Pre-race stuff

It's been a week of rest, short sprints, and mojo repair.  Now, some 38 hours before the start of the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race, I'm feeling reasonably rested and ready.  There's still some soreness in my hip area, but I don't feel nearly as beat-up as I felt last weekend.

The weather has been more and more humid in the last week or so, and today was easily the least-pleasant day of the year so far.  The temperature reached about 98 degrees Fahrenheit with the heat index exceeding 110 degrees.  It was already quite oppressive when I got down to the river around 10:30 this morning.  I hope Saturday won't be as bad as today, but I'm counting on a hot one.

Paddling this week has been mostly easy with a few sprints each day.  On Tuesday Joe and I paddled together for about 70 minutes and I did eight 12-stroke sprints with plenty of recovery time in between.  Yesterday and today I was down at the river by myself, and did nice long full-body stretching sessions before getting in the boat each day.  I paddled 40 minutes both yesterday and today, doing six 12-stroke sprints yesterday and four 12-stroke sprints today.

I was discussing the race with a friend recently and she asked me if I do any particular mental preparation.  I haven't talked much about that here lately, but the answer is yes, and I try to do a lot of visualization before a big race.  Pre-race visualization was a very important part of the slalom racing I did back in the 1990s and I find it useful for the racing I do these days as well.

For good visualization, get off by yourself in a quiet place, and relax your body as completely as you can.  Then go through the race in your mind, from your own point of view as you're sitting in your boat.  I always visualize the situation at the starting line and the things I need to do to have a good start.  As for the rest of the race, I visualize things unfolding exactly as I'd like them to, and I also visualize possible unexpected developments and how I might deal with them.  I visualize myself settling into a good mid-race tempo and also those moments when it's time to "put the hammer down."

I even try to visualize the things I want to be doing before I'm in the boat: going by the check-in booth, getting all my gear together, stretching, drinking water, putting on sunscreen... visualization is a good time to get all these details organized in your head, and that way they just sort of "happen" the morning of the race.

So... we'll see how it goes.  There are some good racers registered and I think it'll be an exciting contest.