The NATIONALS!!!!

Last week at the club there was a lot of talk about the ultimate race in Sprint Kayaking which is the Australian National Championships. As well as being the last race in their sprint season this is also where the top athletes in the country will be fighting it out for a place in the Beijing Olympics.

All the guys at the club have been entered and were asking if Ant and I were going to compete. As always we are up for anything so entered on-line as soon as we got home. It felt great to be entering as 'international' representing GB but apart from age category there wasn't anywhere to state what level we were, like in rowing you start novice and work your way up through the categories and this being our first sprint race ever wanted to make sure we were going to be racing people of a similar level.

So I rang up the regatta organisers and told the nice woman, although we have entered as international we have only been paddling since July so want to make sure we will be racing at the right level and she promptly informed me that England had a good system going and Australia were thinking about implementing it but the only categories they have is age so you could be racing against Olympians!!!!! I said wow that will be an experience but I really am very novice and might fall in off the start line! She said just practice some starts you will be fine! So then for a minuet I was very excited and then realisation hit me and the pressure of what we have let our selves in for.

So yes next week I don't think we will be doing many other forms of training other than paddling and Duffy has even given us a key to the club so we can get extra sessions in.

The nationals start on the 12th March. Ant and I are competing in a K2 and k1 500m and 200m on the 13th and 14th March.

I'm reading Lance Armstrong's autobiography and he said that all great athletes aren't scared of putting them selves in positions where they could make a fool of them selves through lack of experience because that's the only way you will learn fast! hummmm . . . he also says " make every obstacle an opportunity" which I think is a better way of looking at it.