Snappy Exit

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my past racing career.  Call it a mid-life crisis if you want, but I have an urge to get some things down in a permanent form.  So in that spirit, I’d like to start a small series of posts related to what I think of as my Breakthrough Races.  I have always been surprised at the number of people I trained with who could compete in training on a daily basis but who either completely folded on race day or who were never able to come through with a spectacular performance when it counted.  But the more I think about it the more I realize that at certain times in my career I was the same way.  There was a time when it seemed inconceivable that I would beat Larry Cain, or come close to Andreas Dittmer, but a breakthrough race changed those perceptions and therefore changed the way I thought about myself and shaped my future as a canoer.

As a kid, I generally had a pretty easy time.  Sure I lost a few big races (Greg Carter in bantam Boys C-1!) and was disqualified at my first Nationals race (Midget C1 in Toronto 1986), but I generally won what I wanted to up until I was a junior.  The 1989 Junior Worlds was an eye opener for me.  I was thoroughly tromped on by the East German, an embarrasment that was nicely cushioned by the fact that I still managed to come out with a bronze medal.  That I could not come close to winning an international race was a sobering realization for me, and I will admit that I came into 1990 a much humbled man.

It was my first race against the Seniors at the trials, though I was technically still a Junior at 18 years old.  The favorite in the race of course was Larry Cain.  Anyone who doesn’t know Larry and his long list of accomplishments should probably leave this site and never return, and I will not attempt to provide a complete list here.  I will say two things about Larry though.  It was his 1984 Gold Medal race in Los Angeles that inspired me when I was 12 years old, and in 1990 he was coming back from his best ever World Championship result, a Silver in the C1 1000m.  Going into the trials he was a legend in my mind and completely unbeatable.

Tony had other ideas.  We did not spend a lot of time discussing the possibility.  Actually I cannot remember a single instance in training when Tony said to me that he thought that I could win the trials, or even be in the top 5.  We just never discussed results.    But just before the final he said some things that made all the difference.  I had surprised myself by qualifying first out of my semi-final.  The result had put me into lane 5 (the joke of the day was that Larry would be panicked because he only ever brought #5 boat numbers and so would have to scramble to find a #6 to put on his boat).  I would be next to Larry and I imagined that a good solid race would give me a second place finish.  Just before the final Tony said to me:

“Steve, Larry always does his mid-race pick up before the 500m mark.  I want you to go with him with 600m to go, then go again at the 500m.  Then see what happens.  And remember, dare to be great.”

So, the start went as planned and Larry and I got into a lead over the pack.  with 600 to go I went hard for about 10 strokes.  Then I cruised the next 100m and at the half way point I took off for the hardest 50m of the race.  I blew open a boat length lead and Larry was beaten.  The rest of the race was hard, but there were no more challenges.  I had done the impossible and beaten my childhood hero Larry Cain.

Now, I found out later that Larry was not 100% healthy.  Who knows what might have happened had he been ready to race.  As I will detail later in this series we had some great battles over the next three years.  But my mental image of myself had been changed forever.  I was now as good as Larry, and I could compete with the best in the World.  Over the next 14 years I would lose only three 1000m races at Canadian trials or Nationals, and only one Canadian (Larry) would ever beat me in an international 1000.  The mental breakthrough that I made on that day helped give me the confidence to be a champion.

I heard a really great quote on CBC radio yesterday afternoon.  There was a man on talking about the NS government’s goal of becoming a leader in environmental sustainability.   He was asked by the reporter if he was encouraged that the government had made this a goal and he said that it was a good first step but that

“A goal without a plan is just good public relations”

So.  If you are an athlete reading this blog I assume that you have a goal.  Ask yourself this - do I have a plan to achieve my goal or am I just good at fooling myself and my peers?

I remember the exact day that I learned to race my best race.  Up until that day I had been able to put together some great races, but I had usually finished feelling just a little disapointed in myself at all of the important competitions.  The turning point day was at a World Cup race in Duisburg in 1998.

In the two weeks prior to the competition I had been staying with the Canadian Team at a traning camp in Hazewinkel, Belgium.  It’s not a bad place to stay and train, the water is good, the accomodations are right at the course and the food is decent…mostly.  On the last night there I apparently ate the wrong piece of meat and, unbeknownst to me, picked up a rather nasty parasite.  By the time we arrived in Duisburg via train I was nearly doubled over in pain, and was running to the washroom.

I spent three days in my room with a fever and diarhea, my wife Angela took care of me, bringing me water and juice and keeping me hopped up on tylenol.  Finally, with one day before the start of races I was able to get out of bed, have some soup and get down to the race course.  My training that day was less than stellar, I felt so weak that I almost dropped out.  But I needed to be the top Canadian to earn a berth at the World Championship, so I carried on

The night before the races started I knew two things:

1. I was not as strong as I should be.
2. If I wanted to race fast every ounce of strength I had was going to have to move the boat forward.

So, I spent every moment thinking about how I was going to do that.  While I walked, while I trained, before I went to sleep, and every time in between was consumed with thoughts about technique and about how I wanted to paddle at each stage in the race.  NOtice my focus was on my technique, not my placing or getting on the podium.

I was weak in the heats and qualified for the semi finals by using as little energy as I could.

I was stonger in the semi-final, but after 500m I felt my body giving out and just made it into the final.

On the day of the final I was physically recovered in that I could eat solid foods, but I was not physically ready to race.  But a really neat thing happened.  When the gun went I took good strokes from start to finish.  At each point in the race I knew what I wanted to be thinking about and how I wanted to paddle.  I was unconcerned with how I was sitting relative to the rest of the field and when I took the lead at 500m I knew that the race was mine.  The whole race unfolded exactly as I had imagined it would.

I am not sure where I found the strength in the end.  Martin Doktor and Andreas Dittmer were charging up on me and I held them off for the gold.   It was my first perfect race and kicked off the most succesful part of my career.  From that day on I took the same approach to every race.  I focused on myself, on my technique…and on not eating bad meat.