updated on how things go tomorrow. Keep an eye on those or go to the competition page on this blog and click on the link for Szeged2011 for results.

My race schedule:

Thurs (K1 1000) - heat 9:30, semi 14:30 - 15:00

Fri (K1 1000) - finals start 15:30

Sat 17:20 (K1 200 relay heat)

Sun 14:50 (K1 200 relay final)

Ciao for now.

Skills I want

2011-08-16T11:38:00.000-07:00

All of you who complain about my driving.......its not my fault, I'm just trying to be like Mr Block......

Watch this in HD, its worth the wait.

Some Danny Macaskill Magic

2011-08-16T08:49:00.000-07:00

Szeged Arrival, 3 days to go.

2011-08-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

The excitement levels just jumped up notch!! Today we drove from Szolnok, which has been our base for the last 3 weeks, to Szeged, which is going to be the stage for World Champs 2011. It's so good to finally be here and have the final race in sight. It has helped a lot with my motivation and personal mental status. Being here and seeing how awesome the set-up at the course is has definitely made me more eager to get out there and race. Below are a whole bunch of photos I took on the course this arvo. We left the course at 7 this evening and it was still 32degrees!! Loving summer!!

As soon as we arrived it was off to the Nelo truck to grab some spares and tweek our boats.

The view from the Nelo truck looking up the course. The big grand stand seating has been put there just for this event.

Mike and Marcus crossing in front of the big screen frame.

Szeged 2011

My view from the start of the 1000m.

My view from the 500m.

At the 200m to go this is what I will have on my right all the way to the finish line. Thousands of sun-crazed, drunk Hungarians plus Stubbs family screaming encouragement.

Representing

Happy to be here after 11months of non stop preparation.

2011-08-13T12:47:00.001-07:00

The 'loiter whilst eating pumpkin seeds and drinking beer' technique. Perfected by many Hungarian youths.....

Race Practice Day

2011-08-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

Woke up feeling a bit better this morning, which was a good thing as Marcus had a sneaky race session lined up for me. Session went quite well, he had wanted me to race each of the 750m races in a specific way. The first one as if it was a shortned version of my 1000m race plan. For the second one I would take the average speed of the first on and try maintain that speed the whole way, which would give me a flat speed curve. Then the 3rd one he wanted me to negative split. I managed to do all of that. I had to fight off some waves from other boats and coaches on the water which was a bit irritating but otherwise it was a good session. Mike took the pics of me during the session.

Just had a light gym session this arvo. Good to get the muscles going again in the gym. Other than that not much to report on. My folks and my sister and her boyfriend are coming to watch Worlds. Will be great to have them there for support, especially at Szeged, the crowd is going to be huge, more people than a full Kings Park!!

Wednesday......

2011-08-10T12:55:00.000-07:00

So last night I started a new nasal spray. Just a little decongestant because my sinuses tend to get quite blocked up and stuffy at night which leads to a blocked nose at the morning training sesh. Spray worked really well, after 5 minutes I could feel my sinuses clearing, was amazing. What wasn't so amazing was the drugged up feeling I had this morning when I woke up, which still hasn't left me. So my training this morning was good, but this arvo I was forced to have a rest. I was meant to do a race session so that's been put on hold till tomorrow morning.

Today the K2 200m Aussie boys had their race off. Steve and Jesse managed to win both races so they have secured their spot at Worlds. The racing was closely contested with Joel and Matt racing really well. Just been on a sweet little bike ride with the above four guys to grab some delish ice cream after dinner. This place is crawling with ice cream vendors but it seems like the one these guys have found is a gem. Will definitely be going back soon.

Timetrial Tuesday

2011-08-09T12:07:00.000-07:00

Good day today. Can see my tan coming along nicely. Think its now safe to return the bottle of spray-on tan I bought as an emergency measure in case the sun didn't come out and there would be a chance of me returning to SA all pasty as if summer in Europe had never happened!! On a more serious note, did some race practice this morning. Coach got the GPS out and Julia played camera woman! Was very interesting to look at my speeds, stroke rate and stroke profiles. Wasn't feeling quite Olympic this morning but form is still on the rise so I'm happy.

This arvo we had a nice easy session to flush out the morning's effort. Beaut evening again. The Aussie 200m K2 crews have a race-off for the World Champs spot tomorrow. Looks set to be a cracker showdown. If you want to read about the crews and the race then search for the 'K2 fight to the death' event on Facebook, very funny!! Also check out the SA Sprinters page, uploaded a video earlier.

Mike and Ruby doing some race practice. Had some time to do some editing hence the photoshopped image!

2011-08-09T06:10:00.001-07:00

2011-08-09T06:06:00.001-07:00

Steve, Jesse, Ruby and Mike on one of our after dinner walks.

Monday

2011-08-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

Good training day today. Started off with a couple intervals with the Aussie guys. Session was 5x4min, 5x2min, all at an easyish pace with 2 min rests. Once those were done we turned around for some washleads. Groups of four, each pulling for 3 mins. Quite a fun way to end the session off, everyone gives it a good go at the front so even when you sitting on the wave you paddling pretty hard. That was early on so I headed back to the hotel for some food. Had a good session with Julia after chow. She has been fantastic when it comes to keeping our bodies on one piece. Lunch then some more time chilling and watching TV. Watched 'The Cove' this arvo. Incredibly disturbing and disappointing to see how the Japanese people are slaughtering dolphins, not cool!! Had a short session on the water this evening with some resistance on. The weather has been cooperating so it has been awesome getting onto the water at 5pm and its still 30degrees.

During one of our afternoon sessions last week.

Pre Worlds training camp.

2011-08-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

I owe those of you who have been using this blog as a means of following my progress whilst overseas an apology. This is my first post since I've been here in Szolnok and its already been two weeks. The thing is, whilst we are here on training camps nothing that interesting or out of the ordinary happens. Wake up, train, breakfast, chill, lunch, chill, train, chill, dinner, sleep!! That's it!! Training has been really good, I've been lucky enough to have a choice between training with an Olympic champ in the form of Ken Wallace and World Champ Anders Gustafsson or doing my own thing. So most of the time I choose to train with them and the rest of the Aussie 1000m squad, and when I get tired of trying to keep up with them I just go and do a recovery session on my own. Fantastic!! So far my form on the water seems to be getting better each day. My speed is really good so I'm hoping that I will be able to keep it up for a whole 1000m. On the chilling front, I've read my way through two books and watched countless episodes of TV series and a couple movies. Luckily the rest of the Aussie team arrived at the beginning of this week so I've been spending time with mates from Perth and cruising around town as a change of scenery.

This week I promise to do a short post at the end of each day. Il try to get some pics up but the internet has been on a go-slow since the 30odd Australians arrived and took over. Otherwise you can go to the SA Sprinters facebook page to check out whats been going on.

Lekker slaap.

Ciao

For Chappy

2011-07-05T01:28:00.000-07:00

Its drawing closer and closer. I think everyone can feel the urgency as World Champs is approaching....Questions as to whether or not we will be fast enough to qualify for Olympic Games, which crews have the best chance, other options in case it doesn't all go according to plan. The emotions athletes have to deal with. We're all apparently living the dream, however when the pressure begins to mount and doubt sets in is seems more like a bad dream. The best part is when you can forget about it all and just get back to doing your job. Training hard, so that when it does arrive, you're going as fast as possible.

The last few weeks, as you may have gathered have been a little complicated. I got home after a reasonably successful World Cups tour, had a week off and then got back into the swing of training. This phase was going to be the hardest training I've done all season. Motivation levels have been way up compared to this time last year and I've been enjoying the increased intensity of the sessions. A slight curve ball was thrown into the equation week before last when I was asked to attend a K4 training/selection camp. The thinking behind the camp was to initiate me into the boat to try and make a combination that could perform to qualifying standards. For me it could allow me a back up plan in case my K1 didn't go well and from a training point of view it would give me a few high intensity and high stroke rate sessions that would benefit my K1. I approached it quite sceptically as my view on K4, contrary to others, is that it's NOT the easiest way of qualifying a boat for Olympics. Many fail to understand the intricacies of combining 4 people to produce a boat that is fast enough, especially with a time limit of two months. Most of the top crews overseas have been together for a few years and have hailed from a K4 culture. Nonetheless I gave all the combinations a good shot and we felt good together. Unfortunately 'good' didn't translate into 'fast' so Marcus and I made the decision to focus solely on my K1 for now. It was great to do some K4 again and mix things up. Training in my K1 all the time can get stale so opportunities like this are always fun, its just sad it couldn't go any further. The federation is still going to send a K4 to Worlds and hopefully they will be able to pull of a good performance. One of the things that's been helping with my higher than normal motivation levels is having someone to train with. I've been spending a lot of time down in Umhlanga, staying and training with Matt Bouman. He's going well at the moment, having come a long way from being a ski paddler to transforming himself back into a sprinter in only 6 months. I now have a training partner who can push me all the time, being uber competitive makes mate a formidable training partner, I just have to ignore all the comments he makes about eyeing out my K1 spot!! We've been training down at La Mercy lagoon which is a welcome relief to the cold at Midmar. The dam has been making me into a real man lately, temps of between 4,5 and 7 degrees are the norm. La Mercy comes in at a cooking 12-14 degrees in the morning....bliss!! This Saturday we start our first set of race pace 1000m sessions down at Nagle. Will be good to race a bit, even if its against the same people I train with. Its always good to push yourself as if in a race situation. Anyone is welcome to come down and race with us. That's it for now.

Happy training and don't forget to drink milk, it makes you strong.

Ciao

Love Milk

2011-07-04T23:01:00.000-07:00

I have recently been thinking that I need to invest more into my future, my future as a dairy farmer that is. Spending time with Matthew Bouman, training partner and milk drinking king has made me realise that milk is a poorly marketed product; it is also an inelastic product, meaning that the demand for it doesn’t ever change. This means that in times of surplus production farmers have to deal with less than fair prices for their milk instead of the consumer being convinced to buy more milk and milk based products. Many people believe that milk is bad for them, their reasoning based on the fact that humans are the only mammals who consume milk once past their infancy. To those of you who fall into that category, take a look at Mr Bouman, he consumes 2-3 litres of milk per day!! It’s a delicious product that is also highly nutritious, sure, some of you might be lactose intolerant, which is unfortunate for you, because let’s be honest here, who wants to drink soya milk? So what I’ve done is create a logo, which is more of a statement that encourages people to support milk and the dairy industry in general. Another paddler, Jason Graham did a similar thing a few years ago where he had his boat and car branded with ‘milk’ stickers but since then it’s kind of fizzled out. The goal is to have all dairy farmers and milk lovers put the sticker on their cars and let the public know that they love milk.

So that’s what it looks like. If anyone would like a sticker they can get in touch with me and I will hook them up!! Love Milk!!

World Cups Tour: World Cup 3 Race Report

2011-06-09T05:35:00.000-07:00

The last week of our brief Euro tour went nicely as most of the team experienced better results at the 3^rd and final World Cup. It was nice to arrive in a new town. Duisburg isn’t the most exciting German town but there was a small shopping area that most of us made use of. Leading up to racing the course was pretty windy and cold so sessions were quite short and a lot of time was spent inside relaxing.

Heat: Almost a big bugger up. During my warm-up my seat was feeling too close to my feet so I was feeling squashed in my boat. I decided to ignore it and thought that it might be because I was paddling with a splashy on. When I got back onto the water later to head up to the start of my race I decided that it definitely was too close but by then I only had 4 mins to my start and I still needed to finish my warm up. Without realising I had paddled 500m away from the start line and now I only had 2 minutes to go, everyone was already moving up to the start blocks. I just made the start but it had taken a bit of an effort to get there in time. My heat was terrible, no feeling, powerless and uncomfortable. I just managed to get through to the semis so it was okay, but the first thing I did was to move my seat back.

Semi: This went much better, no almost missed start and a comfortable boat setup. I changed my race strategy slightly, something I was really glad I did. I ended up 4^th, probably my most satisfying race all tour.

B Final: My B final was pretty similar to the semi. Good start, eased into a nice solid rhythm and then picked it up with 400m to go. First and second were a little ahead at the finish but the fight for 3^rd came down to 4 of us who all ended up within a second of each other. I got 4^th, my best 1000m K1 result overseas so far.

To end the regatta off Mike, Ruby, Greggles and I raced in the 4x200m K1 relay. Such, such fun. In the heat we came 2^nd so we knew we had a chance of a podium place in the A final. In the final it was Ruby who went off first. I think he finished his leg close to all the top guys but when Mike started his start block dropped down and then popped back up again and held him back a bit. He managed to haul his boat over the gate and head down towards me. His 200m is really quick at the moment. I headed off 3^rd and into the wind and waves. I now had some catching up to do which was nice motivation to go as fast as I could for all 200m. I think by now we were in 3^rd. Greg went last and had the big task of finishing for us. There were 4 teams all right together gunning for the last podium place. We just missed out but got 5^th for our efforts. If Mike had had a clean start then perhaps we could have medalled?

The next 2 and a half months are really important. There is so much work to do to get my times down enough for me to have a realistic chance of qualifying. So it’s time to get down to work and focus solely on paddling until the end of August. After getting back from Europe I had a week of no training, a very welcome break. This week has been an easier training week, just easing the body back into the swing of training. I’ve come down to Durban to escape the chilly midlands and to do some training with Matt Bouman. Life down here is good!!

World Champs Inspiration

2011-05-26T09:41:00.000-07:00

World Cups Tour: World Cup 2 Regatta Report

2011-05-23T14:51:00.000-07:00

What a day! I’ve just sat down in Prague airport after a day of cruising around the beautiful city. It’s time again to sit and wait for another flight. This time we’re off to Duisburg for the 3^rd and final World Cup.

This past weekend was the 2^nd World Cup in Racice. After a successful SA Champs I was hoping to have a good weekend of racing. Position wise it wasn’t, time and feeling wise I was happy.

Heat: In my heat I had a few big names, nothing to worry about because I only needed to be in the top 6 to go through to the semi final. I led the race nearly all the way. After a great start I felt nice and solid and fairly easy all the way to the 600m mark. I slowed down a little just before the 500m and gave the lead away. After a small ‘up’ at the 500 I got the boat going again but by the 800m I was starting to tire so I didn’t push the last section as hard as I could have. In the last 200m 3 guys came past and I ended up in 4^th. I managed 3:35 quite comfortably so my expectations for the semi were quite high.

Semi: My semi was loaded with really good paddlers so it was always going to be tough. I decided before that I would change my race strategy a little, but from the start I wasn’t feeling as good as I did in the heat. My times to the 250m and 500m were almost the same but the effort was greater. I lost a few metres on 3 of the boats in the first half so I had to dig deep for the last 500m. I came back a little but I just wasn’t fast enough. I came over the line in 5^th, a couple split seconds behind Tim Brabants. My time was the same as my heat due to a slight head wind that picked up after 500m. I just missed making a B final so I was pretty disappointed. The standard of racing is insanely high this year, everyone just keeps getting faster and faster so there’s lots of work to do.

C Final: I decided I would start hard and try to keep the tempo up for as long as possible for this race. It worked for a while until my arms and hands started to seize up in the cold air. I led the race almost all the way until I was passed with 100m to go. I held off one other surge from a German boat to come in 2^nd in a pretty slow time.

Duisburg is next and I’m expecting the standard to be even higher. It’s been a weekend of mixed emotions. On one hand I’m feeling good in the boat and I’m doing OK times compared to last year, so I’ve definitely progressed but on the other hand I can see how fast the other guys are and how fast I need to be to be able to make that illusive A final. Worlds are getting close and the pressure is building. So we’ll see. I’m trying to forget about the task and just focus on getting fit and fast.

It was great getting to see parts of Czech. The area where we were racing was really pretty. On the drive to Prague this morning we drove through some stunning countryside. Prague didn’t disappoint either, very, very beautiful buildings and architecture. We managed to find some parking close to the city square, which was crawling with tourists. From there we walked across the city to the ‘Old Town’ and then rushed back to reload our parking tickets. I then took Mike and Shaun to the Cezka Zbrojovka gun shop down the road. It was packed with amazing firearms and hunting equipment. Ruby had some interesting questions for the guy that was showing us the guns, he seemed to handle them fairly well until he pulled out a target shooting hand gun. After Ruby asked him what it was and replied with an, ‘Awww, I want to see one for shooting people not targets’ the gun was put away and we decided it was time to leave!!

One more week in Europe. Hopefully we don’t get stuck here because of the volcano playing up again. I’ll report again in a few days.

Ciao

World Cups Tour: Czech pre regatta post.

2011-05-19T06:48:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday the new, relatively small South African Sprint Kayak team departed for Racice, Czech Republic. Travelling went well, I managed to get a whole row of seats, including an emergency exit seat with full leg room, on a choca-block flight, sweet!! I managed a few hours of sleep so I arrived in Frankfurt airport relatively happy. We sat around there for 5hours waiting for our connecting flight to Prague where the team would hook up with their bus and where Mike, Shaun, Marcus and I would collect our hire car and drive for around an hour to Racice where the second Sprint World Cup is being held this weekend.

The course looks great. Racice looks like it’s a sort of industrial/agricultural area, lots of beautiful farmlands and then a couple clusters of factories and timber mills. So surrounding the course are pretty forests and fields of wheat and canola. It’s a really nice setting. It was quite chilly when we arrived but yesterday the clouds moved off and the sun came out and since then it’s been nice and warm. Cam Schoeman decided to come over and do some racing so that he could gain some experience, he asked me if he could be my training partner whilst here so I obviously jumped at the chance to have some company on the water. Over the last 3 days we’ve been spending time on the water getting used to our boats and how the course feels and so far I’m feeling quite nice. Nelo have hooked me up with a boat that’s identical to my boat at home, so there isn’t really any getting used to anything, it’s just get in and go! Thanks to Nelo for the amazing support they provide us with at these regattas. I did my first race-pace session this morning since SA Champs and it took so time getting adjusted to the higher pace that I’m going to be racing at. I woke up on the first morning here with a slight shoulder niggle so I had to get Julia the team physio to fix me up. My back has also been niggling me a little, but I’m strapped up now so should hopefully be strong for tomorrow.

The hotel we’re staying at hasn’t had internet, well it has internet but it’s very temperamental, so it’s forcing us to get out of the place and do some exploring. A few of us ventured to a nearby town yesterday call Melnik. Managed to sneak in a few cappuccinos before I start to get withdrawals so I was stoked. There is a really pretty river that flows through a few of these towns and some of them have little churches up on hills overlooking the river and the flat farmlands below, it makes for some really picturesque views.

Tomorrow I race at 9:45 in heat 1 and my semi final will be later in the day around 2ish. Will keep all posted on twitter. All that’s left to do now is get my boat weighed and then I'll be set. It seems as if there a couple of the top dogs missing from this regatta so I’m interested to see how the results end up. Hopefully I will be able to continue my good form at SA’s through to these two World Cups. Will keep all posted.

Ciao

SA Champs Race Report

2011-05-10T10:42:00.000-07:00

This past week was quite a busy one in terms of racing. I had SA Champs all weekend, but before I could get going with that I had to race for my spot in the SA team at the SA trial on Tuesday and Wednesday. It was a really successful weeks racing for me, and for the squad that I’m a part of as a whole.

The week’s results:

SA trial - 1000m K1 1^st

SA Champs – 1000m K1 1^st

1000m K2 1^st

500m K1 1^st

500m K2 3^rd

200m K1 1^st

200m K2 2^nd

200m K4 1^st

Senior Victor Ladorum

Going into the weeks racing I was feeling quite good, training over the last few months has been more solid than ever before so I was excited to see how I would be going. The Cape Town training camp that I had just been on had been great, getting to do a few sessions with Tim Brabants and of course Mike, Shaun and Matt had been a huge help as its not often that I get to train with guys who push me as much as they were. At the trial I was trying out a new race plan. It worked in getting me to the finish line first but I wasn’t too happy with my times in the heat and final, and with the way I was dying towards the end, so when 1000m race day at SA Champs arrived I decided to things a little differently. The changes made a huge difference as I was much stronger in the last 200m of my race, and I managed to post a time that was around 3,5seconds faster. Matt Bouman and I then jumped into a K2 together to race the 1000m K2. It was only the 2^nd time Matt and I had ever paddled together so we weren’t expecting anything special. We would be racing against Cam Schoeman and Len Jenkins who had been training together for a couple weeks already. This was probably my most enjoyable race over the weekend, not because it was easy but because it was a nail biting race all the way to the line that had both crews pushing to the max. We led the race to about the 400m mark, we then let Cam and Len take around a boat length out of us till the 650m. We then started to pick the pace up and slowly reeled them in. By 200m to go it was neck and neck and by the finish line Matt and I had managed to get about a metre or so on them!!

On Saturday I raced the 500’s. I had a perfect race and managed to sneak past Shaun (Rubenstein) in the last 50 or so metres. The K2 500 with Matt wasn’t as good as our 1000m. Shaun and Mike Arthur made us look like a bunch of weekend warriors. Their K2 is looking incredible at the moment. The amount of speed they generate is unbelievable, so trying to keep up with them is almost impossible. I’m super excited to see how they go overseas this season, especially with their new combination of Mike sitting in front, I'm sure they going to turn some heads. Sunday – the pancake eating day according to Cam. I think I agree with him, this is the fun day for us 1000m boys. It’s nice to arrive at the dam with no pressure, having done all our racing for the weekend the 200’s give us the chance to have some fun and not take things so seriously. Some how I managed to beat Mike and Shaun in the K1 200, I’m still puzzling!! I had a perfect race by my standards. I don’t ever practice starts because of my dodgy back so when I manage to only lose around 3m on Shaun in the first 70m I’m more than happy. From there I was able to keep my speed up and not die. I think my lunge at the end just got me in front of Mike. Think I’ll keep watching Ronnie videos!! The man from Cradock, Mr Ryan Louw himself, fresh from a broken wrist and bout of Glandular fever would be my partner for the 200m K2. First time in a boat together and we managed to hold on for silver. Ruby and Mike made us look like a bunch of beginners again. In 200m they put around 2 seconds on us which is huge. Look out Europe, they’re coming!! To end the weekends racing off Mike, Ruby, Ryan and I jumped into the long boat for the K4 200m. Amongst confusing start calls and a stroke rate that would match an F1 engines RPM we got the win, 200m of water going everywhere and me trying to keep up with Mikes crazy fast stroke rate must have looked pretty funny from the bank! Big thanks and well done to Coach Melck. The proof is in the pudding and his results are pretty sweet. 7 Golds, 3 Silvers and 2 Bronze.

On Sunday the team is off to race World Cup 2 and 3, first week is in Racice, Czech Republic and then one week in Duisburg, Germany. I’m looking forward to heading to some new places and most of all seeing how I’m going in the International racing scene.

Will keep all updated.

Ciao

Welcoming Winter, Cape Town Style.

2011-04-19T13:56:00.001-07:00

Its 10:30 and for the first time in a few weeks I'm having trouble falling asleep. Its way past my bedtime and so instead of stressing about it I've decided to be productive and write down some of my long overdue news. I think the sleep trouble may be a combination of excessive consumption of good quality red meat at Hudson's burger joint in town and the 8:00pm ridiculously strong cappuccino, school boy error!

Once again I've left my blog posting for when I'm in Cape Town. I guess its ok though seeing that I'm in the mood these days to use my brain a bit more. The next few weeks are going to see us starting to fine tune all our training for the trial, SA champs and then the World Cups tour in May. Things have been going well so far this year. I had a great few months of really solid training in Aus and when I got home. I needed two weeks of easier training a few weeks ago to let my body catch up. I put on a fair amount of 'Christmas spread' over the festive season, and over the last 3 months have managed to go from 103kg's of quivering passion to 94kg's of lean athlete! Marcus recons I'm in the best condition of my life so I'm going to take his word for it and hope that it translates into some good performances over the next 4 and a bit months. There was a small distraction two weeks ago in the form of the Mr Price Karkloof MTB festival. It was a busy, busy time that saw a bunch of us locals getting out there and preparing MTB routes for people around the country to come and enjoy. Things went really well and as far as I'm aware there were around 3500 riders over the 3 days. So last week was a big wakeup call after an easy weeks training whilst running around for the MTB race. I got down to CT and the first session I did was with Tim Brabants from the UK. A sneaky little race pace session with the current 1000m K1 Olympic Champ, followed the next day by a resistance session where we towed around a parachute behind our boats for around an hour. Really great to see how champions train, whole other ball game. So yeah, so far it's been a great 2 weeks training, staying with Mike Arthur and his wife has also been fantastic. They have a new puppy so there is lots of action, never a dull moment with such characters to keep me entertained! On a less funny note, this place is getting cold, it has a sadistic, icy wind that catches you on the water and makes you freeze from the inside out. Tomorrow is getting even colder with a bit of rain. Not looking forward to it but I guess its peanuts compared to the guys in Europe who paddle in below freezing conditions in winter, using the noses of their boats as icebreakers. Crazy. The things we do for fun??!!

Right.....let me see if some of the caffeine has worn off.

Until next time

Ciao

For Cycling Enthusiasts

2011-03-17T23:21:00.000-07:00

Specialized presents new Venge frame in cooperation with McLaren F1

by Ben Atkins at 9:04 PM EST
Categories: Pro Cycling, Technical, Milan-Sanremo

US bike design meets motorsport composite experience to create new flagship frame

Specialized has presented a new aerodynamic road frame, dubbed the Venge, a special version of which has been developed with the McLaren Formula 1 team. The frame design itself was created at Specialized’s R&D team in Morgan Hill, California, with a great deal of wind tunnel time allied to computer aided design, but for the special S-Works McLaren version the iconic motorsport team’s Applied Technologies division has brought in its considerable resources and experience in composite technology.

The challenge Specialized set itself was to create an aero frame that was not appreciably heavier or flexier than its Tarmac frame, which is a trait common to a number of other aero road frames on the market. The S-Works version, which uses the same FACT IS 11R construction method as the Tarmac SL3, weighs in a 2179 grams for a 56cm module of frame, fork, seatpost and crankset, and, according to Specialized, boasts stiffness figures that eclipse its rivals.

The McLaren Venge, whose carbon layup has been developed by the British Formula 1 team, comes in at 2071 for the module and is considerably stiffer still.

The S-Works Venge is now available to buy, but the McLaren version will not be available until much later in the year; it will be showcased by Specialized’s three ProTeams (Astana, HTC-Highroad and Saxo Bank-SunGard) at this Saturday’s Milano-Sanremo though with nine riders, including big favourite Mark Cavendish (HTC-Columbia) aboard the new frame with its distinctlive matt black and orange livery.

The following Specialized sponsored riders aboard the McLaren Venge at Milano-Sanremo: Mark Cavendish, Bernhard Eisel and Mark Renshaw (all HTC-Highroad), Baden Cooke, Juan Jose Haedo and Matteo Tosatto (all Saxo Bank-SunGard), and Allan Davis, Andriy Grivko and Tomas Vaitkus (all Astana).

Post Australia High

2011-03-16T04:45:00.001-07:00

I've just had a look at the date on my last post and it has been a month since then....What the hell? I've been way too slack. Since I've been back I've been so focused on training and recovering that even when I'm doing nothing I feel busy. And for some reason I seem to find a whole bunch of arb things to do other than keep this blog updated.

Anyway, just a quick fill-in on what's been going on. My last week in Aus went by really quickly and for the first time I wasn't getting excited to go home. Even the call of a new boat and bike weren't making me keen to leave the place I'd grown so fond of. I still need to upload photos of the farm that we went to for the weekend, I will get there, promise. Training since I've got back has been really really good. Compared to last year I'm managing higher volumes and my boat speeds and times are looking good. We seem to be managing my back issues quite well too. When I was in Aus I was using ice baths about three times a week and they seemed to keep my back together. I didn't have to see a physio for a whole month, something that I normally can't go without for a week. So I have someone making me one using and old drinking trough and a milk cooling compressor!! On my last day in Aus I raced in the Western Australia State Champs. Managed a 2^nd 200m K1, 2^nd 1000m K1 and 1^st 500m K1.

In the last two weeks I've received my new order from Nelo and built my new mountain bike!! I'm a very happy chappie at the moment!! Thanks to Nelo for helping me with my boat. It looks great and is feeling even better on the water. It's a new design that Nelo have come up with for fatter guys like me (95kg +), it's called a Moskito 90. It has a lot more volume behind the cockpit and the nose seems a little narrower. Cockpit is also quite shallow so it feels like I'm sitting really high up. I'll take some photos of it and post them soon too. My new bike has been a nice little project that I've been working on for the last two months. I sourced all the parts from overseas, some from Chainreactioncycles.com but the majority came from eBay. Grant Dinkel at Adrenaline Cycles built it up and provided me with the frame. So what I have is a Momsen 29er Frame, full Sram X.O groupset, Rockshox Reba XX fork, Notubes Arch wheels, Novatec Hubs, Fizik seat, truvativ noir wc seatpost, truvativ stylo bars and ritchey wcs stem!! So pretty ek se. Will post a picture of that too.

My excitement levels have also been helped along by my new involvement with Mr Price and PVM. I signed with Mr Price just before I went over to Aus, and now that I'm back I'm really looking forward to a productive relationship with the company. I got my first batch of product from PVM this month and it really seems to be doing what it is supposed to do. Loving the Octane XTR and Reignite, they're keeping me strong on the water and helping my recovery to be as optimal as possible. Very excited about the Octane Gels, especially the chocolate flavour....100mg caffeine!! I was buzzing on Saturday after smashing a couple in my race pace session!!

As soon as I'm back home I'm going to be flat out with training and getting ready for the Mr Price Karkloof MTB Festival. For those of you who ride bikes you must come and do it. Best trails in the country hands down.

Until next time.

Ciao

Perth Diaries

2011-02-13T02:45:00.000-08:00

As I write this I’m sitting in the car on the way back from an awesome little weekend away down in Broomhill on Fee Anderson’s (Reece’s girlfriend) farm. Dry, arid farm lands rolling by, blue gums and sheep everywhere. This is Australia. It’s been great to get out of Perth and experience a bit of rural Australian life. Once I’ve uploaded photos I’ll give you more on that, but for now a little update on what’s been happening over the last two weeks.

The trip to Sydney to compete in GP 2 was pretty good. Racing wasn’t so great. I think all the travelling and time zone changes caught up to me as racing started because I was feeling terrible in the boat, unable to get it to run nicely and maintain any decent speed. The week leading up to racing had been good and I was feeling fast but as I was getting used to the 6 hour time difference between Perth and South Africa we flew forward another 3 hours to Sydney and that left me feeling quite tired, and my body quite confused. The standard of racing was really high with the 1000m final being represented by 3 Aussies, 3 Poms and 3 Kiwis!! I had a chance to do some K2 and K4 racing with some of the guys that I’ve been training with in Perth. Reece Baker and I managed a 6^th in the 1000m and 5^th just behind Steve Bird and Jesse Phillips in the 500m, not bad for our 3^rd paddle together! In the K4 we had Brody Holmes, Daniel Bowker, Chris Alagich and me. Great to get back into the team boat mix and learn a couple things from the Aussie guys. We got a 4^th in the 1000m. Steve and Jesse went really well in their K2 200m and managed to pull off a win by about half a boat length. After their race they got hauled off to get dope tested so it ended up being a mad rush to the airport in Sydney to fly back to Perth.

Over the last two weeks it’s just been back to training as usual. I’ve managed some solid training and I’m starting to feel really good in the boat again. It’s crazy that I can feel as good as I am now and only two weeks ago I could hardly make it to the end of a 1000m race without wanting to give up. I’ve done a couple more K2 and K4 sessions and they seem to really keep the interest up, constant K1 sessions get a bit much. I’m going to have to figure out something when I get home to keep myself from going crazy on the water by myself. In between sessions I’ve been exhausting my TV series supply on my laptop. I’ve connected it to Jo and Troy’s big screen TV and when I get home I put something on, kickback and vegetate for a couple hours on the couch. It sounds like the life but any opportunity to get out the house and do something even slightly stimulating is more than welcome. Last weekend we had a small local regatta out at Champion Lakes. It was on a Saturday afternoon and the wind was pumping, so you can imagine that none of us were too excited to be eating into our weekend-off time to be racing on a bumpy track. Anyway, we got out there and did what we had to do. I got the win in the 200m and 1000m K1 races, probably helped by my river racing background and frequent paddles across Midmar in windy conditions to get through the strong side wind we had!

Other than that, a couple shopping trips and some visits to Freemantle things have been quiet. Good training and good rest have kept me busy which is what I came over here for. I’ve really taken to the way things are done here and it’s not often that I go away to someplace to race or train and I don’t miss home, this has definitely been one of those occasions. Being in a team environment and training with a group has done wonders for my psychological outlook on this sport, I’m just hoping I’m going to be able to keep myself motivated when I’m home. I’m sure I'll be helped by the imminent arrival of a new boat and bike, exciting times!!

Until next time.....

Ciao

Kayak inspiration

The Olympic race course in Penrith

Claiming it

Racing 200m heats

Boat weigh

Steve and Jesse on their way

200m Champs

Cottesloe Beach

Fish and chips at 'The Cott'

Parrots all over the place

Bayswater training venue

Aussie Aussie Aussie

2011-01-25T05:00:00.001-08:00

Right.....One week down and I’m feeling the need to tell any readers of this blog what I think of Australia and Perth so far. Let me first start with some news of what’s been happening here since my very hasty arrival last Tuesday.

Steva and Jes doing their thing.

I arrived to a stinking hot Perth to be taken out to the racing course where Steve Bird and his partner Jesse Phillips were in the final stages of a training camp. I got to meet all the guys that I would be training with and coach Ramon. The Bird family lives in an awesome suburb in Mount Pleasant and Jo and Troy are just down the road in their own little place. I’m staying at Jo’s whilst I’m here which is cool and for the last week they haven’t been here so have been chilling out here with Steve. It flipping sucks not having servants here. I’m definitely not a fan of washing dishes, washing, hanging, ironing and folding clothes, making beds and cleaning up after myself, so the more I travel the more I am learning to appreciate how lucky we are to have the people that look after us back home, Albertina I miss you!! The first two days were spent getting over the jet lag (which I’m still feeling) and getting to know the city of Perth. Mark took me around, showed me a couple of the beaches and Kings Park, a massive park/botanical gardens area open to the public, I’ll definitely be going back with my camera before I leave. I eased into training finally and managed to finish off the week with good sessions on Friday and Saturday. The Doctor surf ski race was held on Saturday. All the top ski paddlers were over to race from Rottnest Island to Sorrento beach with the ‘Doctor’ wind behind them. I caught the ferry over with Steve and the guys, watched the start and then caught the ferry back to watch the finish. Tim Jacobs took the win in the men’s and Mich Eray got the ladies title! Got some good training done today and yesterday which I’m happy about, it’s going to be interesting to see how fit I am when I have to race this weekend.

Tomorrow morning early (5:30 flight) we are off to Sydney to race Grand Prix 2. It’s going to be the biggest field I’ve ever had to race with. There are something like 70 senior men entered in the 1000m K1 just to give you an idea of the scale. All the top Aussies, 1000m Brits, some Italians and the top Kiwis so I’m looking forward to testing myself against some quality athletes. I’ll be doing the 1000m K1, K2 with Reece Baker and possibly K4, and then the 500m K1 too, should be good.

In the next edition I'l give you my opinion on Perth and some details about training etc. Its late, and I have to get up stupidly early to catch a flight.

Until then

Out

Rottnest Island

All the skis lined up on the beach.

Start of the mens race.

On my way to early morning training.

Swan river where we train.

Middle East Travels Part Dos

2011-01-23T03:48:00.000-08:00

After a week in Dubai we said cheers to the Allan family and embarked on the second part of our journey, Jordan. The itinerary would be Aqaba and the Red Sea first, then Wild Wadi and the desert, Petra for the City built in the mountains and then finally the Dead Sea.

Sunset from the veranda of our hotel room at the Red Sea.

Wild Wadi

We went on a 'Jeep' safari into the desert so have a look at the views.

After a 3 hour drive we came upon this little Bedouin camp and were told that this would be where we were going to sleep the night.

Drinking sickly sweet mint tea

Arab horse stud

Petra

Petra city at night

Sunset over the Dead Sea

Our hotel at the Dead Sea

Weirdest sensation being held afloat by the salty water

Leopard that had swallowed a Hippo.

Middle East Travels Part Uno

2011-01-16T07:53:00.000-08:00

This year Christmas would be one with a difference. My family and I and my sister's boyfriend's family would be spending the festive time in the Middle East. Rosie and Bryce live in Dubai so Xmas and New Year were spent there and then my family and I + the newly adopted boyfriend went to Jordan for a couple days. I took a huge amount of photos so what I am going to do is give you a photographic account of the holiday in 2 parts. The rest of the photos I will upload onto my flickr site for guys to look at. Enjoy

The Xmas tree and clear shortage of gifts.

Rosie put together a sublime Xmas lunch for us, it included Salmon, 4 flavours of braaied chicken, Gammon Ham, fruit tarts, Xmas pudding.....and some more that I can remember!!

We didnt move from the little garden all day....the beer flowed....too easily

Chefs inspection

Chef

The next day we went to the Siouks, they are a bunch of local markets. Here Rosie is in the 'Gold Siouk' where you find passage and passage of gold jewelery traders.

Ballies getting their cloth on

We crossed this canal via boat taxi to get to the Siouks

An abundance of spices

The next day the boys spent the morning at Wild Wadi, a huge water park situated right next to the Burj Al Arab.

Burj Al Arab, 7 star hotel

The water park view from top.

That night we went to Bab al Shams desert resort for a local culinary buffet experience. The belly dancing lesson came included with the meal!!

This is a selection of different varieties of dates. mother Stubbs was in her element.

The food was excellent, huge selection and some new flavours that went down really well. The best was the whole lamb carcass that was cooked underground and then served whole on a bed of rice, just hand your plate to the chef and he would scrap some ridiculously tender meat off the carcass with some rice and put it on your plate.

The next morning we went and did Ski Dubai. I managed to handle the Snowboard straight away so I was able to get in some good runs. Awesome, awesome experience, cant wait to do it again.

The view from the top of the slope.

Check the style!!!

Mosque day in Abu Dhabi.

We went to these camel races on the way to the Al Maha desert hotel. They didnt end up racing, they were just training for racing the next day.

Burj Khalifa, tallest building in the world.

The fountain below it, also very impressive.

I managed to get onto the water once whilst over there. I borrowed a ski and went for a tap around the Burj Al Arab with Bryce.

Little visit to Al Maha desert hotel where they breed rare desert Oryx.

Props for me in SASCOC's Road To London 2012 Magazine

2010-12-05T09:23:00.000-08:00

To read the article or the whole magazine follow the link and turn to page 74. http://www.pagegangster.com/p/QoNkA/

My New Toy

2010-12-05T09:20:00.000-08:00

Be jealous, be very very jealous!!!

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=160&pID=69043

Cape Town and racing again.

2010-12-05T08:58:00.000-08:00

Sho I’ve been useless with this blog, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me? I just don’t seem to have time these days, life isn’t even that hectic but I just never seem to be able to get around to doing it. I think it might me the intermittent internet connection here on the farm, or trying to learn how to use Photoshop so that I can batch compress my photos. So those are my excuses, but now I guess I need to fill you in on what’s been going on over the last month or so.

I drove down to Cape Town in the beginning of November for some training with Marcus and the boys. Halfway through the Karoo I was seriously regretting the decision to drive and was wishing that I had chosen to fly, but when I arrived and had a car at my disposal it made the drive well worth it. It also meant that I could have some quality bonding time with the old lady as she decided to keep me company on the way down.

Over the next two weeks I tried to get as much quality training under the watchful eyes of Marcus. We’ve made one or two tweaks to my technique, which seem to have me going a little faster and getting some more power out of each stroke. The photos of me on the water were taken when we did a session on the waterfront canals, it was pretty cool to be paddling in the centre of town, surrounded by the harbour and ‘One and Only’ hotel.

When we got some free time Mike and I made full use of it and headed out to Elgin and Waterkloof area for some fun activities. The photos are of us cycling in Elgin, kloofing down ‘Suicide Gorge’ and attempting to surf in Muizenburg. The time down in Cape Town culminated with the 30 Seconds to Mars concert. A couple of the guys came down from Natal so we all got together in the golden circle and jumped up and down and did our rock concert bit. Marcus decided to join me for the drive home as he would be coming up anyway to race in the Residential Squad trial at Nagle, so it was nice to have him as company. We popped in at De Aar to a mate’s sheep farm to stock up on our lamb supply and full a whole lot of meat orders from back home. The poor farmers there have been hit really badly by Rift Valley Fever and a long period of drought that has seen a huge decrease in the sheep numbers. The farmers recon that the Karoo area has lost almost a million head of sheep due to the Rift Valley Fever.

Last weekend was the trial for the new residential squad. I went into it pretty relaxed, probably because I’m not very fit at the moment so I wasn’t expecting any amazing results. I got a 3^rd in he 200m K1, Stu Waterworth and Greg Louw were 1^st and 2^nd respectively in what I thought was a tight race. The 200m is always good fun to race, I generally have a slow start as it takes a while to get my fat ass going and then I spend the rest of the race playing catch up!! The 1000m was ok, definitely more of a burn. Len and I pretty much raced each other the whole way, and in the end Len managed to pull a boat length on me. We were next to each other until the 800m mark but Len was able to keep the speed up when my lack of fitness kept me from doing the same. The next day we spent the morning at the dam trying out a couple K4 combinations for the selectors to look at. I think I was part of 6 different combinations, I even got to stroke the long boat, something I’ve always enjoyed and clearly missed since World Champs last year.

Over the next week I’m expecting Marcus to pile on the km’s. I’m heading over to Dubai for 2 weeks with the fandam to visit my sister Rosie, I probably won’t get to train there and I need to pick up the volume before then so that I have some fitness when I get home to fall back on when training starts to get intense. This week we have a testing camp in Cape Town, now more hiding the fat rolls and lack of conditioning as the Sports Scientist subject us to a heap of tests.

More news soon. Until then....

Out

The Crazy Kid of the Karkloof

2010-10-16T13:05:00.000-07:00

The other day I had the pleasure of driving up to one of the single track sections in the Karkloof forsests to photograph friend, Hylton Turvey. Hylton is the chief track builder of all single track in the Karkloof Valley, and is probably the reason why the Karkloof Classic is one of the best races on the MTB calender. His tracks are SICK!! And us 'locals' get to ride them whenever we want. So off we went to shoot him, and his friend, Ant jumping over roads and carving though berms. Inspirational stuff. I'll let the photos do the talking.

Out

Better late than never

2010-10-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

Sho, OK, this post is long long overdue, but I guess rather late than never, I just hope people still read this thing, otherwise all it serves as is a reminder of how good life has been over the last month or so, action packed, chilled and pretty good fun. Right, let’s see what has been happening....

WORLD CHAMPS SIGN OFF

Racing against, NZ, Spain and Ireland in my B final.

The last post I wrote was about how my semi final went and how I was feeling for my final. The race went about as well as it could have. Went out pretty hard, got into a nice rhythm and tried to hold it for as long as possible. The conditions were almost perfect compared to the windy, wavy course that we raced on for the heats and semis. My boat, a new Nelo called the Moskito that Nelo lent me was perfect, nice volume for my 98kg, sitting nice and straight in the water and cruising along, making the rhythm that much easier to hold. Got to the 500m in 4^th and felt nice and strong as I still had a little lead over the NZ boat next to me. Picked it up at the 500m like I always do and from there I just tried to hold on. I managed to maintain my speed but not my position and ended up 6^th. There were some pretty classy athletes in my final so I guess I’m happy for now with how I went. My conditioning coming into the competition wasn’t ideal having been sick a couple weeks before which would explain my lack of a good surge over the last 200m, it is something that I’m confident I’ll get back soon though. I must say a big thanks to the following people for helping me to get to World Champs in one piece: Marcus Melck AKA Coach, Alex Joiner and all the guys at Sports Science, Garth Oliver from EAP Active, the best rehab centre in KZN, Canoeing South Africa for financing everything and the National Lottery. Lastly, big ups to my folks for providing me with such an awesome base for me to live, train and work from, wouldn’t be doing this without it!!

EURO TRAVELS WITH A GUY FROM CRADOCK......

Olympic Stadium in Berlin

So the adventure begins....Berlin first, then Cologne and lastly for me, Amsterdam!! Old friend and ex saffa Steve Bird and his paddling partner Jesse Phillips were to join us for the first part of our little expedition. Oh and the Cradock guy was none other than Ryan ‘Cradock’ Louw, the funny man! So we jumped into a bus and drove with some other aussie guys to Berlin, long trip but none the less it was great to catch a bit of the European scenery. Berlin was pretty awesome, the highlight of my trip I recon. We all hired bikes that we kept for a couple days and headed off to see the city. Bikes must be THE GREATEST way to get around a city, hop on and off and manoeuvre through traffic. If only more people would use them in SA. So on our bikes we rode all the way across town and had a look at the 1936 Olympic Stadium, crazy place, very cool to see and definitely increased the desire to go to Olympics come 2012! We also managed to get to Check Point Charlie, see bits of the Berlin wall and read about the war. Bit bleak I didn’t get to eat much German food, think we ended up eating Italian most of the time....pizza I suppose was the cheapest option most of the time.

Need I say anymore?

Outside a lekker little beach bar place in the middle of Berlin

Cologne was a very brief visit, just one night. Ryan and I said goodbye to Jesse and Steve at the train station in Berlin and made our way across Germany to Cologne. There we were met by Mr Max Hoff himself. He took us off to the German Champs race course where he had been racing. Amazing place, when I saw it all I wanted to do was phone the coach and suggest a training camp in Germany!! Max then showed us where he trains in Cologne, on the Rhine, or just off it in a little harbour, was good to see where champions are made and that we also have water back home that is just as nice to train on if not better. The next day I took Cradock up the famous Cathedral, lots and lots of steps. It was then off to Amsterdam.....

The big ass Cathedral in Cologne

Did a little Heineken Factory tour with Ryan

Amsterdam......what can I say.....you probably all thinking, sex and drugs......well there was lots of both; we however didn’t indulge in any. It felt like we were doing it all wrong by not smoking pot and going to sex shows but we still managed to have a good time. What an eye-opening experience though, coffee/weed shops all over the place, the red light district, staring at something so beautiful you want to marry her only to be told that she hosts 40 euro and that’s before you’ve even taken her for dinner! We met up and stayed with Andrea ‘Norge’, a friend from Norway who lived with me and Craig last year whilst doing her physio prac. It was great having a local to show us around and provide us with bikes to make it that much easier. I think the highlight for me in Amsterdam has to have been the beers that I got to drink. Unbelievable stuff, so, so, so good. I am a changed man, never did I ever imagine that beer could taste so good, well it does. Mmmm mmmm mmmm. I’ve been very vague about what we got up to, but it generally consisted of getting on bikes and cruising around and just seeing the place. For me cities get tired after a couple days and I just want to get out and see the countryside and the rural parts. I think the fact that it was uber expensive also played a large role in making me keen to get home. So my next euro trip will definitely be into the rural parts of France, Italy or Spain, roughing it and eating local food....bliss!!

Beautiful canals all over Amsterdam

Gardening starter kit anyone?

Captionless.....

Outside a church at the entrance to the Red light District

What it says!

"Coffee Shop"!!

A MONTH OF NORMALITY

The farm is always where I’m happy and over the last month it’s been nice to be able to help out on a more fulltime basis and get some good graft done, let the folks go on holiday, help Digit and let life have a little rest before training starts. Digit, the farms dairy manager is about to embark on one of the craziest tests I think man can subject himself to. The Kalahari Augrabi Extreme Marathon, 7days, 250km of running in the desert. He has started a blog www.milkmanmcleish.blogspot.com go check it out and support the man. Hectic stuff. We’ve been doing quite a bit of hunting lately, I’ve got a nice little Bushpig bait going and we’ve sat in a hide on three different occasions but haven’t yielded anything from it. For two of the nights the wind was wrong and the pigs came in, smelt us and ran off only to return later that night. The other night I made a new hide and the pigs came within 10m of the hide, snorted and grunted their disapproval of the hide and ran off again. Clive Curtis a PH hunting friend has lent me his trail cam and I’ve been able to get some awesome footage of the pigs coming onto the bait. We have however managed to nail quite a few of the buggers on the other side of the farm in one particularly productive land. Managed to cook an amazing leg of pig on the spit the other night, tasty stuff!

Turtle and Ciki with a big boy.

Trail Cam evidence that it is indeed pigs eating the bait.

FISHING

Last week a couple of us made our annual road trip down to Cradock to go and play in the Fish River with 80 odd other K3’s, what a jol, maybe I should say ‘too much of a jol’ but good none the less. I paddled with Andrew Nicholson and Leon Oosthuizen in the Timber24 ‘A’ boat and the ‘B’ boat was made up of novice Tim Howes, loan shark Simon Lishman and average oke Craig Turton. We all managed to make it down to the finish without too many issues. Big ups to Andrew for providing us with awesome boats and getting us all down there, it’s always a weekend that never disappoints! The trip home is pretty average though. Fly us down next time please.

So now it’s back to training. At the moment I’m just easing into it, mixing up the paddling with a little gym, some cycling and some rowing so all is good. This is the start of a really important year; this is the one that counts for me so I’ve got to do everything properly. Good thing I’ve got such a fantastic team working hard to plan how we going to do it.

Keep well.

Out.

2010-08-20T22:03:00.001-07:00

Last little training session before my race. On in 2 hours, here come the butterflies!!

World Champs 2010

2010-08-20T04:40:00.000-07:00

Heat:

Wake up 6:30, lay in bed feeling the stomach doing flickflaks, not a feeling I enjoy too much. The weather outside is crap, wind is howling and it is bucketing down with rain. All I can do is try to shut it out of my mind as best as possible. Head downstairs for a light breakfast, something to ease the nerves, calm the turning tummy. Realise sometime between waking up and lining up for my semi that this is a feeling I’m going to have to get used to and possibly learn to enjoy! I arrived at the course to see water gushing up against the jetty; the waves are looking pretty daunting but not too bad, yet. Went through my usual routine, light stretch, onto the water for a good warm up, back onto land, good stretch then back onto the water for some more warming up and then race. The race went off okay, a couple minor issues that put me off my rhythm. First my splashy popped after about 50m so I started to stress about the water coming in, then came the adjustment that needed to be made to be able to race properly in the waves, I was never quite able to make it and I felt like I rushed my stroke a little. Then at the 500m mark I caught a piece of weed, so focus then turned onto getting rid of that. From there every part of the body was burning, luckily I was lying around 2^nd by the 750m mark so I was able to cruise through as the top 7 go through to the semis, got a relieved 4^th. Happy for it to be over, the first one is always the most nerve racking for me.

Semi:

I decided after the heat to try and relax in the first 500 of my semi, get a nice rhythm going and the pick it up in the last bit when it gets really bumpy, hopefully not be too tired for the waves. The wind picked up a bit after lunch so it made the course look like Midmar on a windy day, white horse waves included. It was going to be interesting. I would be lining up with Max Hoff in my heat, for those that don’t know Max won gold at last year’s Worlds and won the World Cups 1000m in Vichy and Duisburg this year!! Anyway, so off we went. I managed to have a decent first 200m, found a rhythm and kept going. As the 500m arrived it got seriously bumpy and it made it that much harder to hold the rhythm. First two go through to the A final and now I was racing for 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th as Max was long gone(need to find out how he does it). Last 200m to go and it’s impossible to have any sort of technique so I put what I had left into a kick and managed a 4^th. I think I rely so much on my technique for power that in conditions like that I just can’t get the power I need. Not an excuse though, I need to get onto the big dam and battle it out in the waves a lot more often! Considering the last two months where I’ve been sick and training hasn’t been optimal I’m pretty happy with the result, tomorrow is the final so I’ll give that a good shot and see what happens.

The Big One

2010-08-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

Nearly a year’s worth of work has gone into tomorrow and hopefully Saturday's racing. Training 2-3 times a day, 6 days a week. Trips to Cape Town to train with Marcus my coach and to be tested by some clever Sports Scientists. Time overseas racing and training. Sacrifices that sometimes I don't even understand. What for? Is it worth it? Ummm, well being at the opening ceremony earlier, surrounded by the best athletes from around 72 other countries, all with a common goal to represent our respective countries, racing each other and ourselves kind of gives one a sense of accomplishment without having even raced yet. From that perspective I guess it is all worth it, it's a long term goal so all of this is just the pathway to ultimate satisfaction....well hopefully!! I think tomorrow I will be able to answer the 'worth it' question a little better once I'm in an endorphin induced state of bliss.

The last training session this afternoon went off without any issues. Did a couple starts in the starting blocks and a few little burns just to wake the body up and then back to the hotel room for lots of chilling and an overdose of Top Gear. Learned a new saying....when I’m lining up next to an Olympic medallist in my heat my bum is going to look like a rabbit’s nose!! I've been trying to keep at bay the constant fluttering in my stomach, nerves are crap, some people thrive off of them, I do better by being relaxed and not worrying about the outcome, easier said than done!!

Just a quick thank you to all the people that have helped to get me here this year.

Marcus my coach, Canoeing South Africa for their unbelievable financial support, Alex "Bokkie" Joiner for his Sports Science help, Bongo at EAP Active and Julia from Mocke/Thomas for keeping my body together and last but not least my folks for supporting me so unconditionally and for letting me become the farm sponge!! Hope I havent left anyone out!!

Now I can hear fireworks coming from the opening ceremony so I'm going to go watch.

Adios

Szolnok Endings and Poznan Beginnings

2010-08-17T13:04:00.000-07:00

The last time I left you I had been soaking up sun and getting good vibes from my boat in Szolnok. The week ended off with some more good training and some even better chilling in our sweet hotel.

I spent some more time with Mike the one afternoon after doing an easy recovery paddle taking some more photos with his underwater camera. Its a new toy that I'm loving and something that I'm definitely going to invest in. At the moment im looking at the waterproof camera that Panasonic have but if anyone that reads this knows of a better one please your advice is more than welcome.

My attempt at standing up in my boat

Mike showing me how its done

Unfortunately the fun and games came to a brief halt on Friday morning. As im sure all are aware, Friday was a "Friday the 13th" and I should have gone onto Twitter so I could see the warning that Brandon Stewart had put out to readers to stay in bed to avoid any misfortune or bad luck. My bad luck struck me about 10mins into my warmup. A slight mis-stroke led to me knocking my Garmin and Polar watches off my boat. It went like this.....paddle, paddle, doef, SHIT?!!, brief snatch to try catch the falling watches with the tips of fingers, momentum carrying me away from accident scene, SHOCK at the sight of my training partners sinking, quickest backwards paddle anyone has ever seen, realisation at what has just happened and that watched are now at the bottom of the 'deeper than my paddle' river, F%^*# SH*@ (shortened version). So.....going to be saving up for new ones and putting the new milk frother and camera on hold. Dammit!!

Anyone that works weekdays knows the feeling of joy when Friday comes to an end and the weekend has arrived...well us 'athletes' don't get to have that feeling. We have to train on Saturdays, yes I know, flipping stupid job we have. But after the Saturday morning session we get to experience that feeling mixed with an even better feeling of accomplishment after a hard work out. So it's really cool to then go and do something fun without having to worry about training till Monday morning. Right next to our hotel was a water park that a couple of us decided to visit and show the budgie smuggling Hungarians how to dominate a water slide. There's something about going fast down a slide, getting water up every orifice and screaming like a girl that seems to make you want to get out the pool and run like a kid back to the top of the slide, well thats what we were doing, Cradock led the way followed by me and a slightly more hesitant Greg. So much for the rest afternoon!

Access bands, essential!!!

Passing time like proper boys....throwing mud balls at a bouy!! Fun times!!

Posing....another pastime!!

Once the fun was over it was time to pack up and meet the rest of the team at the airport so we could travel to Poznan, Poland. Flying to Poznan always means jumping into the 'Vomit Comet' for a slightly more bumpy and nerve raking fight into the venue of this years World Champs.

We raced here last year so the course, town, and hotel are all pretty familiar. This time of year seems to suit the place better than May did last year. The wind hasn't blown like it can here so we are all holding thumbs that it doesnt rear its ugly head. I've been nice and relaxed this tour compared to previous tours. Less self inflicted pressure and more work with Sports Psychologists are hopefully the reason for this and not complacency from chilling too hard!

Appreciate this post please, it has taken me nearly 2 hours of procrastination filled hours. I'll put up some more tomorrow with a pre racing post.

Lekker slaap

Music To Listen To

2010-08-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

Links to some of the music thats been keeping me nice and chilled lately.

Carolina Liar - Beautiful World

John Mayer - I Don't Trust Myself

Defrost

2010-08-12T05:13:00.000-07:00

Szolnok, land of sunshine and mozzies!! As you may have guessed from the title and the few tweets our time here has so far been spent thawing our chilled bones in the abundant sun here in Hungary. Everyone is loving the fact that we can get on the water and train without any shirts let alone Hellys on. Days have been spent training nice and early, coming back for breakfast, chilling, relaxing in the pool, eating lunch, chilling again, cruising to town, training and then finally eating dinner. Living the dream to say the least!!

A photo my mom sent me of one of the chilly mornings they've had back home this week.

Mike and I spent some time buggering around with his waterproof camera the one afternoon, the above pics are from that session, go check his blog to see the cool pics I got of him.

The course we are training on was being used last weekend for the Hungarian junior and u23 champs. It was amazing to see how many athletes they had even without the seniors being there to race. At least 3 times more athletes than at our SA Champs!! Training this week has been good, not too much volume and only a few hard sessions. I can definitely feel my form coming back to me after quite a few weeks of battling off some sickness, boat speed is up and my technique is feeling solid and powerful again, hopefully the feeling will get even better by this time next week!!

Szia Szolnok

2010-08-08T09:16:00.000-07:00

The first post from overseas!! Today we arrived in Hungary after a not so bad trip over. We flew on Lufthansa airlines, same one as this time last year to Canada, not recommended to anyone that doesn't sleep well on an airplane and needs entertainment.....there is none, lutho, niks, nada. So luckily i had my laptop with me so Len and i were able to watch a couple movies before catching a few winks before being woken up at 4 am for breakfast. We were all provided with some welcome humour when the Louw brothers came running through to catch the connecting flight. They for some strange reason had been put on an SAA flight to Frankfurt, which got us all jealous as we knew they would have TV and we wouldn't. Anyway, it turns out that they got onto their flight, sat down and got comfy only to be confronted by a Mr R Louw and a Mrs J Louw, whose seats they were sitting in! The chops had gone and checked onto the wrong airline and by some coincidence there were two Louws travelling on that airline so the check in clerk assumed it was them, clearly only looking at Ryans initials and not Gregs. So the 2 empty seats on our flight were supposed to be occupied by them!! Luckily they managed to stay on the SAA flight and get through to Frankfurt but we all had a good laugh at them having to sprint through to catch the connecting flight!

After a short flight to Budapest we grabbed our hire car and headed to Szolnok. Anyone that gets the shits with taxi drivers driving badly in SA should come over here and drive on a Hungarian road. These guys feel rocks for overtaking when there is on coming traffic right in front of their nose, pulling out of the queue and flying to overtake and then doing a high speed re-entry back into the queue!!

Training starts tomorrow, been really nice arriving on a Sunday so we don't miss the Monday session like we have in the past. Hoping this cold of mine books out so i can start getting my taper going for next weekends racing. Will post some photos of this place soon.

Out

BUSINESS PIG

2010-08-04T12:39:00.000-07:00

WHAT ZOE THINKS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN ECONOMY

Paddler/Porcupine Killer

2010-08-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

Len aka "Dobby" Jenkins, not just a champion kayaker but rodent killer having just provided us with some

night-time entertainment!!

The deknackering of Ben!!

2010-08-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

On Thursday night Paul, my house mate was called to duty to perform a ball removal procedure on Ben the Boerbul. Don't worry he is a vet and the procedure went fine without any complications accept for the fact that Ben probably woke up feeling considerably lighter, poor guy. Hopefully though this will have sorted out the bouts of aggression that he was prone to.

I'll post a picture of the big boy once he's recovered and looking good again. See my Flickr site for the full set of pictures, pretty interesting stuff.

iMfolozi

2010-07-26T21:41:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't already know

Pack of about 17 Wild Dog on the way the start

This one obviously got left behind

Daga Boys

Cheeky Hyena with Hulett's shoe

Once Barry had realised what was happening he and the game guard took after the "Bloody Agent"

Virgin Blogger

2010-07-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

OK so hopefully this is the first of many. I don't really want to sit here and talk about myself but rather use this blog as a means to share my photos, videos and experiences I have on the farm, training and on tour, but for today I'm going to fill you in on whats been happening over the last few weeks.

Did some experimenting with my new Nikon D 300 on the farm

The last month since we got back from tour has been pretty interesting in terms of my development as a professional paddler. I had a week of no training where I ended up riding my bike a bit, an awesome change to the mundane life of paddling twice a day, everyday. I then had to try get back into the routine of training. Easier said then done, cold weather, cold home and feeling slow and crap in the boat let to much grumpiness and frustration!! The farm was also proving to be an evil distraction, with fire breaks to burn, a cold room to put up and odd jobs to be done it was hard to motivate myself to get out there and do my job on the water. So after a few offers to go train in Durban with Ant Stott I hauled myself down there to the sun and got my act together.

The next little hurdle was finding out the selection for the World Champs team. Was expecting to be selected for the 1000m and 500m K1 spots after being the top SA boat in those distances but it wasn't so. Ended up just being selected for the 1000m only. Unfortunately the selectors decision is final so any appeals had no effect. Hence further frustration and lack of motivation. I then got sick and couldn't train for a week. If anyone is ever wanting to torture an athlete just get him/her sick and book them off for a couple days, it sucks.

So now I'm in Capetown, been here for about 10 days, staying with coach and training as much as possible with Mike, Ruby and the Louw brothers. Its nice to be in a squad environment again and have some mates to train with. Mike and Shaun are flying at the moment making it tough for the rest of us to keep up. The rest of the elites squad came down on Sunday for the 2 day testing camp at Sport Science, so on Monday we were subjected to different prods and pokes and tests. Had some good ergo time trial results so happy with where I'm at despite the sickness.

Now its off to Newlands forest for a little run and a chance to test out my new camera on the boys on the trails.

Goose, Mike's puppy chasing everyone around on the walk

The view from Mike's roof in Tokai

Spent the day in Kalk Bay with friend Caity

Meg waiting for the girls in Kalk Bay