Starting the Season: First Steps Towards A Successful 2019

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.