The competition this Saturday

Today I paddled in the harbor for 40 minutes, doing six 12-stroke sprints (I define a "stroke" here to be a full cycle of a stroke on the left and a stroke on the right).

The purpose of these short sprints is to work the ATP-CP energy system that I talked about in my post way back on February 16.  One of these sprints, done at maximum intensity, takes me between 10 and 15 seconds.  If I sprint for much longer than that, my body will start to produce lactic acid, and then I'll be working that system rather than the ATP-CP system.  So I keep them short, counting strokes rather than timing because it's hard to look at a watch when you're paddling all-out.

While the aerobic system takes a few months to develop and the lactic system takes six to eight weeks to develop, you can develop your ATP-CP system with just a few days of these short sprints.  So it makes sense to do it in the days leading up to a big race, in which you'll use up your stash of ATP-CP as you explode off the start.  Because you don't produce any lactic acid during sprints of 15 seconds or less, it's a good way to rev your engines while you're otherwise paddling easy and resting up.

In 2012 I have competed in three races, finishing second in the first and winning the next two.  But when I line up in Little Rock this Saturday, I will not be among the favorites.

Last year, I finished ninth overall at the Arkansas River Canoe and Kayak Race.  And five of the people who beat me that day are registered for this Saturday's race.  Last year's top two, Carlos Garcia and Cedric Bond, are training partners at the U.S. national team's "high performance" facility at Oklahoma City.  51-year-old Mike Herbert, third last year, has a list of achievements that these younger paddlers would love to match: he's a three-time Olympian, a three-time medalist at the world championships, and a Pan American Games gold medalist.

Kaitlyn McElroy, who also trains at Oklahoma City, just won a bronze medal and a silver medal in double kayak competition on the World Cup circuit this month.  Oklahoman Dylan Puckett is currently the top junior kayaker in the U.S.

Garcia, Bond, and McElroy are all good enough to race in the Olympics this summer.  The main reason they won't be there is the tight limit on the number of athletes that the I.O.C. has imposed on what it considers "fringe" sports like canoe-kayak.  For most of my lifetime, the U.S. Olympic Team has included several K1 racers along with a full slate of K2s and K4s, not to mention single and tandem canoes.  But in both 2008 and 2012 the U.S. has had only two people--two people--on its flatwater Olympic Team.

But that's a rant for another day.  Also at Little Rock this Saturday will be Austin Schwinn, a young guy who beat me by a couple of minutes over 18 miles at the USCA Nationals four years ago, and who has improved significantly since then; and Katy Hill, whom I've never met but whose name I've seen floating around the flatwater ranks in recent years.  In the last two years, female flatwater racers have been my tightest competition at Little Rock, and I won't be surprised if Ms. Hill fills that role this year.  There are several other people registered in the K1 class (for boats that meet Olympic flatwater racing specs) with whom I'm not familiar, but my guess is they're pretty good.

So it's possible that I will have a great race this Saturday and finish out of the top ten.  How do you set a goal for a race like that?

Well, my goal might sound a little simplistic, but here it is: I'm going to go as fast as I can.  Basically, I want to be in the thick of competition with these racers who train as much as or more than I do, and the best way I know to do that is go out hard and try to stay with the fastest paddlers I can possibly hang with.  I'm hoping that the training I've done over the last couple of months will enable me to do that.

I would like to believe that even at age 44, I can hang with a training group like the one from Oklahoma City even though I wouldn't be its fastest member or even close to it.  This race gives me a chance to prove that to myself.  I am grateful to these flatwater Olympic hopefuls for venturing out to an event that's not held on a regulation nine-lane course, and I hope the experience will be as valuable for them as it is for me.