Adam Burgess, Canoe Slalom, C1 & C2 categories

I am looking forward to having a good taper into the selection series and feeling sharp because this will be my first chance to see properly how my physical training has paid off. I've managed to hit PBs across the board on all of my flatwater sprint distances (10m, 50m and 100m) and set the benchmark for the rest of the C1 boys to chase! So I'm feeling very good about my ability to move the boat forwards. Slalom obviously has a lot more to it than just that though!

I've spent a lot of time on the Olympic course in Lee Valley to learn it as best I can, and I have a further 3 weeks training there before selection. This last run into the race is mainly psychological from now. There will be minimal physical gains left to made so it's all about putting in the time to prepare the mental side properly and to learn the course at Lee Valley as well as I can. This is where the majority of my focus will be for the next few weeks.

I am starting to get excited about it now it's getting close and I think I'm thinking about it in the right frame of mind. So I'll be giving it my best shot and see what happens from there. Whatever happens at selection, I know that I have got a great summer of racing ahead, which does ease the pressure slightly. It's very important that I am not thinking solely of the end goal as I would suffer from far too much anxiety. I'm doing what I can to think about all the things that I need to do in order to get to that goal, and then the result will take care of itself.

The last month has been really exciting, lots going on. The ‘Strength Block’ has come to an end and the ‘Speed Block’ is now well underway, I feel like I’ve made my full adjustment to wearing the i-GO lenses to improve my sight, and I’ve made my move to London so I can train on the Olympic course more!

In this current block of training all of my physical sessions are just geared around going FAST and making the boat get up to speed quickly from a standing start. From the data we have of recorded 20m sprint times I’ve matched the record and become one of the very few C1 paddlers to reach a sub 7 second time, so already the speed work we’re doing is paying off!

I’ve continued to wear my overnight lenses to correct my short sightedness and now I think I’ve made the full adaption which is great. Being able to see properly for all of my sessions has been great, especially with trying to learn the subtleties of the Olympic courses waves and other features.

I’ve made a semi move to London so now I’m operating out of a base there and a base in Nottingham. My coaching and support services still remain predominantly in Nottingham which means I do need to be here still most weeks but with a room in London as well now I will be spending the majority of my time down there.

Training in London has been great, I’m really enjoying every second I’m spending on that course and I’m finding that the hard physical work I’ve put in already  this winter has really paid off and I’m finding that I can really just focus on the technical element of paddling there and just learning the place inside out.

Posted:  22 November 2011

The domestic season has come to an end now; I managed to improve my ranking a little in the last few races to finish 2nd senior and 1st U23 overall for the year (out of a series of 9 races, with people best 5 results counting).
 

I was very happy with this. Over the last 3 years I have gone 4-3-2, so next year (especially with it being an Olympic year) I hope to continue that upward trend and get that number 1 spot!

I started my winter training on November 1st. It's all hard work now until a short rest period over Christmas and New Year before restarting my 2012 campaign in January.

My first week was very hard, the first one always is after a bit of a break at the back end of summer. I like to have a bit of a break before starting winter training; I find I'm always so motivated and excited to get started.

My week now consists of: 8 paddling sessions, 4 gym sessions, 2 land-based conditioning sessions, and 1 gymnastic based gym session. It's very intense but I'm really enjoying it and I'm feeling good.

I'm excited to see what benefits are going to come to the addition of a lot more functional/gymnastic type strength exercises coming into the gym programme.

I've been busy over the past month starting with racing at the Paul McConkey Slalom in Nottingham. The first race of 3 where I could secure myself a place at next year's selection races for the senior team. I had a solid qualification to safely put me through to Sunday's semis/finals and then came out on top in the Semi Final with a good run. This meant that I was last to start in the final  and I think from hearing on the commentary that the times going in weren't great caused me to get a little over excited to race. I only needed a repeat performance of my semi-final but I raced off the start line maybe a little too fast causing me to really mess up the first upstream gate, from then I was chasing it down the course to try and make up the time I had lost. Unfortunately I wasn't able to and finished in 3rd, still respectable though and enough to secure my place at selection next year - job done.

Two weekends later I was racing up North in Teeside. The course there has been shut for a few years and had a lot of money invested into upgrading it. Although I think it was made out to be more exciting than on arriving it turned out to be, I decided by the end of the day that it was much better than before, and the 'Archimedes Screws' to pump the course were very impressive. There was more disappointment for me this weekend again with putting down the fastest run of the day, quick enough to win with the 2 seconds penalty I got for touching a pole. However, a judge gave me a second penalty which I believe to be very unfair; this put me down to 3rd place yet again. It is frustrating when things like that happen, that's just slalom. Sometimes the decisions go your way and at other times they don't. With 2 more domestic ranking races remaining I'm looking to get another win that has just slipped through my fingers on these 2 occasions now.

Last weekend was the grand opening of my club's (Stafford and Stone Canoe Club) new clubhouse. To mark the occasion there was a head-to-head race in the evening for the spectators. This was a very exciting race in all classes with paddlers finishing within tenths of seconds from each other in all of the finals. I was the only person to be competing in 2 finals, racing the C1, and the C2. Greg and I won the C2s, but I only managed to finish runner-up in the C1's. I had very little time to recover between runs, I was still getting myself strapped in to the next boat each time I was called to the start line. Despite my strap popping off as I raced off the start I was the fastest C1, but incurred a 2 second penalty for a touch which put me behind team-mate and winner Mark Proctor.

As well as all the racing I've been doing I've spent some time training on the Olympic course in London and I've also started my 2nd year of University at Nottingham Trent. I'm beginning to get back into full training with a training plan starting to come together now for a full kick off on the 1st of November.

After a bit of an easy period I'm beginning to get back into proper training. It's been good to have a bit of time off to do some different things, I'm so motivated to really hit this winter hard now! I've got a few ideas that I want to try out with training to mix it up a little and I've been doing some research in diet to help maximise the gains from my training.

I raced at the Interclub Championships in Bedford earlier this month, winning the C1M class, and my club (Stafford and Stone Canoe Club) came out on top once again. I quite like racing this event because it's very different from what we normally race on. The river is very narrow and shallow with not much water going down it at all, unlike the big white water at the Lee Valley White Water Course in London.

The following weekend I raced the Paul McConkey Memorial Slalom, race number 7 in our domestic ranking series. These aren't races that those racing internationally take too seriously, but it is nice to do well. I finished 3rd in C1 and also in C2. The C2 result I'd consider to be good considering that was the first time Greg and I were back in a boat since the World Cup in Prague. But in C1 I have to say I was a bit gutted. I had an awesome weeks training, coming out on top in all the sessions, some by large margins. I was the fastest in the semi-final which meant that I was last boat to start in the final. I felt really good in my warm up and I could hear on the commentary some good paddlers messing up their runs. I think I got a bit too excited to race and went too hard off the start, because I managed to incur a big time loss at gate 2. In trying to make up the time I lost little bits further down the course, but managed to finish in a respectable third place. More importantly, this performance does secure myself a place at the selection series next April for the senior and Olympic teams. Good to get myself a place there early so I'm not under pressure trying to get it next year.

You can follow Adam on Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/AdamBurgessGBR

August's Blog...
Posted by: Adam Burgess on Friday 19th August 2011

This month brought the end of my international season, finishing with the World Cup Final in Prague, Czech Republic. Competing just in the C2 there with my partner Greg Pitt we performed very well and learnt an awful lot in our time there.

Unfortunately, what appears to be the story of our season, although in sections we were very good, we never really delivered a full run we were proud of. Considering our lack of experience in comparison to the rest of the competitors we did do well. But I can't help but feel we had so much more to give!

I'm very excited for this next big block of training, I have a lot ideas and things to experiment with. But ultimately the goal has to be improving consistency over full runs. If we can paddle like we do in training over a full race run we'll be competitive with the best in the world.

There's a few races left this year domestically, with the highlight there being the British Open at the end of October. This is what my sights are on at the moment. Whilst a lot of other athletes take this time of year to have a bit of time off, I plan to stay fit and give that race my best shot. I came very close to taking the win there last year. Just 0.1seconds off the pace in the end!

You can follow Adam on Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/AdamBurgessGBR