Things I’ve Learned; Sprint sessions are hard

13/01/2023

Today I learned that sprint sessions are hard, and not the type of sprint session you might be thinking. This afternoon me and a couple of my fellow canoeists jumped onto the flatwater with Killian (our coach) to do a sprint session. This was a high intensity long recovery type of session, we would sprint in a straight line for 10 seconds then rest for 1 minute and 50 seconds. We would do that 10 times then have a slightly longer rest then go for another 10 efforts. I found this session difficult because there was a lot of time to think about your technique and what you were doing but only 10 seconds to execute. It was mentally challenging to put 100% effort into each sprint for 20 efforts. The other reason I found this session very hard was because at 100% max effort, my stroke rate increases dramatically to a point where it is completely different to my usually racing style technique. I find myself sort of just grabbing whatever water I can feel under my blade and pulling it as quickly and as forcefully as I can, whereas my racing technique tends to be a bit more methodical than that. When I paddle with my methodical racing technique, even with an increased stroke rate, I still find I can paddle comfortably in a straight line without the need for crossbows. However when I go full max effort and this technique changes I found it hard today to either keep paddling on my onside, or keep the boat going in a dead straight line.
The mixture of struggling to have complete control over my boat as usual and then also having such long periods of time to think about it made this session a tough one mentally. Towards the last few reps of the session, I started to figure out body shapes, stroke patterns and boat edges that helped me stay straight on these max efforts (which ended up making me look wildly different on the water to how I usually would).
But still another curious session with learning and adaptations, its all part of the journey I guess.