I recently read a post on instagram shared by a friend. Charlie Guest is an Olympic GBR ski racer, and over the last year we've had a couple of stories together that involved deconstructing assumed "norms" about gender in sport, and I've been thoroughly inspired. A few months ago, we addressed a weightlifting brand on instagram, who had published a new line of equipment that was divided into "male" and "female" categories. The men's line of equipment added up to 160kg of weight and the women's to 120kg. Charlie and I have both done a lot of weightlifting, so we understand that in competition, women have the OPTION to use a narrower grip bar which is 5kg less than the standard size. These lines were published for public consumption; there was literally no need to label them based on gender. Men who want to lift less are obliged by the marketing to buy the "male" pack, and vice versa for women who want to put more weight on the bar. After a bit of to-and-fro, the brand graciously acknowledged how important it is to remove labels like that at an essential stage of sport such as equipment purchase, and changed the name of their new line. (See the below pictures for the full conversation!)

The post Charlie shared recently was from one of her ski racing colleagues, who has suffered with an eating disorder. 

Unfortunately this is a story that almost every female athlete I know has gone through. It's not to say I don't know men who have suffered through eating disorders, but in my experience as an athlete it's simply not the same volume - I'm talking about every. single. girl. It's horrifying. So I wanted to write a post about how this kind of thing started for me, and how it links to the fact that from day one of existence, girls are given a set of rules they have to comply with. It's essentially linked to societal view of "normal" that in sport, women are trying to deconstruct to make the pathway more equal.  I thought I'd share part of the book I'm writing below; it's extremely personal, but unfortunately I think it's a terribly common story for girls who start sports in high school. Certainly in my generation of athletes it is.

The next ten years of my life began. I’d developed arm muscles. I didn’t really wear makeup or jewellery. I liked ‘girly’ stuff; I just didn’t really wear any or behave ‘feminine’. What was super confusing, was that while I didn’t really care if people asked me if I was a boy or a girl - I just found it odd - was that now things like “man” and “tranny” and “do you have a penis” were being thrown at me. I can't even imagine how much more complex that experience can be for young people discovering things about themselves like how they'd like society to see them based on how they feel on the inside.

The names didn't matter to me, but the viciousness with which it was thrown at me was bewildering. I’d not done anything wrong. I actually thought of myself as a nice, enthusiastic kind of person. But every single day, I was being attacked in school. It was even physical. One time after P.E. I was feeling super stoked that I’d helped win a hockey match. I got on fine with all the girls - bar one or two, like any high school relationships. But I got ambushed behind the changing rooms by three boys. They tore off my shirt, to ‘see if I was a girl’. It was incredibly aggressive, and traumatising. I think this kind of thing happens a lot in high school. I was by no means the most bullied or downtrodden in the school, and horrifyingly, my experience probably wouldn’t have even made the top 5% of worst experiences of what assholes kids can be. It’s an aggressive, abusive, tribal reaction to someone who doesn’t immediately fit into a box. I still don’t, so I’ve kept that part of my personality which is hard to categorise, which I’m happy about. What happened next was truly horrifying though, and while I think it shaped my attitude to authority in later years, I think this kind of management must have damaged countless kids.

I wasn’t a snitch or a grass, but I was pretty traumatised by being attacked. I went to my next class in a jumper, because my shirt had been torn, and when I was asked to take it off, refused. I got sent to the office of my head of year. She asked what the problem was, and I burst into tears and told her everything. About how violated I felt, about the name calling and intense hatred thrown at me in hallways. About how groups of boys intimidated me enough to make ridiculous detours around the school. How I hated beyond anything walking to a table in the lunch hall, because it was like a walk of shame. I ignored most of it, but it’s hard when it’s every single day. She responded:

“Why don’t you wear a dress?” 

I think that in the UK, in 2020 at least, this attitude has changed quite a lot. But what really gets my blood boiling is the idea that "things are improving, so we don't need to shout quite as loudly". There is an overwhelming sense that I'm doing something wrong by telling my personal story here. It is extremely uncomfortable to think about people reading it, but at the moment, women have to measure what they say SO CAREFULLY in order to not come across as (delete as appropriate):

Attention seeking
Dramatic
Man hating
Self absorbed
Manly (I know)
Not caring about any other issues (for example, I am discussing young women's experiences in high school. I am not discussing young men's experiences in high school, but I feel the need to acknowledge that I give a giant shit about that set of issues too).

In 2020, I have still sat down and listened to someone use "gay" as a derogatory term. I couldn't believe it. Now I have to acknowledge that I'm not trying to take away anyone's right to free speech. But are we really so low on creativity, us, the most linguistically diverse animal ON THE PLANET, that we can't find a way to say we don't like something that doesn't aggressively alienate a HUGE amount of the population? Also (sorry, Bember is on a rampage) how is it that CALLING THIS OUT is more frowned upon than actually doing it in the first place?!

So the next post I do, I promise, will be canoe slalom themed. But these issues are too important to me and my experience in sport to ignore. These experiences have shaped who I am, and I believe as an athlete it's my responsibility to address them as modern issues. I'm inspired by the other women I know in sport. I'm inspired ALL the time by people who don't feel that they fit in anywhere in society, but try as hard as they can anyway. It's normal for men to sit and commentate at women's sporting events and evaluate their feelings and life situation in a way they wouldn't for male athletes, so I'm going to bloody well talk about them. What we need to do, is try and imagine how we'd feel about it if all the language used for women in sport, was applied to men in sport. Then ask ourselves, truthfully, how does it feel? Does it feel weird? And then try and understand why it feels weird.

I still don’t really fit into boxes. I love dresses, and makeup. I just don’t put a massively high value on them. I love my sport, and I think I’m thought of as ‘tough’ in terms of training, effort and resilience. I also love reading and poetry and art. I don’t feel the need to change to fit better in my ‘box’. I’m trying to use imagery and stories to illustrate things that make my life now incredibly valuable to me. One of those things, that makes life a little more valuable, is how many men I also know that are without hesitation, picking up these issues and wearing them proudly too. Thank you.

Don’t be sorry.

I had a strength coach for a while who set the most insane core sessions. They’d burn and make you feel ill with effort. But the special part was that for the exercise to be truly disgusting, you had to force yourself to finish it. A core session is as hard as you make it, and my coach always said ‘stay honest’ when all you want to do is tell yourself that you can’t do it anymore. That it’s alright to stop now. To take some of the weight off your core, or slow the movements down a bit. Or speed them up to make it easier. You’d be amazed what your brain does in moments like that, and astounded at how much longer you can bear something unbearable.

I always feel like slalom is special from a self-evaluation perspective. We’re required to adapt, be flexible, be rigid and also have strict discipline. You need to learn to relax, and know when to wind yourself up. Letting go of hard things is a skill. Letting go of nice things is even harder. One of the most difficult things to overcome for me is quite hard to talk about, because it’s not a heroic story of struggle and success. It’s a characteristic that’s ugly, and quite hard to train yourself out of.

A few blog posts ago, I mentioned that society sort of trains us to see the failure of others as a personal success. For you to enjoy something fully, it has to be something that someone else can’t have. It breeds this feeling of satisfaction when someone misses out, or fails at something they tried extremely hard at. It makes you feel superior. Nothing is more likely to develop a character based on arrogance, when you feel your personal value lies in something unique to you. We’re all unique, of course. But we’re also all human, and sharing the qualities that we have in common is so much more important than contrasting, and by default, comparing them to others.  

For example, in a training environment, it can be highly valuable to observe what others are doing. How often they train, the sort of fatigue cycles they demonstrate as a result. There’s also nothing wrong with taking inspiration from things they do that you might not have thought of. Having role models is incredibly powerful. But the problem comes from comparing your own situation to someone else's. Because we are almost never completely educated about a person’s exact situation. To assume you can see the whole picture of someone’s life when really all you’ve seen is the finishing touches, is a problem. It makes it easy to award value, or remove the value of that person on an incredibly superficial level. 

Slalom can be a hard sport for this. An old coach said, “you’re only as good as your last performance.” Which I guess, from a spectators perspective, is true. If slalom was a highly spectated event, then maybe that would have some kind of value from a TV or sponsorship point of view. It also wouldn’t be an athlete’s responsibility to manage that. What I’m trying hard to illustrate with this blog is that the true value of a person really isn’t in their sporting achievements. I used to think it was; my identifying characteristic was WATER. I’m that ‘water girl’ or the ‘crazy girl who likes to be cold all the time’. A crazy sport. I guess what I’m trying to say is that where one person may identify themselves by their sport, another might find more value in just identifying with the sport. Use it as a model, a system to better yourself. But don’t place your personal value on the outcomes, the tangible results,  that take up about 1% of your total on-water time. 

An exercise that's brought a lot of value to my experience of slalom is watching out for moments where others find immense value in the doing of something, rather than the outcome of something. Watching expedition videos, where the final performance is actually a tiny fraction of a trip that might be months of harrowing travel, is strangely relatable. I think true athletes are the ones that gain value from every part of what they’re doing, and I guess expedition kayaking is a great illustration of that. Nouria Newman recently posted about a trip to find whitewater in Quebec, where she has completed some of the most insane first descents I have ever seen. Ever. Like, to see another woman for whom ‘first female to…’ really, clearly isn’t enough. On this particular trip they didn’t find any whitewater, but spent weeks in rural Quebec enduring some truly horrifying conditions (people who follow Nouria have probably seen the haunting photos of mosquito bites). I didn’t for even a second feel that Nouria regretted the trip. Which is kinda cool. 

I talked a bit earlier about recognising that part of yourself that is gratified by or gets satisfaction from other's failure. Having a position that is dominant, or something that somebody else can’t have, can be reinforced by someone else’s misfortune. It’s pretty typical; I think it’s why ‘gossip’ is so powerful. People don’t actually want the information. They are chasing the feeling of being more fortunate, or more superior than someone else. I guess it can be dressed up in a lot of ways. Concern, interest, especially ‘analysis’. I might be totally wrong, but I really feel like most of those are to do with having a feeling of deep enjoyment at someone else’s situation. There’s nothing wrong with it I suppose. It’s just distressing to think that we’ve become so far removed from compassion and support in chasing our personal addiction of feeling slightly nicer, in a world where everyone is qualified to complain in some way. 

This brings me on to the next thing I’ve learnt about myself that’s not easy to talk about, but is much easier to cope with now it’s obvious. I'll analyse it in more detail in my next post, because I think I've dissected society enough for one reading! Basically, if I compare my situation now to my first year of university, my financial, mental, physical and emotional wellbeing is so much better. I have everything now that I desperately wanted when I was 18. I’ve raced at world cups, I can afford rent, I get to travel. But the problems have shifted. There are still things that keep me up at night, to worry about. My wants and needs have shifted, and so on. I’m pretty sure once I’ve achieved my current goals, I’ll have accumulated another set of ‘worries’. It sounds so obvious once you identify it, but having problems never stops. They just shift and become relative. The reason I added this to the end of the blog post is that I've found it adds to the moment, the enjoyment of doing rather than outcomes. So often, we allow worries to take away from what we're doing right now. I'm just saying they will always be relative; so they don't need to take anything at all.

I live, and spend most of my time training, in Scotland. I guess saying most of my time is a little inaccurate, because I do spend a lot of time away. Probably between 6 and 12 weeks every summer, and about the same in winter. Which can end up being six months a year away from home training. But the rest of the time, I’m in Scotland. Which is a little controversial for someone of my level in canoe slalom in the UK, because most people end up moving to Nottingham or London to be near one of the larger performance centres. The idea is that if you train on whitewater every single day, your skills on whitewater will improve and be more consistent in racing environments. As a general rule, I’d probably agree. 

However, for me slalom is a game of balancing physical and mental fatigue. I've found that one of the best ‘remedies’ for mental fatigue is change of environment. I love going on training camps, especially long ones. It’s about getting to change pace, change routine, whilst not really losing that sense of ‘home base’ which for me, is Scotland. 

Last year when I started writing this, I’d begun working with Oscar on a new training method. I’ll try and outline it technically later on, but basically it’s an adaptation of “classic” British slalom training, to accommodate some pretty worn down tendons, a tired brain and a drive to “hurt” that hasn’t gone away since I was sixteen. Slalom is pretty special (I’m excited to see in the editing phase how many times I’ve said that) because there are so, so many different ways of training. Some nations choose to cross-train for the winter, entirely out of their boats. Other nations train all year round on whitewater. The German team spends a lot of time on flat water, and have produced some of the best paddlers in the world. There are literally hundreds of different, proven-to-work methods. I truly believe it’s about being confident that your way of doing it is the best. It leads to so many heated, awesome, “revolutionary” discussions on the best way to do something. Slovakia has produced three of the best C1 men in the history of slalom. It’s easy to ask why their other categories don’t have the same depth of field. It’s down to the individual athletes, and their approach.

So our method is adapted from the concept of USRPT. That’s Ultra Short Race Pace Training. It takes the full length of a race, so in slalom a full run comprised of around 20 gates and 100 second course, and divides it into four. We do ten repetitions of a quarter, so around 4-6 gates at between 20-30 second efforts. These efforts have to be performed at race pace or slightly above, so about 180-190bpm for me. I get 15 seconds rest between efforts. Then I try and do that for three sets. It’s brutal training, and very different to the long winter loops I’ve done in previous years. 

The point of USRPT, is short bursts with relatively low rest times. It makes you super lactic, for a start. In slalom we love lactic training, because a full run is anywhere between 80 and 120 seconds long, so not long enough to get aerobic but definitely a really great length to build some horrible levels of lactate in your forearms. The more lactic tolerance training you do, the better you are at coping with it (disclaimer: you can definitely do too much). It doesn’t get less unpleasant - but your relative recovery time and speed endurance go up. 

The other point, and the more significant one for me, is what Peter Andrews describes as “neurological failures”. Now in swimming, this means when you have two or more efforts where you fail to meet the pace time, so you have to stop the set. Obviously, in swimming this is easier to measure than in slalom, because you probably already know what your race pace is. So Oscar and I developed a set of rules, that indicate whether I’ve had a “neurological failure” or not. I think for other slalom athletes attempting this session it’s pretty important to have someone on the bank, who knows what your own personal neuro-failure looks like. 

So when I’ve had a neurological failure, it’s when the messages from my input (feeling, vision, spacial awareness, fatigue) start affecting my output (speed, precision, presentation/attitude). Visually (for me), that manifests itself as:

1. My core “bending” instead of rotating. Slalom paddlers will know what that looks like, but for everyone else it means basically instead of turning my body around with a straight spine, I’ll start leaning backwards and forwards with my neck at strange angles to get to a certain position.
2. Touches (in slalom if you touch a gate you incur a two-second penalty). These are kind of a tough one because they can happen when you’re perfectly fine physically, so they’re not a reason to stop the set. So when I’m touching, sometimes it’s just a spacial awareness thing, and that can come from concentration, which isn’t entirely dependent on being fatigued. When it’s a fatigue thing, it’s usually when my paddle isn’t upright, or if I’m cutting lines with less speed. Again, important to have someone on the bank for that one.
3. The times I get on each section getting slower than a second behind the initial race pace. This can be a really cool way to get through the session. Oscar shouts the time from each section to me as I complete it, so during the 15 seconds rest at the end of the effort, my brain literally only has time to process whether it was slightly slower or faster. Which is great for me, because I’m extremely reactive. Again, it’s dependent on the individual because that could be horribly distracting for someone else. 

In our current block of training (which so far is like an extended summer "winter" block, as there are no races in the UK this year and our governing body has chosen to withdraw from the last two world cups and European Championships - which I might add, I agree with) we do two USRPT sessions per week. The rest of the sessions I do are tech-focused, with one "race simulation" per week and of course gym. 

The reason I'm sharing this session is not because I think it's entirely new - I know that various methods of training flux in and out of being popular/effective. It's because when you're sitting in the middle of what was meant to be a long summer season, potentially repeating the same sessions over and over, it can be pretty cool to change things up a bit and try something new. USRPT or "intervals" is a difficult session, but it's not something you just grind away at. You have an opportunity to be super aware of your own body and brain, which is what I think slalom's all about.

I was super resistant to changing my week structure when I started this, but it's probably the fittest and most consistent I've ever been (again, hard to measure without a race - but it seemed to work last year!). I'm glad I stepped out of this particular comfort zone, because no matter what block you're in, it's a chance to start fresh again and again.

When I was a teenager, someone told me this:

 “What we dislike most in other people is almost always a mirror of what we dislike most about ourselves.”

I don’t need to tell you what a hard pill THAT was to swallow. I’ve said it once or twice to other people, and they react in much the same way I did; denial, brushing it off, rejection. But if you really think about it, it’s true. (Obviously not including things that would come under the category of ‘hate’ because that becomes an issue for racism, sexism, homophobia etc which are perfectly fine to have a problem with). I dislike when people behave as though I know less than them about my sport. That is self-assessment red flag number one; I’ve already said that the more I learn about my sport, the more I realise the volume of things I have yet to learn. So I should be open to conversations where I know less.. I am also very, very guilty of often assuming I have more knowledge in a conversation. I’m not sure where that comes from or if it’s improving, but I try really hard to be aware of it. It’s truly not easy to recognise something like that in yourself, but you can do it for sure. It just takes a bit of time to adjust. 

Some basic rules I like to follow when I’m struggling to find a balanced way to have a conversation with someone because I feel disrespected, threatened or belittled:
​

• I'm not necessarily being disrespected because I'm a girl. (I’m going to leave out ‘you might not be being disrespected at all’ because unfortunately, society is still conditioned for women to have a smaller part in professional conversations in Britain. The important part here is that the person may not even realise they are doing it, therefore are not doing anything consciously wrong.) The other person may, like me, have a bold tone in conversation and be particularly enthusiastic about the topic, causing them to bulldoze over what anyone else has to say (much like myself). 
• We often don’t know all our own anxieties and problems and causes of emotion. Which makes it absolutely inconceivable that after a few minutes of knowing someone, we are qualified to make any kind of assumption about theirs. 
• Don’t be unforgiving. Remember that a long time ago, I was so committed to what one coach said, I truly believed that women had less of a place in sport than men. I wasn’t stupid or naive. I just really, really wanted to live to that person’s rules. People change a lot and it would be incredibly hypocritical to not allow room for that. 
• True professionals don’t have to say they’re good at something, or need anyone else to tell them that. Their focus is on what they’re doing, and as we train for in slalom, what other people think literally doesn’t matter at all.
• Don’t change. Your emotions and personality are your own, and you should never let someone make you feel small for that. If you’re explosive, be explosive. Just don’t take anyone else with you, because that’s not fair. If you’re mild, be mild. Don’t feel as though you have to speak in uncomfortable situations because someone is trying to make you.  “Just do you”. 

​The reason I've developed these rules for myself is complicated. I'm lucky enough to be an athlete during a radical time for women in sport. As an athlete, I do feel as thought my justification for pursuit of sport is to be part of the voice that speaks up. Especially as I've been part of training situations where the female position in sport has been abused or degraded.

I’ve been coached by loads of different people. I’ve been lucky enough for a couple of those coaches to have been consistently there for me for a number of years; Lukas Giertl firstly, then a Polish ex-senior team paddler called Wojciech Sekula. They both had very different personalities, and with both of them I felt as though my opinion wasn’t discarded and my feelings were taken into consideration. I’ve also experienced the exact opposite, from people I have NEVER met, who seem to think that without introducing themselves or even asking anything about myself, they are entitled to give me authoritative advice. 

“Have you considered pacing during a full run?”
“I think if you try harder off the start line, your run would be faster.”
“You’re too nervous in your style, you have failed before you have even started.”
“I saw your first run, that was a beginner mistake.”
“Is your paddle the right size for you?”
"You have a man's style, that's good."
"You look much smaller in person than on Facebook."

 I am absolutely not against being given advice in any situation; a race, a session, off the water, in the gym. I have enough experience that I value input, even from strangers. It's the more you know, the more you realise how little you actually know scenario. But I find it utterly bizarre to consider approaching another human in a professional capacity, perhaps having seen them only once before, and begin suggesting changes to their training program without even a basic "hello, I am...". I don't think it's people being "bad", but I do think it's a normalised assumption where the rules are different for women.

My immediate, personal reaction to writing all this is that maybe I'm over-reacting to innocent scenarios. Slalom is a community, and athletes and coaches alike love to share conversations and knowledge around this beautiful sport. I never, ever want to discourage that. But I think the feeling that has made me write all this in the first place, is that far too often I don't feel like a participant in a conversation. Maybe that's on me. Maybe it's from my own background, where a Scottish coach would quite unironically sit down with the team at dinner, and say that being a woman in the K1 category is easier than being a man in the K1 category. That would make anyone sensitive, I think. From my own experience it takes years of work to unpick self-deprecating ideas that your experience is somehow just a bit less. 

Slalom has athletes from a million different backgrounds. Like any big group of people, that comes with prejudices, cultural differences, outdated ideas and minority communities. The slalom community is also incredibly supportive when someone is having a rough time. But there are still so, so many situations where the semantic rules change somehow for no better reason than because the subject is a woman. I feel lucky, not just to be a woman in sport but also because I've actually been able to experience the shift, and have had an opportunity to reevaluate my own worth. I know way too many women who haven't had that opportunity, and even more who probably wouldn't want to talk about it. So that's why I'm writing some difficult stuff here; even if nobody reads it, it's MY history of being part of that shift. I feel lucky, and empowered, and strong. I think athletes owe it to their sport to try and make that accessible to everyone.

In conclusion, it's alright to be pissed off about the way someone spoke to you. They might not have meant anything derogatory, in fact they may have meant to be encouraging. But you do have the right, and the opportunity, to feel your own emotions about it. If you're interested in understanding exactly what they meant, ask them. I'm naturally an explosive person, and I know I can waste a lot of my own energy being angry at something that was never intended to harm. So I always ask, to start the conversation, and fully understand. Sometimes it produces a change that makes the next conversation completely balanced.

The UK has been infamous over the last few years for various things: Brexit, our elections, our god-awful attitude towards other countries and most recently, how we've handled the pandemic. I feel incredibly lucky - living in Scotland has been inspiring. Small town communities have pulled together to make sure as many people as possible are taken care of. But there's been massive upheaval, and while the next few weeks of quarantine are for certain, the future of everyone is most definitely not. 

 Without the communication resources we have, it would be almost impossible to take care of vulnerable people and stay aware of what's going on in the rest of the world. People are capitalising on the situation; people are in serious trouble because of the situation. Incredibly, it doesn't sound very far removed from our "normal" existence. "Class division" is almost an outdated term, but it looks increasingly likely that it will be a very real, very accurate way to describe society after we've moved through the desolation of the pandemic.

It's been a real experience being an athlete through this phase. There's sort of a removed numbness and a weird, disquieting relief. We travelled down to Nottingham the day before quarantine was announced for the first race of the British selection series; and turned around again in twelve hours because the country was in lockdown. Selection can be an extremely heavy experience for athletes, because we spend an entire winter preparing for this race that will decide whether or not we can participate in the world cup series and the world championships. The weird relief comes from building up to this high pressure event, then all of a sudden, it's completely removed. You did all the work, and had the satisfaction of knowing that you were at your peak physical form. It's disquieting because after a few days, you realise the start line is something that is actually extremely important to you, in reality as well as words. 

Athletes are not essential to society. We do not perform a front line role in keeping people well, or supplying people with food, or looking after kids. But in this phase of global crisis (which just keeps delivering, not just the pandemic) people are turning to sources of comfort, and inspiration, and motivation. I feel as though this is where, if athletes truly want to fill a role that directly benefits people, we can adapt to the situation and try to help. I know several athletes with nursing degrees who have jumped straight back on the front line into roles that put them in danger every day. I know a lot of athletes are feeling able to contribute with creative content, motivational posts and live question and answer sessions. I think that's epic, and if people have time to sit down and learn about their own brains and bodies, then athletes are stepping up to this role of sharing their experiences. 

But it's tough, because while some people are inspired and motivated to share with the world, others really aren't. Because sport is at such a high level now, being fluent on social media is very low on the list of things that will help you achieve world class status. You don't need to be a professional photographer or comfortable sharing your life with people to be world champion. You need to be exceptionally good at being alone, at getting logistics done, being comfortable in physical conditions that other people wouldn't tolerate. Yes, to be funded by British Sport you have to have a certain amount of contact time with communities and development initiatives. But you're carefully guided through those, and always with the option to back out if it's unbearable. 

So we don't fill a critical role for society. It's hard to be inspired and motivated every day, especially when you might now be forced into a very basic routine at a time of year when you'd be travelling a huge amount and preparing for race after race. But people are being forced to sit down and adopt routines that might be inherently uncomfortable for them. We're taught from very early to make sure our routines are air-tight, perfect. For so, so many people this kind of perfect routine is impossible. People are having to adapt to situations in which many parts are going to be uncomfortable and stay that way, maybe even after the pandemic has begun to recede. My heart goes out to people and places that are dealing with catastrophic effects, with absolutely no control over the situation. 

I do think as athletes, we can help. We aren't vital, but people are sitting down and listening. They might not care about your workouts, they might not rate sports at all. But reaching out and showing people that you're having a melancholic day, and that you've found joy in something very small, might make the kind of difference that makes a second of someones time a little easier. I think at some level, everyone's humanity is being exposed. Which is cool, because at a very deep level, we're all interconnected. So I think if any athletes make it this far down the blog (well done), I'd say we're doing an alright job. We can always do better; but sharing something of your knowledge of routines, acceptance of setbacks, and understanding of individuals, could really help someone who is stuck. We're in a hard enough sport that we know what it's like, on various levels, to be out of control of a situation. Try and share something that's helped you with that. (Also seriously well done on getting to the end!)

In sport we talk a lot about performance, and delivery, and talent. We talk about "process," and often what marks an athlete as stand-out exceptional is willingness to do what others won't. 

I whole heartedly agree that being bloody minded is a massive part of performance. For every single athlete, a moment where they choose to do, or try something, that is difficult, is a daily occurrence. I think it can be transferred to daily life, for sure. Where day to day routine can be transformed into something exceptional, by that simple decision to do something that is difficult.

It's far too easy to think of yourself as unique, to imagine that your journey is the only one like it. There's such a massive culture of "normal," in our world. It's so easy, in an instant of speaking to someone, to decide if they fit into that box. I don't think that personality is an indicator of whether someone is "normal" or not. The decision, on a daily basis, to do something that might seem like "the long way round", or "uncomfortable", or simply hard, is what develops winning habits. In my opinion. 

This is my seventh year of writing this blog, and it's astounding (horrifying) and really nostalgic to read back and see what has changed. I'm writing about what makes an exceptional athlete, because it's far too easy to lose sight of it. In a world that is essentially business - you have to perform to a certain degree, to gain reward and sustainability - words like "talent" and "young" get thrown around without proper thought. Athlete is a cool word, because it has always signified someone exceptional at what they do. Remembering that, I've met thousands of athletes. People who will pursue something difficult, tirelessly. More importantly, people who pursue something difficult, despite being tired. Finding that energy, to keep doing something even though it's hard. I love that about sport, and I love that about people. 

So starting 2020, I thought I'd share how I want to keep going. I got told by a coach years ago, to not change. Don't change how I am, don't try and get rid of the "bad" parts of my personality. Somehow, irrevocably, that gave me the freedom to let go of some of those parts anyway. When you stop thinking about what you're not, it becomes a lot easier to focus on getting where you want to be. Which is interesting, because I think part of the human condition is never quite being where we want. But learning to be content with where we are, whilst continuing to do those things that are normally "difficult". That's what I want to do. I want to step up, and be bloody minded. To be able to listen, and be empathetic, while feeling strong and certain of my own journey. 

I love training with other athletes, because you get to see again and again, people pushing what they're happy to do. There's a special "move" on the Olympic course in London, on a water feature called "Piccadilly". I was training on it a week ago with a friend. My rock-solid impulse on this move (for paddlers; down on the left to high up right) is to use the outside edge of the water feature (we call it a "curl"), on my inside blade (the side of the paddle that is upstream of my body). I know for sure that I can do it that way every single time. My friend's impulse, is always to jump underneath the gate, inside the water feature, for a shorter line into the upstream gate. They're both effective methods; mine is a fraction slower, and takes almost no energy. My friend's way is a little faster, but needs more power to jump. 

We both tried each other's signature moves. It was intensely uncomfortable for both of us; I apparently lose all sense of balance and feel for the water as soon as I try to jump inside the feature, and Isak struggled to trust the water to hold his weight on the back. I have to say Isak was more successful in exploring the alternative method than I was, but it was an intense experience for me, because I was choosing over and over again, to do something that was difficult for me. 

So I'm happy to say I started this year how I mean to go on; bloody minded, happy to keep failing while I learn to do stuff better. I'm intensely competitive, so failure isn't an easy thing for me anyway. But I hope I keep stepping up, over and over again. 

This year's been crazy. I lost my support from Scottish Institute of Sport. I made the world cup team (as a released reserve) for THREE world cups. I didn't semifinal in any of them. I won my first international senior medal at the ICF ranking race in Bratislava, one of the courses that I find hardest to race on. I had a mild life crisis. I travelled a LOT, and it was amazing. Oscar and I moved house (I have NO idea how my parents did it between countries with two kids) and made a plan for the 2020 racing season. Off the back of this seasons results, I have been awarded support again by the Scottish Institute of Sport. 

It's been an insane mix of incredible highs and outstandingly crappy lows. I know for absolute sure that almost all my friends have had a similar or worse couple of years. Maybe it's really millennial of me to feel 'low' in a life where I'm able to do basically everything I love. But the highs wouldn't be as incredible without the lows, right?

A massive part of slalom is mindset. I'd like to go as far as to say a 'sustainable' mindset. Which to me is having a solid home 'base', and a plan. The thing is, mindset is completely internal. I think someone with the least stable lifestyle in the world and absolutely zero plan from one day to the next can have a more sustainable mindset than someone who has every single day mapped out. I'm probably guilty of the latter; I plan everything like three months in advance, but I still get incredibly anxious about having 'missed something' or not accounting for something in the plan. So I get anxious about the plan.

An old coach told me that when we sit on the start line, it's important not to give yourself anything extra to think about. So you should sort out everything in your life so that you can completely focus on racing. But when you look at the racing history of some of the best athletes in the world, that just can't be true. Fiona Pennie is one of the best athletes in the history of canoe slalom, and has overcome a plethora of challenges this season to still, against all odds, put down some incredible racing. Time and again, we see Olympians and world champions performing at an insane level despite horrendous personal circumstances. I actually don't think it's too surprising. Racing is what athletes train for, every single day. And when racing becomes an escape from "reality", then perhaps it's even easier to give it your absolute attention. 

I'm not great with change. Maybe it was moving house a lot when I was younger; but probably not, because I didn't really like change even then. This year has seen such a vast range of change for me that I think I've started to relax into it. It's so, so hard not to compare your situation with others, or only see the parts that are 'worse' or 'unfair'. It's sort of bullshit, because as cliche as it sounds, everyone has stuff to deal with. There's always going to be a way your situation is better or worse. But I think what defines your success is seeing the best parts, and feeling confident that you're doing the right thing. At the end of the day, the beauty of racing is the freedom you have sitting on the start line. There is absolutely no obligation to do, or think about anything other than what you're doing right now. You don't need to 'sort out' your life. Enjoying the moment is simply doing justice to yourself and what you have spent your life training for. 

In the last few posts I've written about all the awesome things I've learnt over injury, racing, mistakes and successes. About adapting and meeting needs that don't just belong to you. It's really cool being able to write down tangible lessons I've picked up, dismantling them and rebuilding them to fit all my possible scenarios. 

Thing is, true tests can't really be planned for. It's easy to practice mindfulness and rest, when you're in a happy, healthy position to do it. It's much, much harder to practice those things in times when everything else doesn't feel ok. I don't really mean racing in itself; that's a blissful moment in time where there are literally no requirements of you to do anything except slalom. You don't have to interact with anyone in a race run, you don't have to remember or analyse or think, and it's awesome. The harder part is afterwards, if it didn't go how you expected. 

My kicking, screaming first reaction is to delegate. It's pretty ugly and I've thankfully developed a mechanism where I can recognise myself going into "bitch mode" and take myself away to burn it out. Delegation is like blame. Your brain is hurting, it's really fucked off, and it wants the problem to be someone, anyone else's fault except yours. It's super unpleasant and a really hard thing to come to terms with; nobody wants to be that person. It so easily wipes out all the good, positive things in your life and leaves a ridiculously dramatic, bitter shadow that nobody likes and is really hard to work with. I guess you could also call it self pity, blah blah...

So it's almost completely impossible for me to have a calm, reasonable discussion with myself at moments like this. It's best to just get back in my boat and paddle as far away from other human beings (for their sake) as possible until it's had time to tire itself out. It's quite embarrassing when you come to your senses. Here I am, in the middle of one of the most beautiful (Sava) rivers in the world. I've just competed for Great Britain and had an opportunity to do my best on a world stage, and I'm sitting throwing shit at anything that will stick in my own brain. It's ridiculous and embarrassing.

Luckily, at this stage I've had  chance to cool down and resolve a few things. I decided at the bottom of Tacen that I need to stop making excuses for myself. That doesn't mean training harder or "never missing a session". It means that when I'm analysing my performance and condition, that I do it objectively, with the tools I have access to, without subjective input. My position isn't relative to anyone else; it's just mine. 

I'm the kind of person who suffers a failure (to clarify, in my mind, this 'failure' is not qualifying for semifinals at either of the first two world cups) by throwing myself into hard training. Because when you're exhausted it's much harder to think, and it sort of relaxes me. Although from years of experience and a tough injury it would be apparent that this method does more harm than good.

So even though all I really wanted to do was hurt, when I got home to Scotland the first thing I did was take a week off. It's horrible to sit with your own brain sometimes, but this is probably the first time I've actually forced myself to do that, and it wasn't as awful as I thought. I had some time to think about what I really expect from myself, and how realistic that is. To design a training programme that is sympathetic to my needs - physically and mentally. It was pretty awesome just to recover and be lazy for a few days. It was a hard thing to decide, and if you were to summarise this blog into bullet points it would look ridiculous:

- trained too hard
- had a big tantrum after racing
- decided to take week off
- feels healthy again

But I hope it helps someone to realise that no matter how they think they look on the outside, you still have to make decisions based on  your own perspective. How you are doesn't need to change or be the best all the time. You just need to recognise it, and be able to do the healthiest thing even if you'd rather ignore it all.