Its that time of year again. Starting to get comfortably chilly, enough for an extra layer but not quite icy enough to go all-out mitts and fleecy cap. As usual, for the Scottish champs, there was an apocalyptic prediction of thunderstorms, hail, basically anything the weather could throw at us. What emerged was a slightly threatening grey sky which elapsed into beautiful sunshine around lunchtime. The river had an obligatory swell overnight, which caused emergency course de-then-re-construction, miraculously not causing a delay longer than 15 minutes. Which is a testament to these events, and how much work volunteers sacrifice in order to give paddlers opportunities to do what they love. Years of skill and hard work combine to produce a race that had an amiable, competitive atmosphere, and had all the efficient factors that are essential for this kind of event to run. 

The course itself was a classic Grandtully affair; high water limits constructor's options considerably. Tully is at it's best when the enormous standing waves in the middle are made use of, and this year didn't disappoint. I had a very average first run, with a lot of eddies catching me out and stalling my boat. My second run was much quicker, and I felt a lot more ruthless in the way I dealt with my boat. Because the courses at Tully are so open and physical, I get a rare opportunity to sprint at my full pace without losing control. I did feel really fast in my second run, give or take a couple of tiny details; except, to my coach's rage, the last gate. It was one of those moments all canoeists can relate to. Your mental voice is going, 'now lets not touch the last gate, its been such a good run, don't touch it...!' Of course, inevitably, this is a recipe for a touch. All you can do is hold on to the last few strokes and power to the finish. 

At the end of the weekend, I was U23 Champion for the third year in a row, and slightly closer in time to the winner, Fiona Pennie, than in previous years. Every second is progress, and even at smaller races like this it is immensely satisfying to paddle in a home environment with your teammates. It is also an interesting feeling when winning my category, but coming second overall, isn't quite enough anymore. Its amazing to feel like I've improved, and I have years more training to get through before I can start thinking about being that kind of level, but suddenly its in sight. 

Learning NOT to think has been a huge part of training for me. There's just something in the way my mind works that wants to analyse everything individually before putting it into a nice structured pattern that makes a whole. As every athlete knows, this just doesn't work in racing. Canoe slalom is made up of hundreds of training reinforced experiences that shape our paddling into our respective styles. These 'reflexes' don't just appear - it takes hours and hours of training to learn them. It takes even longer for them to start appearing without prompt from your brain. Which is when we can start to 'overthink' things.

I read 'Bounce: The Myth of Talent' a couple of years ago, and what I learnt from it has stuck with me ever since. That for a perfect performance, we need to let our brains control our action, our experience shape our 'game'. This kind of involves letting go of your conscious hold on the situation, and handing it, no-strings-attached, to your body. Which is really really hard. Imagine being told that, in order to get to work, you need to jump out of a plane - and your friend at the bottom has the remote control for your parachute. You know and trust your friend, and the reasonable part of your brain understands that they won't let you plummet to your death. But actually if I had to stand in that place, I would have numerous objections to the situation. 

Because when you're sitting on a start line, it is so easy to get into a cruel mental cycle - 'it's going to be ok, I'm really calm, I'm going to do my plan, it's going to be ok.' Amidst so much mental noise, how can your brain possibly get the best chance to do it's thing? The best paddlers, the very best in the world, look as calm as though they are going to go for a quiet, one to one training session. Not a high pressured 120 seconds in front of thousands of people. At the Paul Mcconchy race in Nottingham, I felt like I paddled at a reasonable standard for me - until the finals run, when I made a clear mental decision to race really fast. It wasn't a swithering, worried plan to do the course a bit faster. It was a distinct switch, from relaxed to pumped. It's probably very different for loads of people, but for me it turns out, that doesn't really work.

How to improve on this kind of thing? From what I can gather from better athletes than me, before races they get just as nervous as I do. But through experience and long, long practise they have developed methods of coping, of turning off the mental noise and going back to a place where it's just a calm, fun, one to one session.