Mental toughnest saves the day

By westley on Tuesday, May 4, 2010 - Related Tags:- dream, westley

Having reached my top ten finish (over 50's) in the last 3 races I was primed for a big one in the 4th Harbour Series race.  I had a great preparation with a variety of work in the gym, on the lake and in the ocean.  My only problem was caused by my own 'school boy' error when I lost my paddle.  Yep, put the paddle on the grass then put the Kayak on the car and drove off!  Geeze when will I learn to complete each part of packing up.  Put the paddle in the car, tie the ski on the car (have forgotten that part a couple of times), then go through a checklist before rushing off. Anway that move would prove very costly.

I had also been to San Diego and had the pleasure of working with Chris Barlow and the San Diego team for a week.  What great hosts (make sure you see the podcast - The set up)

Nic Dundee a fellow Rose Bay paddler showed typical community spirit and lent me his spare paddle.  Nic is a very strong paddler and is a big man (again something that would prove significant).

So I spent the week doing some cross training on the bike, some boxing , some ab work, ocean paddling and some sprint work on the lake - felt great and made sure I had abit of time off in between to recover.

I got to the race and warmed up.  A glorious day with a few lumps and bumps but typically fantastic sydney weather.  I started slowly - probably a little over hyped and over thinking the race.  Jimmy always tells me to forget the race just paddle.  You have done the work, don't overthink the technique the stroke will just work.

Anyway on we went and I started to notice that I was actually in front of a few people that I am normally behind.  I was that that started me thinking of the blog entry on Mental toughness.  Here I was thinking negatively when I was actually doing well - remember 'thought control' focus on the positives.

Not long after I started to notice some cramping in my left arm, I kept paddling but after another 20 minutes it started to get quite painful.  Again refelcting on the mental toughness blog  I tried my best to foucs on other things, things I did have control over and not focussing on the pain. Don't allow the injury to cause 'Mental Distraction'.

As the arm got worse I just swapped to thinking about paddling with my shoulder and side as my arm and hand had gone numb.  I just kept up the twist and tried, as best as possible to stay positive.  I noticed that I wasn't falling behind the others and concentrated on staying with them.  I know that the Mental toughness blog is a hard read but trust me it saved me in this case - check the strategies for coping with Stress - I employed all of them.

The more I could think of other things the easier it was to cope.  Towards the end on the race I really couldn't do my usual big finish bet increased my rotation and still managed to increase boat speed.  

The result - 8th.  Only a few seconds behind 7th and knowing that I could get there had all been well.

After the race I asked Nic if the paddle had a large shaft.  He copnfirmed that it was a large shaft and big blade and had a few layers of tape to build it up further - that was when he showed me his enormous hands.  i guess another lesson about changing equipment too close to the race.

One race to go and hopefully I can grab a new paddle and get used to it then have no excuses.  A top ten finish will mean that I had met and exceeded all expectations of this season.