Yesterday I paddled for 40 minutes and did five 12-stroke sprints. The river was at 1.7 feet below zero on the Memphis gauge. The latest forecast has it rising to -1.4 feet for the race tomorrow morning.
I've been catching up on the video footage of the whitewater slalom World Cup event at Cardiff, Wales, two weeks ago. I don't follow the sport as closely as I did when I was racing slalom myself in the late 90s and early 00s, but I enjoy acquainting myself with the latest cast of characters now and then, especially when an Olympic Games is coming up.
While there are many new faces on the international slalom circuit, there are also a few racers from "my" era still hanging in there. One of the finalists in the women's kayak class at Cardiff got my attention: Štěpánka Hilgertová of the Czech Republic. Hilgertová has won two Olympic gold medals (1996 and 2000) and two world championships (1999 and 2003), and now, at age 44 (my age!), she has made her sixth Olympic Team.
The Czech Republic is one of the strongest slalom nations in the world, and one would expect younger paddlers to have supplanted Hilgertová by now. I have come into the last couple of Olympic cycles thinking that surely Štěpánka has retired from the sport, only to tune into the Games and find her right there on the water.
I have commented now and then on the challenges of getting older. It seems that in my 40s I am more vulnerable to fluke muscle strains and stuff like that, and recovery from exercise takes a little longer than it used to. I'm responding by training less intensely than I might have 20 years ago while focusing more on the technical aspects of paddling. And all things considered, I still feel pretty good most of the time and I'm not willing to concede anything to another racer simply because he's younger.
I expect Štěpánka has a similar attitude as she prepares for her sixth Olympics. Knowing that she's still near the top of her sport gives me a little inspiration as I get ready to race tomorrow.
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