The Gift That Keeps on Giving

It is time for me to announce the end of a huge chapter in my life. For most of twenty years I have considered myself to be an elite slalom canoeist. From now on, I will be just a canoeist who hopefully does some other good stuff! I wanted to mark my retirement from competitive canoe slalom by looking back and giving my thanks for an amazing career.


When I went canoeing in the Scouts for the first time, I could barely swim. I am sure that I displayed no sign that one day I would be an Olympic champion and a consistent world-class competitor. On reflection, I really do see what canoeing has done for me. It strikes me a bit like Christmas when you are a kid, I have received so many gifts that my mind struggles to take it all in! But these gifts are not plastic toys; they are solid and I feel they will last a lifetime. Certainly a blog article cannot do them justice, so I have added links to other articles that I have written where I will attempt to more properly express and explain my gratitude.

Although I have won an Olympic gold medal at a home Olympics, and been successful at World, European and national level, I am sincere when I say that I value my journey in canoe slalom so much more. Along the way, I have learned so much. This knowledge is a treasure to me. I hope that I can use it in the rest of my life to help myself and also to help others to find their own truths. Through canoe slalom I have experienced life in a very special way. At times, I have lived with total freedom. In intense competitive situations, I was sometimes squeezed to place where I could truly experience the moment. It is hard to describe, but it is truly a beautiful thing. My journey has been shared with and supported by the most amazing people. It would have been impossible to do all this on my own, and the quantity of great people I have encountered makes me feel so lucky. Expressing the depth of gratitude I feel towards them is hard, saying a heartfelt 'thank you' here will be a start.

All of this is inside me now, it is a part of me. In the future, my ambition is to help people towards gaining the sort of freedom and knowledge that I have found. Although I hope that I will always be a canoeist, I feel that I have to venture beyond the boundaries of our sport to find a place where I can make a real difference to the world. I have no clue how I will find this place, or what exactly I will do when I get there, but I will consider my life to have been a good one if I can leave it behind having made a positive difference to lots of people. I hope I already have done, but I want to do more!

My plan is to keep paddling in my slalom kayak, but also to test out some other disciplines on the branches of our family tree. One of my big tasks is to spend more time with the people I love and to forge better connections with them. I also want to learn more and to connect more ideas together. I am looking forward to watching my teammates grow into legends, perhaps more so as people than as slalom athletes. I consider myself extraordinarily fortunate to have gotten to this point, and I am also extraordinarily fortunate to be have the full array of choices before me to take my life forward. I must thank you all and assure you that I will not waste my opportunities!!

Etienne

The Gift That Keeps On Giving: The People

The people I have gotten to know along this journey will always be with me. In fact, they are me, they have made me. From the beginning in the Scouts, to my final C2 sessions, I have had the most amazing good fortune in being around people who gave me a magical mixture of friendship, challenge, support, knowledge and energy.  I have decided to minimise the risks of missing anyone out by talking about groups of people and not naming names, with two exceptions. I hope this approach doesn't offend anybody, but I have faith that the right people will know what they mean to me.

• St. Andrew's Scouts - these guys put me into a boat for the first time and started me off. They showed me that not being mainstream was cool!
• Viking Kayak Club - the club's members supported and nurtured me, despite probably being quite annoying!
• My coaches - so many over the years. They shaped me and guided my growth. They trusted me and we collaborated to create some fantastic ideas and get some great work done. They are all close friends, helping me through tricky times on and off the water.
• My paddle buddies - from my youth to the present day, I have paddled with zillions of awesome people. Time spent canoeing with them is what makes canoeing great!
• My teammates - we travelled around, having fun and riding the ups and downs of our sport. 'Living the dream' with them was an thoroughly enriching experience.
• The canoeing scene - filled with great people whose warmth and support helped me to just be me. A diverse family of lovely people.
• My sponsors - over the years, many generous people helped me financially and materially. I am grateful for their kindness, it certainly helped me massively on my way.
• The bosses in British Canoeing and UK Sport - the investment and faith shown in me over the years has allowed me the rare privilege of being paid to better myself.
• My rivals - I have always endeavoured to behave decently towards my rivals, even though they often made me feel very uncomfortable and put me under a lot of pressure. They pushed me towards levels of performance and discoveries that I wouldn't have found on my own.
• My heroes - I was lucky enough to meet so many, all the way through my career, each spurring me higher. Each also showed me that they were just human, so why couldn't I be like them?
• My support staff through the years; performance lifestyle advisors, strength and conditioning coaches, performance analysts, nutritionists, press officers, team managers, logistics organisers, administrators and the many others who helped me to be my best - it was a true team effort, your dedication, friendship and energy contributed more than just 'marginal gains'.
• My physios and medical support - a big feature of my career were my injuries. They put me back together more times than I remember and helped me through some of my toughest times. I'd be a wreck without them!!!
• My psychologists - who walked with me on the toughest path towards self-understanding and self-acceptance (it's a journey not a destination). Their support helped me to find my wings and my place.
• Tim Baillie - it is almost impossible to express the gratitude that I feel. A truer gentleman and friend it would be hard to find. A man I share so much with. A man who voyaged alongside me through an amazing portion of my life. We grew and we flew together. 
• Mark Proctor - We forged a team and a friendship which taught me so much more than I expected. He showed his quiet toughness and bravery bumping along with me on that famous Road to Rio. We did something quite amazing together, and the value of these experiences will increase as time passes. He is continuing his journey on his own now, but I know he has all he needs.
• My family - my parents, my sister and my wife. It is telling that I am only just beginning to understand what the impact of being close to this man on a mission might have been. I guess that they understand, and I hope they have felt rewarded, but I have no doubt that it was hard and that sometimes they might have felt like they were playing second fiddle. In this new future, things will be different for sure.

So to all those who have contributed to my journey so far, I thank you from the very bottom of my heart. You will always be a part of me, you will always be with me. Whatever I do in the future, I will be using what you gave me. What a truly incredible bunch of people you are!!!!!

The Gift That Keeps on Giving: The Moment.

One experience will always tower above the others in my slalom career and there is no prize for guessing which! In London 2012, and on a few other occasions in my career, I managed to experience a clarity of mind which I think is extremely rare. Some people describe it as the 'zone', but I just think it is experiencing the present in a very vivid way, where there is no space in your mind for the usual cluttering background noise of thoughts of the past or present. Experiencing 'the moment', for me, is probably one of the most special things that happened in my career. In those moments, I felt a great freedom and I felt able to completely express all my physical, mental and emotional energy. I felt alive and incredibly powerful.

Ironically, on the most important occasions, when you want to be at your most powerful, at your clearest, it is often the case that your mind is standing in the way. The Olympics is one such important occasion. A home Games is an even rarer opportunity. To be approaching the peak of your abilities when a home Olympics is happening is precious. That makes it so much more challenging, yet so much more important to live in the present in those extraordinary times.

I can say that on the 2nd August 2012, I experienced the moment in our race runs. I was able to express everything that I was at that point. I had worked really hard to think about all the things that would pull me away from the moment around the Olympics. That meant looking into the past and trying to make peace with as much of it as possible. I thought that under the pressure of the Olympics, under that scrutiny, my regrets and guilt might come back to haunt me and so throw me off track. I thought that if I could look as far as I dared into that dark closet, then I might be able to expose some of the beasts that might burst out when I least wanted. I also looked into the future, imagining a future that started with a mediocre/poor/bad/terrible/shameful performance at the Olympics. I imagined myself having a tantrum at the bottom of the course; I imagined having a massive argument with Tim in front of curious BBC cameras; I imagined people I knew being ashamed of me. It was a liberating experience! I realised that I would probably be ok and that people who really knew me and cared for me would feel the same no matter what happened. It made me realise that perhaps all of these things might not be as bad as I imagined, and also, I think it made them actually less likely to happen as a result.

When it came to doing our runs on the day of the Olympic final, there was only what was in front of me: Tim, our boat, the line, the gates and the water. There was just an intention, coupled with a deep determination to put our boat where we had agreed to. I remember only a small amount from our run in the Semis. I was just out there doing my thing. I recall a massive, "Ooooooh", when we span out on the back straight, and a massive cheer that went up when we got back on line, but that's about it. My memories of the Final are even more obscured; I really can't remember very much at all. I have a small memory of the crowd roaring as we came towards the bottom drop, but that is it.

When we crossed the line things started getting wild! And they got wilder, and wilder, and wilder! It was like being in the middle of a whirlwind. The whole world was going bananas, and we were just us, stood there... My life went into a parallel track that day, but I suppose that's happening all the time. Lots of amazing and strange things happened to me after that, and in another world, we didn't win, and I am doing just fine too. But how could I not be grateful to the laws of chance for bringing such an unlikely scenario to vivid life?!!!

It's not just the Olympics where I have experienced 'the moment'. The first time was in selection in 1997, racing my kayak at Holme Pierrepont for a place in the Junior team. I spent a long weekend in some amazing mental space up at Grandtully for U23/ Senior selection in 2002. I went into Matrix-style bullet time at La Seu in 2008 at the end of the most miserable season of my life. Several times before and since London 2012 I managed to allow my mind to get out of its own way and just 'be'. I was so proud and happy that in my final international C2 race, the European Championships in Liptovksy this year, I managed to let the sense of occasion dissolve, freeing my skills and mind to race close to its highest height. I have had to work very hard, for a very long time, enduring great difficulties and frustrations to be able to get to that place. But to experience a freedom like that, where you are essentially free of everything, is just a great privilege and one that I must be unsure of ever encountering again, which makes it all the more precious.

One thing that I am sure of, however, is if I hold onto that memory too tightly, my mind will be dragged into the past. If I strive too hard to attain it, or re-create it, I will be being dragged into the future. Neither place is where I believe that the magic can happen: that is, right now. This exact and unique moment.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving: The Knowledge

I think the most valuable lesson that I have learnt and lived, is that it is impossible to know what you can do until you've tried to do it, either succeeding, or failing and learning from it. When I started out at Viking Kayak Club in the early 90s, I truly, and naively, believed that it was just a matter of time and some training before I would be a multiple Olympic and World Champion! Looking back at my young self, I think all I would have seen was naked ambition and probably a willingness to work hard. In the end, I got to become an Olympic champion just once, but I now know the true efforts required. When I dislocated my shoulder six months before the 2011 Worlds I thought that there was a chance to go on from there, and not only go to the Olympics, but win them! Looking back now, what would I have seen? Someone with an almost impossible task ahead of them, but with a plan in his back pocket. Amazingly, I went on to win the Olympics with a reconstructed shoulder, so it was clearly possible, but it probably wasn't realistic. At the 2015 Worlds, when I tore a muscle in my side a few days before racing started, I thought that it would be an impossible and pointless exercise to race. From here, I see a guy who was terrified of failing to rise to the challenge, when he knew he was expected to, and knew that if he didn't, he wouldn't be able to look at himself in the same way again. But I went on to race and we came 6th. I know that I considered something like that to be impossible at the time, yet it happened.

From all these experiences, I shamelessly extrapolate upwards and outwards, beyond myself and to people in general. It isn't hard at all to find examples of people doing things that are deemed extraordinary in some way or another, normally because something about the person involved doesn't quite match the size of their accomplishment. Often, we would perceive these people as normal, or maybe even disadvantaged in some ways. Their achievement is out of proportion to this perceived starting point. I so fundamentally believe that we are all capable of more than we credit ourselves with that it fills me with a faith and a buzz for the future that I can scarcely contain!

I also learned that no matter what we start out with, it is our desire and action towards building on that quantity which I believe is the determinant to success. Put another way, it is less important how big or small we feel our pile of any given quality is; it is what we choose to do to add to that pile that gives us a unique power. I do not believe that I had any real talent for canoeing. I'd go so far as to say that I was clumsy, uncoordinated and un-athletic. I got flustered and frustrated, I didn't know my left from my right and I was a poor team player. It seems outrageous to me that I became an Olympic champion in a technical, physically demanding team sport!!! (And I still get frustrated and flustered.)

I have realised that my journey in elite canoe slalom has in fact been a journey in self-understanding, and if I am being really brave, a journey in self-acceptance. People tell me that understanding and acceptance is a never-ending journey, but I am further along the way than I could be. I have been privileged to have been supported to look into the darkest areas of myself, the areas that I feel ashamed of and scared to look into, for fear of discovering a worrying truth. I believe competing under pressure, and working day-to-day in an intense competitive environment have driven me to learn about my flaws, my cracks. These cracks were exposed and widened when I was trying to do something that I wasn't sure if I could do. This pressure, coming from myself and how I saw the world, consistently and repeatedly revealed my weaknesses, so that I could get to see them clearly. Once I could see them clearly, I could try to understand them and from there either work with them, or try to get change them.

I am grateful for this, because I think I might have been able to conveniently skirt around them doing something else. For me, learning skills, ideas and strategies that I can use in situation where I feel the pressure has been so useful, and it has been rewarding. But learning that I can learn skills to compensate for, or even change, areas where I feel I want to be better has been even more useful and rewarding. I also believe that anyone can do this if they want to go through the process of understanding their 'weaknesses', which can be difficult and challenging. Because I don't think I had huge amounts going for me when I set out on this journey, and I managed to learn these things, why can't anyone else? Again, that fills me with a great buzz, because what if we were all a bit better at dealing with pressure, however that squeezes us? Perhaps things would be calmer, more gentle and more productive.

It might seem an odd thing to say, but one of the most important things that I have learned is that I have learned to be me. Certainly, being in a competitive environment can be quite intense and I am certain that I have had to wear some parts of myself more outwardly than others (some people call it a 'front', or an 'armour'). But over the years, as I have learned about myself, I feel that two things have happened: first, I have come to see competition as less threatening than before. It didn't have to be as personal as I imagine, it's just that sometimes others want what I want. In that case, you might not need as much armour; second, I realised that being me wasn't that bad, there are lots of people who are a bit strange out there. Everyone is probably spending some effort on being normal when in fact if we could just de-escalate that situation a bit, things would be easier all round. A bit like when the US and the USSR decided to get rid of an equal amount of nuclear weapons - it didn't really effect the status quo, it just took less effort on their parts to maintain this arsenal.

As I have been able to save some energy by not having to choose and maintain what I thought was the right me in some situations, I have been able to use that energy to do things that I wanted to do. Like getting better at canoeing, or being a better teammate, or making jokes. I don't want to pretend that I have been 100% me all the time in the past and I know it wouldn't be sensible to suggest that I will be able to do this all the time in the future, but I now the benefits of trying. So I am going to try.

The above ideas are probably the biggest and most important things that I have found out so far. Canoeing gave me them, or more accurately, they were revealed to be by the practise of canoeing and racing. That buzz, that knowledge, is a gift that I hope to draw on for all my days. And they are things that I hope people might enjoy reading about, or gain something by thinking about them in relation to themselves. I believe that we all have to struggle to unearth and refine our own truths. But I am hoping that someone, somewhere might get a bit of a leg up to figuring out something about themselves by reading this.

Q and A, or A and Q?

It's a tricky task to answer a question before it's asked, but that's what this blog article will endeavour to do. The question in question is, "Why aren't Mark and Etienne racing the World Cups?". The short answer is that I will be visiting my wife, Georgie, in Nicaragua whilst they are happening. This means that I will be able to continue training at a good level through the rest of the season and fulfil our duties as the Olympic reserve crew. The slightly longer explanation is below:

Throughout March I had really been struggling in training, really struggling. Try as I might I could not find a way to bring the best of myself to our crew. I seemed to lack the critical amount of energy needed to allow me to focus all my effort on my contribution to our team. The consequence of this was that I was not a very good teammate. Short on patience, short on ideas, short of soundness. Our paddling was pretty bad and canoeing wasn't much fun. As well as being generally not very good, I was angry with myself about my behaviour and this was hurting me twice. Of course, Mark bore the brunt of it, and I knew that this dynamic was unsustainable for me and the crew. I can say that I was close to retiring there and then.

Try as I might, I could not find a way to sort myself out. I worked on lots of different ideas and tried lots of methods to get myself back to a place where I could be motivated to put all I could into the crew. None of it seemed to work. Then, one night as I lay awake thinking about this mess, I realised that I had a possible solution, and with it, I came to understand the problem. If I knew that I could take a break in the middle of the season, I thought that it would give me two clear phases to work on. The first phase would consist of the final preparations for the season, and would be focused on the European Championships. The second phase would be focused on training in C2 in London to contribute to the Olympic team's preparations by being a credible and swift crew to spar with. I think the problem was that being away from my wife for such a long time was harder than I thought, and this was coupled in with a season of very uncertain shape and demands.

I spoke to Mark and asked him if he would approve of the plan. Thankfully, he could see where I was coming from and could see the gain in it, even though there would be some costs. Missing the World Cups would be a shame, it means losing the chance to spend more time with my friends and teammates and race in some cool places. But the more I thought of the plan the better I felt. I believe the certainty and structure that it gave me was vital. I was suddenly energised and I found myself able to focus completely on producing a good performance at the Euros. I could also picture how we could train sustainably through the summer and be able to test David & Richard in training during the Rio buildup.

Thankfully, our European Championships campaign was a success (read about it here) and I have been putting my best work into our training. I wish I could be in two places at once, but it is impossible and I am at peace with the choice. I will be away for the three-week duration of the World Cup tour (I hope I can find a decent internet connection to keep an eye on the races), but when I return I will be back down to business. Season 2016 was always going to be a challenge, and it is certainly proving so. But now, thanks to this decision and the support of my team, I feel that we are doing a good job of it, and I intend for that to continue! Thanks for reading.

The 2016 European Championships: a race to be remembered

Where do you start when you want to write about a race like the 2016 European Championships? It is a big deal, the second most important race of the canoe slalom year, apart from the Olympics. But it was more than that. Olympic dreams were realised and shattered. There were underdogs succeeding, big names defeated and new sparks emerging. A large community of C2 athletes raced against each other, possibly for the last time before C2 is dropped from the Olympic programme with probable consequence that most athletes will be 'made redundant' and head to retirement. And Mark and I did our race amongst all this, making our third major international final and finishing in 8th. I will try to paint a small picture of some of the human dramas that occurred, starting with our own.

A proud & happy man at the opening!

For Mark and I, the Euros was our main focus for the season, our one chosen chance to race at our absolute best. We'd done almost three weeks of training in Liptovsky before the race started to develop our technical understanding of the river. We tapered our training to deliver a physiological peak and we worked hard to make sure that our mindset was optimal for the delivery of our best. The course is Liptovsky is fast, narrow and unpredictable, with a tough drop in the middle section that can unravel a run in moments. The courses set for the race were extremely fiddly. Not hard in a 'do or die' sort of way, but in a way that if you took your eye off a gate for just a moment, the water could push you onto a pole for a penalty so easily. It made it hard to get a groove going as you were always looking at the gate and water immediately in front of you, it was difficult to work too far ahead.

In the qualifying round, we came 13th, which was ok. When we arrived to start preparation for the semi-final, we could see that the gates were set quite unforgivingly, and we would have to prepare our tactics very carefully. We watched a lot of C1s and K1s, trying to understand how the water was acting on them, and then inferring how it would affect a heavy, wide and long C2. Our 3rd place in the semi justified many of our choices. For example, we took a late choice (that we had discussed, in advance, the possibility of having to make) just before gate 23 to do a 'peel out', one of the most conservative manoeuvres in the book. By that stage we were out of position, and we had little choice, but it kept us clean and didn't cost too much time. I was elated to make the final - once you're in the final anything can happen!

Skipping through the drop

In the final we had made some revisions to our plan and we were on a good run, until we got out of place in the bottom third. We hit gate 17 and lost time. We were then forced into another peel out at 23, but this time it was too slow, and we lost a bit more. We crossed the line and I knew that we hadn't improved on our semi. But afterwards, watching the video with our coach, Gareth, I was struck by how much we'd put into that run. I often can't really remember what happens in the action, or at least I can't evaluate it. I think my mind is full of the doing (or maybe it is empty with the doing?). But what I saw was two guys doing everything they could to get the boat down the river, adjusting a they went, but charging hard. We nailed a few bits for sure and we hustled a few other sections. I don't know if I could call the time losses 'mistakes'. They were really tough moves and I'd think that we'd need a few more goes at them in training to figure out a consistent, solid solution. I think those time losses occurred towards the upper edge of our technical limit, and we'd done our best to deliver them in the heat of the action - I can't be angry with that. I believe I can say that we put our absolute best into that final run, 8th was the result, but the thrill of giving all that we could give was what was special. I am proud of us, what we did and the way we did it: it was a good day.

Cheerful C1M podium

Kucera/Batik taking air!

As for the dramas, here I go! The GB womens' C1 and K1 team Golds. Hearing the National Anthem and seeing people you know on that top step is always brilliant! ; Alexander Slavkovsky's win in C1M, a huge result for Slovakia's '3rd boat', a real nice guy who has dealt with 'living in the shadow of Martikan' with real grace ; Ander Elosgui (SPA) claiming the final C1 Olympic quota spot in style with an individual Bronze ; Kucera/Batik, again Slovakia's 3rd boat, racing knowing their funding was to be cut after the Euros, winning a major championship after many years on the scene ; Schroeder/Bettge, making their first international final and taking the Bronze ; The Skantar cousins, claiming the Slovak Olympic place ahead of the legendary and illustrious Hochschorner twins. What a journey they have been on! ; Vavra Hradilek, finishing second in K1M by 0.01sec., just a short while after his rival Jiri Prskavec (the eventual European Champion) had secured Czech's Rio place. Both paddlers racing in a style that could only be described as free and wild! ; Mallory Franklin's Bronze in C1W, with Eilidh Gibson crafting a 4th place ; Jana Dukatova just grasping the Slovak Olympic place, taking Bronze ahead of the great Elena Kaliska (4th); and that one to watch, Felix Oschmautz (AUT), who revealed his talent to the world, aged 16, by making the K1M final in 6th place.

And the heartbreaks: Martina Wegman (HOL) flipping in gate 23 when she was on the run of a lifetime, with 8 fingers and one thumb on her ticket to Rio with the last Olympic quota place. My heart sank like I have rarely felt when I saw that happen right in front of me ; Marzo/Perez (SPA) who failed to qualify in C2 in pursuit of the final Olympic quota place, despite having won the Tatra Cup a few weeks before, on the same water and against most of the same crews. They are such a good crew, but road to the Games was unforgiving that day ; Kim Woods, who didn't get through to the semis in defence of her 2015 European title, but who in the following days showed character and flair to find some redemption by racing to two Golds in C1 and K1 team; and Joe Clarke, getting a 50 in the final after a dazzling charge in the semi.

Great Britain's K1W Team at the top of the pile!!

Some of those moments, good and bad, will live in canoe slalom history! But what did you expect? Most of the world's best slalom athletes in the same place, racing to prove their Olympic worthiness or to gain selection, some to prove that even though they weren't going that they were still a force to be reckoned with and some just going out there to do what they have trained all their lives for. Drama was 100%, gold plated guaranteed!!! I was glad to be there and glad to be a part of it!!

Thanks to Michaela Daille for the photos :-)

The Original Slalom Experience

I have been meaning to write this blog for a few weeks, since our trip to Scotland to race in Grandtully, Perthshire. The first time I went there was in 1995, to contest GB Junior Team selection. Over the 21 years since then, I think I have raced there in at least 12 of them, and although it might be argued that the river is no longer at the cutting edge of slalom, it is one of my favourite places to race in the whole world. In fact, when our schedule worked out such that we could make the trip this year, I was really happy. I just knew it would be cool. So I decided to try and share with you why I like it so much. I think in many ways, it epitomises some of the reasons that I love canoe slalom. So here goes, in no particular order:

Fine examples of weather-beating equipment.

The road trip - it was always a long way, but up from Lee Valley, it is as good as an eight hour drive. Nowadays we fly to many race venues, and although there's no doubt you cover a lot of distance, you rarely get the feeling that you've really travelled. Sure, they might speak another language and the food is different, but it just doesn't feel like you've gone anywhere. To me, when you drive, you have seen every meter of that journey and you appreciate it all the more for it. Plus, you get to discuss pretty well everything with your car-mates and listen to all sorts of music too. An added bonus is stopping off at one of a few premium service stations on the way (eg. Tebay, on the M6). Over the years, some of these have come to signify progress and deliver some tasty treats!

The weather - Needless to say, Scotland has famously unpredictable weather. Canoe slalom is an outdoor sport, and so when you do canoe slalom you will be subject to this weather. Howling wind, driving rain, sleet and snow are perfect to test your waterproof gear. Then the beaming sunshine and flat-calm times give you the chance to appreciate your sunglasses. Sure, it's not brilliant racing in bad conditions, but I can't say that I don't relish battling the elements sometimes. I think canoeing has taught me to like bad weather, it feels like I've learnt to earn my enjoyment!

Not really a puddle, more a small muddy river.

The mud - in the racing season, I paddle without shoes. It give me the chance to squish through any muddy puddles that are on the walk up to the startline. Some puddles are more muddy water, some puddles are more damp mud. Either way, I do like just being able to just trudge wherever I fancy without worrying about having to clean my shoes! Grandtully does seem to have puddles that cover the total watery/muddy spectrum, and this year was no exception. Sometimes, I do wear sandals, but there is also a bit of a thrill from filling your sandals with mud too!

Getting back indoors - after a day outside in the wild weather, getting back home to a warm and dry haven seems like a wonderful thing. Having sorted your gear out to dry, sitting down on the sofa and watching some TV with a warm mellowness seems just about spot on (thanks to Steven Turnbull for setting us up with the perfect place this time around).

The countryside - not all that many canoe races are done in the countryside anymore, that's just the way the sport has headed. I don't think that's a bad thing, but when I get the chance to be somewhere just a bit out of the way to do a race, I really appreciate it. There's very often a quietness down at the course before it kicks off which is not found everywhere. You look around and there are trees, big trees that were just saplings when canoe slalom was discovered (!). There's hills or mountains that seem to ask me to go up them, or see what is behind them. I don't always get the chance to explore, but the idea that I could just get out and become some part of a natural scene rings nicely in my mind.

The people - we're all watching canoeing together. Some are engrossed, some are slightly bored, others are nervous, some are hardly watching; just making jokes and having a laugh with their chums. When it's raining, we talk about the weather, when it's nice, we talk about canoeing. People I've known for decades, some I'm meeting for the first time. Slalom is cool, there just aren't many baduns around, and so to me it is like old friends or family: it doesn't have to be deep and meaningful necessarily, it's just good to chat with people who you share something with.

The cake - when I was a kid, my mum used to make me some special cake for races. And I am still partial to a piece or two. Having a slice of home-made chocolate cake or a piece of flapjack from the cafe keeps up the tradition, and I can count it as energy for my racing, so it's a win all round!

The racing - a domestic slalom is a fair way from a major international, but it is fundamentally the same thing. You're trying to go as fast as you can (with respect for precision) down a course set out by hanging gates. In Grandtully, some of the gates are so far away that you can't really tell exactly where they are! Plus it's a river that can change a bit and I don't paddle there loads. So when you set off, you are a good deal less certain of what lies ahead than at some races. That's an interesting something extra, which I quite enjoy.

A fine river on a fine afternoon :-)

Now I don't know if people will agree with me, but these things just contribute to the love I have for canoe slalom, and a lot of them I would think I'd share with other slalomists and the wider canoeing population. It's been nice to think about this enough for me to be able to write about it, and I'll have to keep my eyes open for any other elements that I missed on this occasion. Bye for now!