Saturday morning at the Scottish Championships in Grandtully arrived, bringing with it horrified exclamations and whimpers from parents, paddlers and organisers. The river had risen about two metres overnight, responding as only the Tay can to a night of relentless rain. I came to the race slightly peeved that I'd managed to forget ALL of my kit outside and left it to be drenched overnight - and quickly realised that there was a very real possibility that the race might be cancelled.

No paddler ever wants to hear that a race they have been preparing for for days is at risk. But this was a pretty serious rise in height. All the gates set out the previous evening were half underwater, and the usually placid top fall was now a substantial wave. Amid throngs of pale-faced kids waiting to paddle, coaches, organisers, volunteers and paddlers worked hard from about 7am to get the course fixed and useable. Unbelievably, Davie Dickson managed to design a course that presented a sufficient challenge for the Scottish Championships, but also allowed some of the younger participants to compete safely.

I personally love Grandtully when its at spate height. It has a lot of bouncy standing waves and challenging eddy options, and it wasn't lost on me that navigating a 20 gate course on this kind of water would be incredibly physical. So setting off from the start gate, I knew that I had to suffer from the beginning, and keep suffering until I had sprinted between the entire 20 gates. My first run was going well - better than well actually, I was getting more and more confident as I got towards the final five gates, as every upstream had felt snappy and precise - until gate 16. Gates 16-17 consisted of a single gate in the flow, and a double gate slightly offset from this. I made the mistake of pulling out a foot too far into the current, allowing my tail to be caught by the flow and spinning me down past gate 17. After this ensued maybe a twenty to thirty second paddle back, most of which I spent in a blinding red rage. Everyone had TOLD me. I KNEW this would take a little more finesse than I had shown, and a lot less finesse than I know I can perform to. So with my first run basically as a write-off, I was feeling the pressure in my second run.

A lot of people can say 'only' the Scottish Championships. Its true - it isn't a premier race where you can get points. Its not a world cup where you can race international paddlers. It isn't selection, and many people enjoy it as a fun race to show up to, race friends and dance at the ceilidh in the evening. But I love to race, and I love to do well. The Scottish Championships is an incredibly important race to me, because it is a national competition that allows teammates to pitch themselves against each other and race on home water. And who wouldn't want the Scottish Champions prize? 

So it was with all of this floating around in the back of my mind that I began the sprint into my second run of the day. Which, as plenty of athletes can confirm, isn't an ideal race mentality. To my horror, I touched the second upstream, a lazy slip of the paddle. I let myself stop thinking about the gates, and really let rip on the rest of the course. I was pleased with the time I was making up, until I got to the dreaded gate sequence. A sequence that I would have no trouble with in training, but for some reason was mentally blocking this weekend. I edged my way around the move, and sprinted to the finish. My boyfriend Euan came to the finish line, and I complained voraciously, convinced I had given up a perfectly good race weekend again. 

But as it turns out, no matter how harshly you judge yourself, it is always the time that counts on paper. I had slipped into second place overall behind Fiona Pennie, and claimed the Word Gym U23 Scottish Womens trophy. It was a very up and down day of racing, and it was good to relax at the ceilidh in the evening with some of my team mates. Olympians Tim Baillie and Fiona Pennie gave us an hour of their time to answer any questions we cared to ask. I think one that will stick with me is how they replied to 'After the worst race of your life, what was it that brought you back to canoe slalom?'. Both of their answers were similar, that at the end of the day their love of the sport came first, closely followed by their competitiveness and love of racing. 

I think that most paddlers would agree with me that the most disappointing kind of race isn't one where you paddled badly. For me, the most irritating scenario is one where you felt like it was a solid, satisfactory run - that turned out to be slower than your first one!Cardiff international whitewater centre is probably my favourite UK site. I know a lot of canoeists would agree with me, because there just aren't many other courses which offer the same variety of eddies and drops. I always love training there, as sessions offer endless gate combinations and moves. So I was really looking forward to having a blistering race!However, there's a trick to Cardiff. Paddlers will know what I mean by keeping run on the boat. It means to keep speed through all your movements, whether going downstream through a stopper, or upstream in a gate. On Cardiff, losing speed is the equivalent of tying a few traffic cones to your tail and paddling through a swimming pool of kids. No matter how much time you think you've gained,  its incredibly difficult to make it back up after a mistake. I don't think I helped myself out much by hitting a few gates per run, but I ended up finishing 9th in premier. Looking back on the video, its suddenly very easy to see where I lost time and made some pretty cringey mistakes. But it doesn't really sugar coat the dissatisfaction of thinking you've had a reasonably solid run when actually it was pretty slow.Something that made me really proud at the weekend was how well some of my team mates performed. It seriously goes to show that it doesn't matter what squad you are picked for, or how many privileges are granted to you. Getting your head down and training hard ALWAYS comes out on top eventually. On a more positive note, my new boat is now in Scotland! Also the Scottish championships are this weekend, followed by a two week training camp in Nottingham then London for me! I'm really looking forward to spending two whole weeks training hard. I love my university course, but anyone else doing a degree and training full time will agree with me, it's hard not to sometimes feel like you have to put one before the other. And canoeing is due a good long stint in front! I have a lot to work on that I observed this weekend, and a new boat to get to know. Our sport is often described as one of the most complex disciplines, with hundreds of individual factors combining to make a slalom race. The skill possessed by the best paddlers in the world comes from being adaptable, not only to the water and the boat but also in their responses to mistakes. The massive way I still have to go doesn't really feel daunting, as I showed myself this weekend I can still learn from my mistakes and enjoy the race, even with a less than satisfactory result. I think its important to be competitive, but equally important to love the journey.

So the second half of racing season kicked off with the premier race and Junior British Championships at Tees Barrage. Because the focus of the weekend was basically around the kids trying to get British titles, the pressure was pretty much off for the premier race on Sunday - until it came to the start line that is! 
To start with, Saturday was a huge success for the Scottish Squad - it felt like virtually nobody went home without a prize! It was pretty amazing watching kids that I've coached come into their power, and race like they meant it. It was also pretty embarrassing to discover that I can no longer cruise down judges runs and get away with it - my ego took a sound beating when two of the girls that I coach got faster times than me! The junior British Championships was truly heartwarming, especially at the end of the day when the kids from CR Cats Canoe Club stood with their proud coach, Johnny Brown. He has a dedication to his athletes that makes me proud to race for the Scottish Performance Squad. The children he coaches will always be able to rely on his help and guidance, and I have no doubt whatsoever that in the Olympic games and world cups to come, he'll be right there on the bank giving them his support.
With Sunday came the premier race. I had it in my mind to start the second half of the season with a solid result, and I wasn't disappointed! I came in at second place, my best ever result in premier. I always feel powerful on Teesside, as the wide flat spaces between rapids give room to really open up and lay down some sprints - even if I did get a bit over excited and take it out on some poles on the way down! It felt so good to finally be racing again after a summer of hard training, and I was eager to get to Nottingham to race at the Paul McConkey Memorial race.

The Nottingham Premier was in championship format - that means on Saturday you get two chances to lay down a qualification run, and on Sunday there is a semi final run followed by a final. For women, only 7 paddlers get to qualify into the finals. After a very technical, punishing course on Saturday, I feel like myself and many other paddlers underestimated the technical aspect of the course set up on Sunday. I managed to qualify for the finals, with two touches - which should tell you something about the technicality of the upper section of the race! I came 6th overall in the premier race. It was hard not to be a bit disappointed with this result, because while it is up there with some of my best results in premier, I knew I had lost a substantial amount of time in the top section. I think I held it together much better than I would have done in the past - I put my head down and revved the engine! I remember hearing '...and she still has four seconds to make up!' coming from the commentary when I was in the last upstream gate, and managed to pull back two whole seconds on my lagging time. But overall it was an amazing race weekend, and I really enjoyed it as usual - possibly excepting the 3am arrival back home in time for a 10am lecture at uni!
The video below is a film made about the Junior British Championships at Teesside, I think it gives a beautiful depiction of what its like to be at a slalom race!