Training for Races, some tactics
So, you've spent a season or two making sure that your mental base is solid and you're centered, well adjusted, and happy. You're competing for all the right reasons, with a zen-like detachment from any results. But… wouldn't it be nice if those results were maybe just a little better? How exactly can you work on racing faster? Here are some strategies and tactics that we’ve found helpful.
What follows are not physical training tips to improve fitness, although fitness is a big part of racing and there are many dimensions to fitness. These tips are also not specific technique tips, like “take a more vertical stroke,” although again, paddling technique is perhaps more important than fitness. Instead, these are meta-tips. They’re tips that should help you analyze your own paddling so that you can figure out what small changes to make to your technique or to your lines.
The tips break down into a few easy steps.
If you are too shy you can start out by just snooping footage online, but remember, you also don’t have to do this all on your own. Unless you are actively in a coaching session, faster paddlers are unlikely to give out un-asked for advice. So, if you are interested in getting some advice from someone you esteem, just ask, and most of the time they will be happy to oblige and you may get a kernel of knowledge that makes a big difference to you. I wouldn’t advise following someone super close without asking. However, if they are a lot faster than you they probably wouldn’t notice you trying to follow them for a few moves before they pull too far ahead.
A lot of people do this by playing two gopro runs one after the other, but this is NOT ENOUGH! Really really study the infinitesimal differences until you know exactly what caused each time difference. To do this, we put two runs side by side in a video editing program and pick some synchronization spot, like the splash from a particular wave. Then we watch the two really closely synchronized runs until we can see some kind of difference. As soon as there’s a difference, we cut both runs and find some new synchronization point, then repeat. This has a number of benefits. It allows you to isolate individual tiny moves, and it also allows you to quantify the time differences of those tiny moves. Once, Leif tracked down a faster line on Bowie’s on the Little White Salmon and found that he had a 3 second gain by pointing his bow slightly left while going through a small wave. The boat was in the same position both times but that tiny angle adjustment led to a huge speed difference.
Doing these time comparisons also helps you objectively quantify how big (or small) your mistakes really are. Natalie learned that a flip that she thought cost her a lot of time, really wasn’t that bad and that she lost just as much time in another section with three small lap shots. Most of the time lost from the flip happened after the error because she was mentally discombobulated and ended up making several other errors downstream of the first error before she was able to get back into a groove.
But, say it is race time and your skills are what they are and you want to go the fastest you can go while also minimizing your errors. First, you need to give yourself the space and time to make yourself comfortable with the racecourse in a non judgemental way and then you need to learn it in detail. You do this by studying other people’s footage, getting in many repetitions of quality practice runs and detailed visualization. Natalie likes to run a racecourse a handful of times to get a feel for it and to learn where her ‘trouble’ spots are before doing any analysis of other people’s lines or focused practice. Leif likes to pre-learn the course by studying other people’s footage before he starts practicing. Regardless of how you learn the course, Your results will likely be disappointing to you if you show up the night before and get only one or two practices in before the race (Unless your skill level is much higher than the difficulty of the whitewater or the other paddlers you are racing against are less skilled than you).
So how much time do you need to learn the course? This varies by person. You need to give yourself enough time to learn where you want your boat at each moment of the race to a high level of detail. The process gets faster the more you do it. One tactic that Leif uses to help mentally organize the run is landmarks and names. In Gore rapid, there are names for just about every rock and hole. This makes it easy to talk about lines, for example: "so I enter the left slot like I'm going to boof ginger but then cut right, behind the professor, and almost touch the hot tub, but as soon as I pass that I get ready to go left of decision rock. Always go left of decision rock". You might be surprised at how much it can help you remember and navigate detailed lines. A confusing jumble of boulders can instantly transform to a simple series of targets. Something like "go between the goal posts, go left of warrantee rock, and avoid the DMV eddy" is easier because not only do you have a quick picture of the line, you also have inherently broken that line down into the crucial checkpoints. If ‘warrantee rock' has a name, it's because something important happens at that rock. The random rocks before warrantee rock probably don't matter. You automatically know where the relevant parts of the rapid are, and even if you're off the correct line, you know where the line is. Also it's fun to come up with amusing names, obviously.
How do you take this staggering amount of detail and remember it, let alone actually execute a good line? Now, even if your mental map is perfect, how do you actually get your boat to do the things you know it’s supposed to? Practice a lot - get QUALITY repetitions. The best way to do this is to chunk out the race course. It is hard to race consistently and practice when you are thinking of the entire course. Instead, during practice or video review, pick a small section and work on that section in detail. Once you have that portion, move on to another one. Before paddling one of your ‘chunks,’ visualize it. Natalie likes to prioritize her practice by starting with the sections that she is most inconsistent with. Sometimes she will pick a short section and hike it several times in a row until she feels better about it. She might also focus on watching other people through a particular section that is giving her trouble or she is unsure where the fast line is.
The more you practice the course, the less likely there will be a surprise error during a race because you have already explored all the errors. And, once you know the river at a high level of detail it also becomes easier to get back on course after a mistake, and less mistakes happen because you can consistently place yourself where you need to be.
Always remember to congratulate yourself on lines you do well and let mistakes flow past. Instead of getting glum and dwelling on your ‘failures’ or ‘mistakes,’ thank the river for giving you the gift of showing you what you need to work on. This will keep your mistakes from spiralling into bigger mistakes and will help you focus your intention and practice. At the end of a race or practice lap, first remember the lines that you did well and were pleased by before analyzing the mistakes. Then, get out and do it again!
It is very useful to compare yourself to yourself rather than others. Use a stopwatch or gopro - some kind of impartial measurement. By timing yourself you will be able to gauge your progress not based on others' actions, but your own. You should still pay attention to how your lines feel, but having a concrete measurement is incredibly useful. Many times I've finished a lap feeling terrible and then checked the time and found it was faster than I'd thought, or finished what I thought was a great lap and found that the time was not actually that good. Once you start running consistent lines it can also be a useful tool to figure out if using a certain boat or paddle increases your speed. If you time yourself a lot, you will quickly get a feel for what an average time for you is and how variable you are. Your results on race day will not come as a surprise to you and you can get excited no matter your placement in the results. For example, if you get last you may feel bad about that, but if you also happen to know that you ran your personal best and still got last then you are both excited for yourself and are able to be impressed and happy for your friends who beat you.
What follows are not physical training tips to improve fitness, although fitness is a big part of racing and there are many dimensions to fitness. These tips are also not specific technique tips, like “take a more vertical stroke,” although again, paddling technique is perhaps more important than fitness. Instead, these are meta-tips. They’re tips that should help you analyze your own paddling so that you can figure out what small changes to make to your technique or to your lines.
The tips break down into a few easy steps.
- Observe others
- figure out what makes them faster
- learn to be faster.
Step 1. Observe other paddlers
Try to learn from faster paddlers. If they’re way better there might be too many differences to even understand, but there’s always something you can learn. It’s easiest if you can find someone who is just slightly ahead of you, then pin down the exact difference that makes them faster, and target that difference in your own training. It’s possible to just experiment with your own lines and see what works better, but using a faster paddler as a guide or an ideal to aim for can cut out a lot of the trial and error from the process. Two easy ways to observe other paddlers is to follow them closely down a run or watch their go pro footage. In either case, pay close attention to their body position, boat and paddle placements. Don’t be shy about asking if you can do either of these things. Faster paddlers might have some easy tips that you can just ask them for.If you are too shy you can start out by just snooping footage online, but remember, you also don’t have to do this all on your own. Unless you are actively in a coaching session, faster paddlers are unlikely to give out un-asked for advice. So, if you are interested in getting some advice from someone you esteem, just ask, and most of the time they will be happy to oblige and you may get a kernel of knowledge that makes a big difference to you. I wouldn’t advise following someone super close without asking. However, if they are a lot faster than you they probably wouldn’t notice you trying to follow them for a few moves before they pull too far ahead.
Step 2. Figure out what makes them faster
Compare your GoPro or other video with the videos of slightly better paddlers on the same race course or section of a run and micro analyze. You will quickly learn where you are losing most of your time and what you should be focusing on to maximize your improvement. GoPro comparisons have also been highly motivating for us to get out and do repeat practice. When we say micro analyze, we really mean get as precise as you can. Is it faster to go right or left of that one rock? What about if you drop the other edge at that one instant? Delay that stroke until after that one splash? Are you falling behind in the flatwater but maintaining time in the rapids? Or vice versa? Are you getting more lap shots and not accelerating as quickly through drops? The more you can line up two highly similar runs, the more the small differences will jump out. Studying the effects of these seemingly tiny changes can be very educational and help you focus your practice on what matters the most for you.A lot of people do this by playing two gopro runs one after the other, but this is NOT ENOUGH! Really really study the infinitesimal differences until you know exactly what caused each time difference. To do this, we put two runs side by side in a video editing program and pick some synchronization spot, like the splash from a particular wave. Then we watch the two really closely synchronized runs until we can see some kind of difference. As soon as there’s a difference, we cut both runs and find some new synchronization point, then repeat. This has a number of benefits. It allows you to isolate individual tiny moves, and it also allows you to quantify the time differences of those tiny moves. Once, Leif tracked down a faster line on Bowie’s on the Little White Salmon and found that he had a 3 second gain by pointing his bow slightly left while going through a small wave. The boat was in the same position both times but that tiny angle adjustment led to a huge speed difference.
Doing these time comparisons also helps you objectively quantify how big (or small) your mistakes really are. Natalie learned that a flip that she thought cost her a lot of time, really wasn’t that bad and that she lost just as much time in another section with three small lap shots. Most of the time lost from the flip happened after the error because she was mentally discombobulated and ended up making several other errors downstream of the first error before she was able to get back into a groove.
Step 3. Learn to be faster
When you have a general idea where your deficiencies and strengths are, you end up thinking about them whenever you paddle and you will gradually improve and get faster, regardless of a race. You can also reach out and receive coaching on a specific skill that you realized could be improved (like conditioning, or boofing, or a more powerful forward stroke). Improving basic techniques and improving your fitness is something that you work on in between races.But, say it is race time and your skills are what they are and you want to go the fastest you can go while also minimizing your errors. First, you need to give yourself the space and time to make yourself comfortable with the racecourse in a non judgemental way and then you need to learn it in detail. You do this by studying other people’s footage, getting in many repetitions of quality practice runs and detailed visualization. Natalie likes to run a racecourse a handful of times to get a feel for it and to learn where her ‘trouble’ spots are before doing any analysis of other people’s lines or focused practice. Leif likes to pre-learn the course by studying other people’s footage before he starts practicing. Regardless of how you learn the course, Your results will likely be disappointing to you if you show up the night before and get only one or two practices in before the race (Unless your skill level is much higher than the difficulty of the whitewater or the other paddlers you are racing against are less skilled than you).
So how much time do you need to learn the course? This varies by person. You need to give yourself enough time to learn where you want your boat at each moment of the race to a high level of detail. The process gets faster the more you do it. One tactic that Leif uses to help mentally organize the run is landmarks and names. In Gore rapid, there are names for just about every rock and hole. This makes it easy to talk about lines, for example: "so I enter the left slot like I'm going to boof ginger but then cut right, behind the professor, and almost touch the hot tub, but as soon as I pass that I get ready to go left of decision rock. Always go left of decision rock". You might be surprised at how much it can help you remember and navigate detailed lines. A confusing jumble of boulders can instantly transform to a simple series of targets. Something like "go between the goal posts, go left of warrantee rock, and avoid the DMV eddy" is easier because not only do you have a quick picture of the line, you also have inherently broken that line down into the crucial checkpoints. If ‘warrantee rock' has a name, it's because something important happens at that rock. The random rocks before warrantee rock probably don't matter. You automatically know where the relevant parts of the rapid are, and even if you're off the correct line, you know where the line is. Also it's fun to come up with amusing names, obviously.
How do you take this staggering amount of detail and remember it, let alone actually execute a good line? Now, even if your mental map is perfect, how do you actually get your boat to do the things you know it’s supposed to? Practice a lot - get QUALITY repetitions. The best way to do this is to chunk out the race course. It is hard to race consistently and practice when you are thinking of the entire course. Instead, during practice or video review, pick a small section and work on that section in detail. Once you have that portion, move on to another one. Before paddling one of your ‘chunks,’ visualize it. Natalie likes to prioritize her practice by starting with the sections that she is most inconsistent with. Sometimes she will pick a short section and hike it several times in a row until she feels better about it. She might also focus on watching other people through a particular section that is giving her trouble or she is unsure where the fast line is.
The more you practice the course, the less likely there will be a surprise error during a race because you have already explored all the errors. And, once you know the river at a high level of detail it also becomes easier to get back on course after a mistake, and less mistakes happen because you can consistently place yourself where you need to be.
Always remember to congratulate yourself on lines you do well and let mistakes flow past. Instead of getting glum and dwelling on your ‘failures’ or ‘mistakes,’ thank the river for giving you the gift of showing you what you need to work on. This will keep your mistakes from spiralling into bigger mistakes and will help you focus your intention and practice. At the end of a race or practice lap, first remember the lines that you did well and were pleased by before analyzing the mistakes. Then, get out and do it again!
It is very useful to compare yourself to yourself rather than others. Use a stopwatch or gopro - some kind of impartial measurement. By timing yourself you will be able to gauge your progress not based on others' actions, but your own. You should still pay attention to how your lines feel, but having a concrete measurement is incredibly useful. Many times I've finished a lap feeling terrible and then checked the time and found it was faster than I'd thought, or finished what I thought was a great lap and found that the time was not actually that good. Once you start running consistent lines it can also be a useful tool to figure out if using a certain boat or paddle increases your speed. If you time yourself a lot, you will quickly get a feel for what an average time for you is and how variable you are. Your results on race day will not come as a surprise to you and you can get excited no matter your placement in the results. For example, if you get last you may feel bad about that, but if you also happen to know that you ran your personal best and still got last then you are both excited for yourself and are able to be impressed and happy for your friends who beat you.
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