Race day came with a torrential morning downpour. Though everything cleared up well in time for the start of the long course, the race organizers decided to remove the ocean section of the course and reroute the race completely in the protected flatwater, just in case.

Due to an extended shoulder warm-up in the locker room, I got on the water a little later than I intended. I did my best to get in a full warm up, but my biggest priority was lining up next to Tim Burdiak. He was the athlete I had backed to win the long course and I had planned to mark him from the word go. When the start horn blew, however, it was Jesse Lishchuk, the sprint specialist, who turned on the gas and easily shot out ahead of Tim and me.

I scrambled onto Tim’s wash and hoped the pace would settle. Jesse, however, kept at it and started to slowly pull away. As the gap began to grow to an uncomfortable distance, Tim was forced to put in a kick of his own to avoid losing Jesse completely. I scratched to keep up and it was only thanks to the assistance from Tim’s wave that I was able to pull up directly behind Jesse and pull onto his back wave slotting into the half diamond daft. Gathering myself mentally, utilizing both of their washes to recover, I had two revelations. First, I realized that after that show of speed I might not have the goods required to win this race and second, I love racing. I know it’s a strange thought after an ugly start, but there is something truly special about putting your fitness, cunning, and guile to the test against athletes who have you on the back foot from the first stroke. I couldn’t help grinning.

A quick look around confirmed that we had shot well clear of the rest of the field and it was now a three horse race. It time for the tactics to begin in earnest. Almost on cue, Tim took the lead dropping Jesse back to his left wave as I shifted over to draft behind the new leader. I was certainly enjoying the respite provided two waves, but I realized I couldn’t hang back much longer. The position is very beneficial to recover, but it’s also a place of weakness. First, any comfortable athlete would be on Tim’s open side wash, so I was showing my competitors a weakness I would rather they forgot. And second, if Tim was to kick again, there would be nowhere for me to drop back to. I would simply be out of touch and out of the race. Knowing I needed to make this happen sooner rather than later, I conserved as much as I could in the next minute before pushing up beside Tim.

At about the ten-minute mark, I knew it was time for me to take a pull. It felt like a mistake (I could easily cook my race or expose further weakness to Tim and Jesse), but from a sportsmanship standpoint, I didn’t feel like I could contest a finish sprint without taking at least one pull in the race and after Jesse pulled the first kilometer and Tim the second, it was my turn. I moved up beside Tim and then slowly I pulled ahead to take the lead. I was careful not to make my turn of speed not too taxing, just enough to show that I was moving up and capable of going faster. Tim dropped back to my side wash and Jesse remained on Tim’s. I opened up my stroke, focusing on long, powerful, efficient strokes. I tried to think about technique and not how bad I was feeling, but as I finally checked in with my body, I realized that I was feeling strong. I pulled for the standard kilometer and then I dropped back to let Jesse take back the lead. To my surprise, it was Tim who surged ahead after a moments pause. I slid onto his wash and looked over at Jesse. I could hear his breath coming quick and ragged. He was hurting and not in a place to comfortably pull. I checked in with my own breathing. It was slow and relaxed. At that moment, the dynamics shifted and I realized the race was now between Tim and me.

When next Tim slowed, I moved up to take the next pull. As the race lengthened, I became more and more comfortable, regardless if I was pulling or riding. As we rounded the first sharp turn marking a third of the race finished, I decided to test my competitors (I was curious to see if Jesse could hang on and I wanted to gauge how strong Tim was feeling). As we came up on the turn, I held the lead longer than usual and forced Tim (on the outside of the turn) to take a wider, longer line around me and the turn marker. Jesse took advantage of the opening and snuck in for a tight turn. As we completed the turn, Tim was slightly behind on my left and Jesse tight on my right. There were tiny little bumps rolling in from the harbor mouth and picked up the pace just slightly, riding bumps when I could, curious to how my competitors would react. Tim diverted to the side in an attempt to find his own line and Jesse hung on tight. I didn’t let off the pace and Tim dropped back slightly. Jesse stayed with me but his breath became even more labored. I knew all I needed to know. I backed the pace down just slightly and at the same time, Tim realized it was a mistake to strike out on his own. He put in an effort and bridged the gap back to my tail.

Now it was a game of patience. I knew now that I was probably the fittest over the distance. And while I was itching to put in an attack to break them, I couldn’t risk Tim hanging on and passing me after I redlined. I had to stick to my initial strategy: keep playing the game until the last few kilometers and then try to neutralize their speed with a longer sustained push to the finish line. And so the tactical game continued. Tim completely regained his composure and we traded wash leads with Jesse drafting. Jesse took a short pull around the 50-minute mark, but Tim quickly took back over and it seemed that Jesse’s efforts could not change it back to a three horse race.

After a few more lead changes, we finally came to the spot that marked 2 kilometers to the finish. It was time to make my move. It was a maneuver I had watched Hank execute in the 2017 World Marathon Champs (though I would be attempting it at a much slower speed). My plan was to take the lead with 2km to go and crank up the speed. I would keep the pace hot and contest/block Jesse or Tim from taking over the lead. The thing about wash riding is that while an athlete conserves a good deal riding the wave of a competitor, to pass someone you are drafting you have to climb up and over their bow wave (and to successfully jump the bow wave you have to be going significantly faster than the leader).

So I settled in for some pain and I went to work cranking up the pace and keeping an eye out for Tim or Jesse to make a move. As I expected, it was Tim who came for the lead and he tried three times. The first was subtle, perhaps just to see if I was purposefully taking the lead 2km out. I contested his move with a surge and he dropped back, not wanting to truly put down the hammer so far from the finish. His second move came with about 750 meters to go and it was much more forceful. I was able to again deny him with a surge, but our change in speed was enough to drop Jesse off the wash. Tim’s final move came with about 300 meters to go when he realized that I was trying to finish it now and not let it come down to a final sprint. As he surged, I was able to deny him one last time and though he wasn’t in jeopardy of falling off my wash, my final 100-meter sprint to the finish was uncontested.

The race was an absolute blast and I was so honored to battle it out with friends and fierce competitors. What a start to the season! In the next blog post, I will break down my strengths and weaknesses from the race and discuss how it will guide my training for the next few months. Thanks for following!

The NAC Classic falls almost perfectly 5 weeks after my first session of 2019. I chose to compete in this race for three reasons. First, it is a flatter race and due to the colder weather in San Fran and avoiding rougher conditions for my shoulder, I have been focusing my early season on flatwater technique, efficiency, and aerobic base. Second, 5 weeks into the season is the perfect amount of time to not be embarrassingly unfit, but just enough to make racing extremely challenging. Third, the NAC Classic is a race that I have participated in twice before and I have competed many times against all the attending athletes, so it will be an excellent gauge of my current fitness.

The race itself is a two event format. First, there is a long course consisting of 18 kilometers of mostly protected flatwater in Newport Harbor with two kilometers of exposed ocean in the middle of the race. After completing the long course, there will be a break of approximately one hour before the start of the short course. The short course will be a 7-kilometer race in completely flat and protected water.

In years past, I have welcomed the challenge of competing in two events back to back. The long course is the more important in my mind, but the short course often proves more challenging, because many athletes race their K1s and I often am acutely aware of the toll the prior 18km took on my body. This year will be the same only doubly challenging. So far this year, intensity has been near absent in my training and I have focused on aerobic base and sub-race pace intervals of 5-10 minutes. Nothing approaching race pace and certainly nothing close to the pace I expect at the start, but to me, that makes the race all the more exciting!

One of my all-time favorite things about surfski racing is the tactics of a good race. This year, more than ever my tactics will be pivotal to my racing success. Tim Burdiak has been dominating the SoCal series so far and as a Surf Life Saving World Champion, he is definitely the man to beat on Saturday. Along with him, Jesse Lishchuk, Nate Errez and a host of other sprint athletes will be competing in both events. To win, I will need to exploit every advantage I have and predicting the race dynamics is a big advantage in my mind. Below is my guess of how the race will unfold, based on prior years and a look at the current startlist.

The start will be fast. With so many sprint athletes and a lot of young ego on the line, I would say the start will be reckless. The frenetic pace will shed athletes quickly and I think that within the first 5 minutes there will be a lead pack of about 4-5 paddlers. From there, it will become all about draft pack tactics. I would imagine that a few of the athletes will take strong pulls, some to posture and display control, others to tactically exploit weakness in the group. During the subsequent 20-30 minutes, the pack will slowly shed and drop to a group of 2 to 4 paddlers. When the race hits the ocean around the halfway point, the flatwater specialists will suffer a little and the final separations will occur. I would say that those with more ocean experience will earn a sizable gap but I don't think there will be a single athlete breakaway. I doubt that anyone will want to lead 8 km of flatwater alone (unless they have a clear fitness advantage). My guess is that whoever is leading out of the ocean will let nearby athletes catch up. The reason being that any small mistake with line choice could allow trailing competitors to catch and negate all the effort put into a breakaway. Also, if a few chasing athletes group up, it will be much easier for them to reel in the leader. I think the line honors will not be decided until the final kilometer or few hundred meters of finish sprint.

So what does that mean for me?

For me, a race always starts in the warm-up. One of the most useful racing tips I was ever given was a tip from Jasper Mocke telling me to always mark my competition at the start. He said, “line up against the person you want to beat and don’t let them get away, even if they try to get away before the start whistle”. In a sport notorious for creeping lines and acceptable false starts, it really is your own fault if you are left behind when your competition starts going. In a flatter event like this, being able to link onto someone’s draft or catch the wash of a fast double right away can make or break your race. On Saturday, I will be lining up with Tim. In my mind, he is the man to beat and I do not want to let him get away off the line. I expect the lead pack to be pulled into an aggressive start with many of the sprinters burning early matches. Everyone has different opinions about the start, but my philosophy is: do as little work as possible to stay in contact with the leaders. Letting your ego run rampant (as mine most certainly has in races past) can lead to an impressive first ten minutes and a miserable subsequent seventy.

After weathering the start, my goal is to settle into the lead pack. I will, of course, do my fair share of work at the front, but any unnecessary sprinting or wasted energy could cost me the line honors at the end. I will focus on breathing and anticipating moves from my competition to try and stay as efficient and conservative when not pulling. I won't think about making a move until the ocean. Once there, I will try to push for a little separation, milking any bump or chop I can find. I will, however, make sure not to find myself in no man's land coming out of the ocean. If I am leading I will back off a little and if I am behind, I will try to smoothly notch it up to catch the leader. For the next 7 kilometers, I will try to return to efficiency and conserve until the final (and hopefully winning) move in the last kilometer. I don’t want it to come down to a turn of pace at the end, so I will try to do this before we actually see the finish line (hopefully Tim, Jesse and Nate are not reading this before race day, haha).

For the short course, I will try my best to stay warm and keep my body from cooling down and tightening up. I will fuel up as much as my stomach will accept, and honestly, I will work with whatever I have left in the short course. I have no aspirations or strategies for race two. I intend to merely give it my all and suffer to the best of my ability (without jeopardizing my shoulder health).

Thanks for reading and if you enjoyed the read, I look forward to telling you how it went on Sunday!

The 2019 season has begun in earnest. This January has been one of the lightest volume training months of my surfski career, but it has also been marked by quality, sustainability and self-improvement. Coming off an injury in 2018, I spent much of December resting and rehabbing my injured shoulder. Luckily, everything seems to be functioning properly, but it is frustrating to come off an injury or an extended break from the water.

Over the years, I have found that I routinely start my year with too much intensity and volume. I begin my New Year with the best intentions, focusing on my lofty goals and remembering all the glorious weeks of training I logged in the year prior. I usually sit down to write myself a training program and inevitably, I bite off much more than I can chew. Last year was so bad that after only 10 days of full volume training I imploded into a horrific bout of the flu. During that week I vowed that I would never again fall into the trap of starting my season off too aggressively. I even wrote out a “transition” training block archetype to use as a reference for all my years to come. It’s a 4-week building program.

This year I started with a pre-week of crosstraining, then a week of just getting on the water once a day (no workouts, nothing hard, and nothing over an hour, just paddling once a day). With week two I stretched things a little longer and added a few gym sessions. Week three I filled in some structured workouts and added some intensity to a few paddles. Week four, I reintroduced the concept of two sessions a day on the water. And now finally I am feeling ready to start a training week that looks and feels somewhere around 75% of my dream week of training. I have never used such a gradual and slow progression to start the year and I was worried about more than just losing time.

I was worried that with the first month of 2019 being so measured, I would feel unproductive or even incompetent. I have a terrible tendency to compare my every interval and session to all the incredible competitors and fellow paddlesport athletes around the world. Despite my fears, these last few weeks have been a much-needed reset for my training and life. While being an athlete mostly certainly requires week of heavy volume and brutal sessions that illicit huge amounts of fatigue, being a successful athlete is also about building healthy and sustainable routines, finding consistency in daily rhythm that moves you towards your goals and uncovering all the little 1% - ers that optimize your training and life.

For me, this has taken many forms. I have reset my food and water tracking to better dial in my nutrition for 2019. I have started a new practice of beginning each day with cold water immersion and meditation for mood and productivity. I have returned to my strong belief in a complete and dynamic warm up before any training. I have reintroduced a daily practice of soft tissue work and mobilization on a nightly basis to aid in recovery. And finally, I have been able to dedicate more time to honing and exploring the mental side of being an athlete.

Even though I am not hitting the speeds I usually do around the end of January and I am well short of the requisite volume for an ideal week of training, I feel more confident than ever about my 2019 season. I am building a strong base and I am excited to see how high I can build my season.

The next race on the calendar is the NAC Classic in Newport California on February 9th. I am really excited for this early season tune-up. It will be an excellent opportunity to honestly and objectively gauge my early season fitness, identify any weaknesses and it is serving as great motivation to maximize every session on the water with only two weeks to go.