But this post is about more important things. It's also about making difficult choices. I allude to it in the biography part of my JustGiving page. I say; "As an athlete you are put in a unique position to help deliver messages that are vital to education, quality of life and sustainable lifestyles across the world." 

​When I think about what sport means to me, I usually come to think it's an endeavour that has saved my life in a lot of ways. Having a pathway to pour your heart and soul into is an incredible position to be in. It can also be isolated, and forces you to question yourself, sometimes every day. But ultimately I feel as though I have a platform to speak from, a group of friends and a way of life that makes me feel safe in speaking my mind. Not that my opinions are particularly valuable; it just feels safe to express them, because you are often asked to. 

Over the last few months, I have felt like there is a shift in the awareness and priorities of society. We've all realised that our planet is dying. Sport has to embrace a new role; a platform to inspire in a way it hasn't focused on before. People like Etienne Stott (who I'll be interviewing in a couple of days!) have had the courage to stand up and talk about what is happening to our planet. How our current lives have to change. The uncomfortable reality of this is that athletes do leave a significant carbon footprint. The public voices we have to talk about these issues does not offset the price the planet pays. 

​So a pretty easy set of changes I've made:

Eating plant based. I don't like saying 'vegan' because unfortunately, there are a set of feelings attached to the label which influence the way people listen to you after that. I always said 'I'll be vegan after I'm done being an athlete.' The reality is, athletes make exceptions for all kinds of food and drinks, because they want them. I'm making a permanent exception to the way I used to eat, because I want to. It's not hard to eat plant based, it's just a change of habit - I eat exactly the same proportion of protein, carbohydrate and fat as I always have done. 

Educating myself about recycling, plastic packaging and the cost of import. 25% of all waste that gets put in recycling actually gets dumped in landfills, because people can't be bothered rinsing out their tin cans or washing the food waste out of the boxes. It takes a fraction of your time. Slow down, give a shit, and make a difference. Plastic packaging is a harder one to begin solving. The UK has so much plastic waste that we're forced to shove a load of it overseas, to deal with. Our consumerist lifestyles are not sustainable. Which brings me to the harder things to stomach:

Travel requires fuel. I don't just mean the fuel we use in our cars, or the fuel airplanes guzzle. I mean the millions of gallons of fuel it takes to ship bananas from South America to the UK. The deep, brutal scars that our changing demands leave on the world. Avocados are popular. Chia seeds are popular. Tofu, rice, wheat, dairy, meat, oranges are all things consumed by the billions of tons, and we add to the damage caused by farms by insisting on shipping them to ourselves. Every day. It's great being aware of all this stuff. Figuring out how to do something about it is hard; not least because the reality is, we're gonna have to give up some really nice stuff that we've gotten used to. 

I'm excited to learn more about the impact my role can have in the world. I'm getting used to the easy changes I've been able to make. I'm learning more about the ways I need to keep changing. Some of them seem unbearable right now, but with education and understanding anything is possible. I love my sport; slalom is part of me. I want to ride the wave of support I get through that, and help show people that it doesn't have to be scary, and they aren't alone. We all live here!

I reckon I've been through almost every stage of self-doubt, barring those stages you can only get through certain life events. For example, I've yet to experience the self-doubt of parenthood. But I think I can break down the kinds of self-doubt that are useful, and not useful.

From others

I'm a naturally curious person, so I tend to ask a lot of questions. Sometimes they're pretty hard questions, which inevitably result in hard answers. Which is fine; as long as I'm prepared for them. Through a lifetime of trial and error, I have found my success rate is around 25%. That's another 75% of taking discussion slightly too personally, which is pretty draining for everyone involved! For other curious athletes, I'd say that doesn't necessarily mean STOP asking questions. But it's important to learn that another human's response isn't just a reflection on you. You need to be open to their own experience and opinion which shapes the response they give you.

Also, because other people are curious, they'll often give you unsolicited opinions, advice, warnings, directions and criticism. That's alright too; social rules mean someone has to feel pretty strongly to give you advice that you didn't ask for. Which is cool, because it means they want to help; or feel good. I think it's even more important to have self awareness in those moments. Just because someone else says you're jumping wrong, doesn't mean you need to change the way you jump. Or even think about why they want you to jump differently. It's just information on offer, for your acceptance or declination.

From yourself

I think I'm doing pretty well in the whole recovery thing. Actually I think a long rest is one of the best things I've ever done in my canoeing career; it's changed the way I feel about recovery, post season breaks and general health. But obviously there's plenty of self doubt swimming around; have I started back with too much, or too little? Did I take enough time, did I take too much time? That's a really long, difficult cycle of thought that my brain would be quite happy to jump right on. Actually the most valuable thing I've had from a long recovery break, is stepping back and saying, it's alright. If you want to go on that cycle, go ahead, but I'm not coming with you. 

From being a much younger paddler, I've had a strong mental reliance on doing what other people tell me to do in terms of rest, recovery, and injury. Being curious, I've learnt a lot about physiology and what a body needs. I've also learned loads about what it really DOESN'T need! This is the first year in a while I've had a chance to sit back and make my own decisions about how it all feels. I've had the most amazing professional support through the whole process, but what feels really liberating and terrifying, is the shots being called by me. Terrifying though it is, actually I'm the only person in the whole process that is with me 24/7. I'm the only one who knows exactly what sessions I'm doing, exactly how they all feel, and what my brain is doing in the middle. 

So...

I think self-doubt can be useful, as long as it helps you ask the right questions and seek the right help. I think it is NOT useful, when it begins an existential crisis. I think it's different from anxiety, because if you use it right there's a vast amount to be learned. But if you dwell on it, in my experience, there's a lot more tension in your brain. And the biggest, most important lesson I've learned, is that if there's tension in your brain then there is definitely tension in your body.

The most inspiring athletes in the world overcome insane mental and physical barriers, often without injury. I think it says a lot about brain conditioning. If you can relax your brain into the flow of self confidence and self doubt, then your body will just flow along with it. I'm definitely not a physiologist or a coach or anyone who should be teaching mental approach. But I reckon the more relaxed an athlete is, the healthier their body is able to be. 

Today is the end of rehab week five. I've got tons to say, but I'm gonna stick with what I wish I'd known five weeks ago. So I thought instead of rambling about theory in this post, I'd write to myself like I'm sitting next to me writing the previous blog post. Hope that's ok and not too abstract for everyone!

Well done. You've made a very uncharacteristic move. You've managed to make a calm, logical decision without a meltdown. (Ok there were one or two but luckily Oscar was on damage control.)

Consider this. In a pull up set, you often do things like 5 x 5 reps @ 20kg. That's 500 kg. It's all going through quite a small tendon in quite a small person. Half a ton is a LOT. Think about reasons we change gym programs regularly. Brain/body is all one big system. The whole lot needs to rest and regenerate.

You'll be surprised. At how much you like running. Now we know it's very easy to get over excited and over do it. You'll also be surprised about how much you hate the watt bike. 

Energy isn't just physical. Once you get over how twitchy you are about not being in your boat, you'll be amazed about how much energy you have relax. That sounds ridiculous. But actually chilling out is a skill, and I've been terrible at it. You get into a tired cycle of moving from one task to the next without pause, and perhaps at 98% of your potential. Actually when you're watching your body, and sleeping more, and being less cold, you get so much more energy to do 100%. Just remember that when you get back in your boat. 

Winter. Isn't just a time of year to suffer. Ok running (especially Wednesdays - I have an interval session that actually makes me want to die) is the embodiment of suffering. But winter really is beautiful. Everything slows down, and it takes more time to do things. Scraping the car is shit, but watching the ice melt off the headlights into little clouds while you do it is beautiful. You need to remember things like this too. 

You'll change. I mean, not in a significantly spiritual way. I still love food, I'm still an explosive person, I still want to tire myself out and be dynamic and I'm hurting to get back in my boat. But in a time where you think you'll be depressed every day, you'll actually be amazed at how nice every day is. It's like there's something to look forward to at the end of every session. In the mornings when you wake up you're not pissed off you can't get in your boat. You're excited to feel the cold air outside, and the burn in your cheeks when you finally warm up again. 

It's just four weeks to go until I get back in my boat. I'm learning new things every day, and I think the most valuable lesson so far is the art of chill. I'm definitely still a beginner but it turns out when the evenings are dark and the radiator is hot there's nothing I'd rather be doing than resting. Who'd have thought? 

I'm normally terrible at choosing. I think I have some built-in avoidance program that makes me want to only have one option moving forwards. A clear pathway, or a direct set of instructions It's much easier. This winter, Oscar and I were going to move to Pau d'Pyrenees. It was going to be incredible; whitewater every day, a culture of paddling that is everything we love about our sport. It was the obvious next step for me in training and racing.

In my slalom career, I've had to make one really difficult decision before - years ago. It wasn't my choice to have that decision forced on me, and it wasn't a decision for myself. It was a choice presented to me by people for reasons outside of sport. 

But at the end of the day, that time, either choice I made resulted in me doing what I really wanted to be doing. Which was getting in my boat and training as hard as I could. And having the opportunity to make that decision, even if it was shitty, is still a privilege because so many people don't even have a choice, or an opportunity to be on that pathway.

For a couple of years I've had a bit of a niggle in my left elbow. It presented itself as reactive tendinitis when I first encountered it, and sort of flared up a few times since then with recurring inflammation and stiffness. I know loads of paddlers who get sore wrists or elbows - listen, if it's making that 'creaking' sound, then stop. I know it doesn't hurt that much, but we're pretty tough! So stop.

I decided to get an MRI scan shortly after the world cup in Tacen. I just wanted to know what the problem was, because while it wasn't getting sore, by the end of the 2018 season I was having to let go of things quite randomly. Picking up a laptop in that hand, opening a door, holding my phone above my face (yeah) and opening jars of things. I'd just suddenly let go. It wasn't sore or anything, but seemed a bit weird (and expensive, I broke a lot of stuff).

I was so sure that in my consultation after the MRI scan I'd be told that I just needed to do some theraband exercises, release work on my pecs and probably develop stronger deltoids (the root cause of previous niggles). So I was pretty shocked to get an appointment with a surgeon shortly after the results came back.

I'd never heard of a 'bone marrow oedema' before but it sounded bad (I later discovered that a paddling colleague had suffered a much nastier one in the clavicle). Basically the bone in my elbow joint had been under so much pressure, for so long, that it had swollen inside and become inflamed. But that turned out to be the less problematic part of the scan. 'Degenerative tendinitis' is what you get when you ignore small niggles for a long time. The cartilage in my left (and probably right, but we only scanned the left because that's the one that hurts) elbow is 'fibrillated' and worn. It looked a bit like the edge of a carpet on the scan.

So I had a decision to make. Surgery seemed like the fastest option - there's an operation called the 'topaz' procedure, where using keyhole surgery doctors sort of 'burn' the tendon that's fibrillated, which causes it to build a thick layer of scar tissue. This alleviates pain, and strengthens the tendon a little. There's a three month no-use period, and probably more than 12 months of rehab. Either way, our winter of whitewater in France changed to time away from my boat in Scotland, very quickly.

I came so close to choosing surgery for a number of reasons. It would satisfy my decision making problems. There would be absolutely no option of getting in my boat while it was healing. It was a definitive ACTION to fix something. A black and white, this is for my paddling, option of surgery. It sounds pretty cool too, being an athlete and getting your body cut open to fix an engine problem. It gives 'rehab' a definitive purpose. Once the bandages are off, you're going again.

I'm extremely lucky, because I turned to everyone I knew who had ever had a severe injury or the option of surgery. Every single person offered all the advice they knew, what they would have done differently, or why they're glad that they made their own decision. I have the most amazing support network with sportscotland Institute of Sport, and my physios and doctors held my hand the whole time while I was swerving between options. 

The longest I've ever been out of my boat in almost ten years is one week. We decided that the best option for me, would be to try the 'rehab' part of surgery without actually having surgery. I made this decision looking at my goals - from a long and short term perspective. I want to race for GB at the world championships, and the Olympic Games. I want to teach my kids how to paddle in ten years time. I want to stand on a podium next to my teammates and friends. I want to be 80 years old and feel the water under my kayak. I don't want to risk my health. And surgery, even in the best hands, is risky.

Giving my body time to rest is something I've been terrible at over the years. The time I take out of the boat this winter will be one of the most challenging things I've ever done, but possibly one of the best decisions I've ever made. I'm so grateful that this decision was one I had the opportunity to make, by myself, for myself. I hope if anyone is reading this with a heavy decision weighing on them, that they have the same kind of people to turn to that I do. I invite you to think of me as one of those people. 

So my mission to fix my elbow begins, and as usual I'll keep updating my social media with pictures and videos of the best and the worst bits! Thank you for joining me.

Tacen quickly became one of my favourite courses, for a completely different reason than all the others.

Being a competitive athlete in slalom is pretty special. We get to train and develop aspects of mentality that I think are slightly diluted by 'linear' outcomes in other sports. The elite end of slalom displays a range of styles and approaches that are so diverse, yet produce such tight margins of success, that it's really comparable to nothing else. 

This blog isn't easy to write. A big part of being a competitive athlete is managing ego; this can range from managing expectations, to approaching relationships, to developing an objective approach to feedback and a million other very personal things. I really wanted to write about my experience here, in the hope that it helps some athletes who might have felt the same way I did when I first came to the incredible Sava river.

When we arrived in Tacen, the water was pretty high. I'd never been to this particular venue before, and I knew that I was coming to one of the biggest 'drops' in the slalom world. The top of the course begins with a steep slide that drops into the first few gates. In the whitewater world it's really not a big deal. There are few consequences of messing up the line other than time loss, and it's accessible to all levels of paddler. Even in the slalom world, there is very little time distinction between nailing the line and having a slightly 'off' run. But when we showed up on Sunday evening, and the water was absolutely pounding into the right hand wall - where I knew I should be 'aiming' - I just felt sick.

Honestly, it's one of the hardest things being open about this kind of feeling. We live to race, and Tacen is a regular venue for top events like the World and European Championships. Local Slovenian paddler Peter Kauzer, one of the most decorated and impressive paddlers to watch, can do the whole thing with his eyes closed. I knew all this while I watched the water folding back on itself at the bottom of the drop. I watched C1 and K1 paddlers flying down it, almost completely in control of their boats in the churning boils. I knew I had to do it tomorrow. I just really, really didn't want to.

This isn't an easy feeling, because as a pretty experienced athlete, my immediate reaction was to clamp down on these feelings and try to shove them out of my mind. It's easy then to get into a cycle of dismissing the fear as ludicrous, clutching at things you've heard people say like 'it's easy' or 'just stay right' or 'maybe they'll close it for the race', and sick fear that comes in waves. This is a bit dramatic; I wasn't actually sick, and I was excited to try something that was completely out of my comfort zone. But your brain so easily hangs on to these cycles of thought until they are blown way out of proportion. 

What I took away from this, while I was battling the cycles of thought that clouded my brain and made my hands sweat, was that trying to grip and shove feelings away from yourself actually has the opposite effect. It feels completely anti-intuitive, but the best thing I did for myself the evening before I tried the drop, was lean into those feelings. I stopped trying to resist the feeling of FEAR. I let it wash over me, and suddenly all those scary thoughts of slamming into the wall on the right or spinning into a death roll on the left became much less specific. Over the evening, the feeling of fear became just like the feeling before a race. Excitement, gentle adrenalin, and arms itching to get on the water. 

At the bottom of my first run down, I could have cried with laughter. Remembering the feelings I was grappling with when I first saw the drop, it felt absolutely absurd. But I wanted to remember how I'd felt, and try and explain that actually the best thing you can do is one of the most incredible learning experiences of all.

In all fairness, I spent the first two days on the drop doing some truly horrible lines. I went straight through the middle of the hole at the bottom countless times, paddles in the air, boat underwater, edges forgotten and upstreams missed. But every time I did it, the drop got a bit easier. It felt like I had more time to decide what was happening. On the day before the race, something clicked. I got all the way over to the right hand side, and it was like my boat had previously been paddling with an anchor whose rope had just been cut. You sit up on that pile of water, and the whole space opens up. There seems to be minutes, rather than seconds, to decide what line to take. 

I didn't get the result I wanted in the semi final at Tacen. I had two pretty serious mistakes that slowed me down and gave me penalties. But I was proud that over my three runs, I had three almost perfect deliveries on the main drop. What had been a really intense personal battle for me had become the easiest part of the course. I want to go back to Tacen, to keep learning about the water - because I don't think there is a better course for that. But I feel incredibly lucky for what I brought home with me.

Photo Credit: Jamie Grant @ Glen Lyon Coffee Roasters

Slalom athletes always look forward to summer sunny days and easier training conditions - some of them chase it across the globe all year round! Winter training is notoriously a difficult 'grind' and summer is a bit of a release, at the start. To be honest, some of my hardest, most exhausting training camps have been over the summer months, because they invariably come with racing, camping, socialising and a LOT of driving.

This year has been incredibly special. At the start of the summer I got to race at the Presidents cup in Krakow, winning a silver medal. Then I got to race my first EVER world cup, on the first slalom course EVER built at Augsburg Eiscanal - sorry if you read my latest blog post and this is old news! I then had a couple of weeks at home before driving out with the Scottish Slalom Squad for four weeks of training and racing. 

Now it's often seen as a bit of a whinge to say I 'trained through' racing. When someone says that, it means they didn't taper. They didn't take a rest, or alter their sessions to the benefit of the race weekend. This means an athlete gets maximum 'water' time whilst abroad, rather than cutting sessions short to optimise their fitness for race performance. 

Expectations have to be altered a little for this kind of situation. We raced at the Bratislava and Vienna Danube cups, and they were incredible events. The turnout of athletes and volunteers made the races worthy of a World Cup. It's difficult to have an entirely positive outlook on the results of the races, because I didn't make the final in either event, with a couple of mistakes pushing me back. But I was pleased with my style of paddling, and felt that my attitude on the water reflected the months of work I put in to developing certain techniques and mindfulness training. 

One of my favourite things in the world is to be 'training tired'. It's tough over a racing camp, because it can easily feel as though you don't have space to be tired, or have to keep something inside you running on alert so that you're ready for competition. That's basically the opposite of what is ideal. Being able to relax and fully regenerate your mind while under exhaustion is one of the toughest things to learn as an athlete if you're not already inclined that way - which I'm definitely not! So I had an epic camp, learned a lot about myself and enjoyed some familiar situations.

At this point in time it feels a bit silly writing about being tired, because I've been enjoying almost two light weeks in preparation for Tacen world cup - my second world cup ever! (Sorry if this is getting a bit 'dear diary', but I will continue to be over excited about world cups if I want to!)

Constructing recovery time for my body and my brain when I'm at home consists of:

1. Cleaning my little flat (I know)
2. Making coffee (always Glen Lyon, and currently Uganda Sipi Falls organic blend is my all time favourite)
3. Paddling on the lake next to my flat (which is more exciting just now because the swans have babies)
4. Driving up north and: visiting Glen Lyon Coffee, who make me feel like I have another family; paddling on Tully; walking into the middle of nowhere
5. Usually having too much cake

So without apology and with a huge amount of gratitude, thank you for reading (if you got this far) and I will update you after Tacen! If you want more 'real time' action you can check out my instagram and facebook accounts!

This year has continued the way it began; with me being astonished at every corner. I began a crowdfunding campaign to financially support my first world cup tour. Within two weeks I made almost 90% of the costs of the races. People I haven't spoken to in years, people I know for sure don't really have that tenner to spare, strangers I've never even met. It is the most bizarre feeling, in a world that is so connected digitally but so detached personally, to feel that astonishing mass of love and support. In a lot of ways, the words and comments and donations that were directed at me became a more important experience than qualifying for my first world cup race. People didn't even need to be asked twice; they jumped on board my journey with their palms open, and I cannot imagine being in a luckier position.

Another development over the last couple of months that I find incredibly exciting (and canoeists who share my love of coffee will totally get it) is beginning a new partnership with Glen Lyon Coffee Roasters. Scotland is where I have lived longest in my life, and my slalom life began here. Which is why after years of stopping by for flat whites and gazing lovingly into the roasting room, I'm absolutely blown away that this roasters, not half a kilometre from where I first sat in a slalom boat, wanted to be a part of my journey too.

My international season began in Krakow, with the Presidents Cup. I started at this race two years ago in 2016, coming 9th. This year I came 2nd, just 0.8 off the win. Not a tiny margin, but small enough for me to be able to feel the speed I need to keep pushing to the top.

After the presidents cup came demonstration runs, at Krakow world cup. Due to an unprecedented set of issues with the U23 World Championships course in Ivrea, the World Cup was un-released to me two weeks prior to the race. Setbacks are an inevitable part of sport, and while this is the most beautiful, difficult sport in the world, for it to continue to exist we have to accept that on some levels it is a business. And at that moment, business said that I would miss out this time. 

Demo runs were terrifying; during a race you can be absolutely isolated with yourself, completely focused on the job that is yours and yours alone. During demo runs, every single athlete watches you - and they DO care how you do! It was an amazing rush to be performing in front of about 99% of my idols, and I was proud of the way I handled it.

Augsburg was the first time I'd ever sat on a world cup start line. It's funny when you look back on moment like this; part of you really expects it to be a different level, a whole new experience that you weren't expecting. 

Actually, while the event hosted in Augsburg was exceptional, the race I put down felt incredibly normal. I was absolutely jittering with fear on the start line, ready for feelings of being chased down the course by the monstrous 'WORLD CUP' feeling. But finally I felt as though I was being released on the water to do my favourite session - full runs. I put down a slow, clean run in the first round of qualifying, unfortunately too slow to put me through to the semi finals. In the second round of qualifying I was fast enough to make the semi finals, but picked up three two-second penalties at the bottom of the course. A little too tight, a little too fast-and-furious.

But I feel like the richest human alive coming away from this first experience. I got to spend a lot of time catching up with people I haven't seen more than once or twice over the last couple of years, and meeting new people who I hope I get the chance to hang out with a lot more in the future. We talk a lot about slalom being a big family. But nothing feels like family, quite as much as when you have to run to them for help. Fifteen minutes before my first qualifying run in Augsburg, my 500 gram weight fell out of my boat. This thing had been resined in for nearly six months, so I hadn't planned for it to release its hold quite so soon. As paddlers know, if our boats are under the 9kg weight limit, we get disqualified. Holding in the panic, I (calmly, steadily, CALMLY) walked to the GB tent. Kim was the only person there. I explained what had happened, and I have never seen a person jump into action as quickly; 'right, we're DOING this.' Kim was preparing for her own race run, but was happy to help me finally wedge the weight in under my seat.

I'm grateful for everything that has happened to me over the last few months. I hope I can continue the chain of support and love to athletes and people around me, because it's truly the most valuable, life changing part of this experience. I'll check in again soon, from Bratislava! 

GB selection is a wild ride every year. There is something mind-numbingly gritty about winter training in Britain. It might be the routine, the cold water. It might just be that the temperature and wind inevitably extend into March and April. It's a celebration of dedication and determination. There's something glorious about the ache from training, and the way you fall instantly to sleep at the end of the day. And it's always with a singular focus; GB team trials in spring. 

My selection series this year was a mixed bag. I had some touches, and a couple of runs that could have been a lot better. On the final day, I knew that I had to put everything on the table. I had to express the techniques and the fitness that I'd been working on. It's probably the most terrifying race countdown of my life. But it felt good, the same way hurting after pull ups or your fingers stinging from the cold feels good. Having these feelings isn't necessarily good or bad, but the trick is to accept that they exist. Acceptance is the first stage of letting go, and your heart might be pounding in your ears, your tongue might feel like a piece of driftwood, and your muscles might be uncontrollably shaking. But if you can embrace those feelings as part of you, you can take the first step towards having a clean mind. 

 My last two runs in the series put me in sixth place, within the required percentage margin. After a couple of anxious weeks, the GB teams for the world cups were decided; and I'm going to three of them!

​Three world cups out of five is more than I dared to hope for. I feel exceptionally privileged to get this far in slalom, and it's completely down to the support I receive from family, friends and sponsors. The amount of failure it requires to begin succeeding wouldn't be possible to recover from without the people who have your back. My role models demonstrate the qualities of resilience and character in sports, and the way it can be applied to help anybody find their best life. Everything is true about getting up and doing it again. But getting up is made a thousand times easier when someone gives you their hand, and pulls. 

I'm excited to share my experiences this summer, and I think I'll be in situations that I've never experienced before. I feel prepared to cope after the incredible structure and support from the Scottish Canoe Association this winter, from my own mindfulness training and the support of everyone, in every way. I want to help younger athletes learn lessons that I am continuing to learn every day of being an athlete. 

If anybody reading this is able to help, I need to raise £1050 to get to the world cups. I'm overwhelmed by the generosity and kindness from everyone already. So even if you can just spare £2, it would mean the world to me. I'd be incredibly privileged if you would join my journey, from here.

Yours in sport
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/lovetotrain

Photo credit: Toby Maudsley

This is a topic fairly guaranteed to get some people's blood boiling. The concept of 'talent' is attractive for all kinds of reasons. It can be a badge. It can be an excuse. A lot of people seem to think it is part of their character. I completely accept that for many athletes, performance development specialists and basically anybody who has a vague interest in sport, the concept of 'talent' is too comfortable and nice to reject. 

As with any approach to having an open mind, I have to consider both sides of this argument. It has always been fascinating to me that people will develop general overviews of something that they only possess a fraction of information about. I'm going to deconstruct my personal information about this, then make a conclusion based on just three sources. 

I started my slalom career around the age of fifteen. As in, I got in a slalom boat for the first time. When I was around seventeen (practising slalom for two years by this point, around 600 hours), I was told by a performance coach that I 'didn't have a natural feel for the water, so we're going to have to do some extra work on technique. It will be more difficult for you, because you aren't very good at reading water.' So I now think I can conclude from that expert statement that 600 hours of water time, elevates an athlete from novice, to beginner.

At around the age of 19 (practising slalom for four years by this point. I also began training full time at the age of 18. So I can estimate the practise time at around 1500 hours), I was told that I had very good fitness and strength, but again had not developed 'consistent technique because you train hard, not smart'. Now I can see the benefit of keeping a training diary, because I'd like to be able to say how many hours of training had been overseen by a coach. But I didn't, so I'm going to make a generous estimation that around half of my time on the water had been guided. I will conclude from this section that around 1500 hours of practise elevate an athlete from beginner to slightly more experienced beginner.

At the age of 22 (practising slalom for seven years, training full time for four years. I'd estimate around 5000 hours of water time by this point) I put down one of the best full runs of my life as a forerunner for the 2015 World Championships in London. I was commended by British senior team athletes (and a few others as well!) for having displayed consistent technique (after several practise runs on that course - which is not common practise for racing!). A coach, at this point, referenced me as 'talented'. So I would like to speculate that 5000 hours of practise elevates an athlete to intermediate level.

I'm trying to be as objective as possible here, because while slalom is an extremely dynamic, unpredictable sport, there are trends in improvement and mental development that are consistent with the amount of time an athlete has spent being guided through the processes of technique and mental approach. I also think that variety of training and being away from 'comfort zones' - not in the conventional sense of pushing hard, but altering routines and feedback systems, is important. I have never been to two races that have been laid out in exactly the same way, and so the physical environmental factors cannot be analysed in the context of peak performance.

Now I'm 24, and based on my quality hours of coached water time, I would say as an athlete I am elevated towards advanced/professional level. I often get referred to as 'talented' by people without previous knowledge of my background or racing experience. The reason I find this interesting is that the 'audience' of canoe slalom gets regular opportunities to observe and judge singular racing performances. We don't often get opportunities to see other athletes in the most critical, exciting parts of their development - everyday training. In the same way we never get to see the amount of hours that get put into mental preparation, and developing concentration endurance. 

The three sources I can relate to in this discussion are 1. myself, as a professional athlete. 2. Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practise by Matthew Syed. 3. The Sports Gene: Talent, Practice and the Truth about Success by David Epstein. The two books are, in general, opposing sets of research as to the word 'talent' in high performance sports. Both reach a similar conclusion; with measurable factors of physiology, hours of practise, and ability to learn techniques, and less measurable factors of mental attitude and capacity, innate understanding and previous experience in similar environments, sports success can be predicted and measured. 

Now I can (sort of, sorry!) get to the point. I'm not really writing this as an autobiography of my experience in slalom. I wouldn't change the way I've gotten to where I am, because I've learnt so much and developed so much high quality experience that it would be unjust to say otherwise. 

I want to throw this discussion into the open, because there is a misconception by young athletes that there is a pre-determined rule of how much they can achieve. I want to say, that there is no such thing. If anyone says 'not talented', they aren't making a statement about you. They are displaying the amount of opportunities they've had to observe you. It is so very important that you understand that to take full responsibility for your training, you have to do just that. It has never been about what other people think. Your coach (if you have one) is an incredibly important part of your life. But only you know how hard you have worked in every hour you've been on the water. Were you concentrating for the whole loops session? Or were you too tired to think, and let your body go into 'auto-pilot'? 

At this stage I would say role models are incredibly important. It's far too easy to neglect this with an attitude of 'oh well they live here, and have this coach, or this team...' instead, athletes have to consider the amount of focus that has gone into the sessions, every day, for that athlete's life. There are no anomalies - just normal people who have worked exceptionally hard. Ability to concentrate is also something I believe is not innate. I believe it also comes down to hours of practise. Having a 'poor memory' or 'short attention span' is learned in the athlete's environment. Taking responsibility for this incredibly important part of development, looks a lot like removing those preconceptions, and identifying ways for you to practise something you know you could be better at. Because mental health and development are under-supported in modern sports, it can be tricky to find the right pathway for yourself to exercise this kind of practise. But that's what I mean by taking responsibility. You really, really want this! 

It's very easy in a blog to project my opinions as facts, but in reality they are my own thoughts. I understand the thousands of approaches to this discussion - and I love hearing about all of them! So in a slightly unusual conclusion, I would like to invite further discussion with myself and within the slalom community about this stuff!

I know it's cold up here, but it's still the most beautiful sport in the world! X

At the end of every season comes a time for unwind and rest. Canoe slalom is an incredibly high intensity sport - for your mind as well as your body. Having a long, heavy summer training block is tough, especially when there are no big races to taper and peak for. So having a few light weeks to rehabilitate your muscles and brain is essential to starting a strong, productive winter preparation block.

I love going into winter training - because right at the start, I always have a list of things that I want to have improved or mastered by the end of the winter. It comes with challenging conditions - getting 'better at racing' is extremely tough to simulate in a blizzard with ten paddlers and one stopwatch. I've actually learned over the last three years, that prioritising and preparing for your sessions in this environment is almost as important as the actual session. Being comfortable, nourished and having proper equipment are the bare essentials to this kind of training block. Having a strong training group who prioritise the session over the rest of their day is also essential. This is a pretty difficult situation to come by - especially because a slalom squad is a lot of individual sport athletes, having to function productively together as a team.

What is pretty awesome as a senior athlete, is seeing junior athletes you have trained with for years in 'different' focus groups, stepping up their standards to participate as senior members. Currently at Pinkston Watersports, we are productive and efficient: everyone builds the courses, everyone times one another, we share and work together with what we're learning. There are nearly eight years between the youngest and the oldest paddler. 

Strategically, we all have different goals for the end of winter training. The racing experience between paddlers is vastly different, and so are the performance criteria going into 2018 selection series. But a whole group of people who love being on the water, and are applying the same level of concentration and effort to each session, produces feedback that everyone can identify with and learn from. 

I want to spend this winter taking a step back to the basics. I've had an awesome summer, learning on some of the hardest and most technically challenging courses in the world. For the winter, I want to focus on basic sequences and simple stroke patterns. Because while I technically refine and solidify basic practise, I want to step up on my physical and mental preparation. Those are probably two of the hardest areas of sport to work on at the same time - a tired brain is not always a cooperative one. But I learned a lot over the last three years about regeneration and focus. You absolutely cannot focus constantly. But you can learn to allow attention to deviate less and less from the task at hand, until you realise that you've spent 100% of your time focussing on yourself. Which is one of the reasons resting your brain is so important - you wouldn't expect your body to run a marathon if you've been constantly jogging for a week!

Getting physically stronger for me is surprisingly simple. People do invent a lot of ways to improve specific areas of fitness and strength. I think it's quite easy to over complicate. I love strength and conditioning, because I enjoy weightlifting, but I think this kind of preparation is very specific to the individual. I want to do a lot of aerobic sessions for the first part of my winter block, to create a baseline of fitness for the really tough months in January and February. In slalom we often talk about 'training to train'. Our races are around 110 seconds of highly intense effort. In running and swimming this could mean a lot of anaerobic interval training, VO2 sessions and high intensity endurance. But because our sport is so technical, we need to spend a lot of time on the water doing hours of high intensity bursts of activity. Which you actually need to be incredibly fit for - so finally, it pays to have a long block of aerobic endurance under your belt, to be able to cope with the length of our technical sessions. 

So looking out the window at twelve degrees and Scottish drizzle, I'm excited firstly for a bit of brain regeneration - and then to get stuck in to what we've planned for the next five months!