Youth paddling - A work in progress...

Take the journey.

Sometimes a journey starts with a single step, and sometimes it's a shove in the back.

Nine years ago, Joe Manns and I were the co-founders of the Rice Creek Boat Club. I came to my first USCA Nationals in Bristol, IN, met a bunch of people, and I got to race a couple of races. But mostly I was there in company of about 15 youth from the Rice Creek Boat Club (thanks for the shout-out, Jan). We made it to the subsequent Nationals in PA, WI and MI, but unfortunately we weren't seeing growth in the youth ranks. In 2011, we were invited to bring 4 of my best kayak athletes to a camp in Chula Vista to give sprint kayak a try. And at that point, I switched my entire focus to coaching Sprint.

The difference in turnout between sprint and marathon is pretty shocking. USCA Nationals is usually 10-25 kids of all ages (5-19). USAC/K Sprint Nationals is 300+ kids, with 12-15 year olds being the sweet spot. It's not unusual to have 30-40 13-14 yo boys, and 20-30 girls, lining up for sprints, Go to Canada, and you'll find 600 youth racing ICF canoes and kayaks in Halifax/Dartmouth alone!

Share the experience

Why the difference? It's not the training hours, it's the number of kids training. The development athletes (planning to go to Nationals) put in 6-8 hours a week in the summer, the elite (planning to make finals at Nationals) are putting in closer to 15-20, and in training of some kind year around. The serious difference is who they are training _with_. As much as most kids love their grandparents, training all the time with grandpa and his friends is not nearly as much fun as training with 10-20 of *your* friends.

Note I've been focusing on sprint here, but it also applies to marathon, or SUP, or touring. Our marathon group has ebbed and flowed, but it still revolves around the youth. Kids are the single best recruiting tool you can have. You, as adults, have to back that up with equipment and volunteers to help coach, drive, chaperon, fundraise, etc.

Burnout.

Another BIG reason. Take a look at the number of parents who have their little darlings scheduled from school-out to late bedtime with sports, sports camps, individual coaching, travel teams, And that's just for the 8 year olds!  The sports budget for a "typical" traveling team 8-10 year old is $6,000 - $15,000 per year! For hockey, dance, gymnastics or ice skating, it can be far more. The sad news is that by the time they are 12-15, most of these kids will be so burned out and injured that they *hate* the sport that mom/dad have invested their college education fund in pursuing. Oh, and the chance of actually getting a scholarship for those single sport athletes? - Nil.

Connections

Mostly, they do prefer to be connected, both to the digital world and to the oxygen breathing one. They like to watch their friends race, they like meeting other kids who do the same activity, and they like having the shared experience. The digital generation isn't disconnected from reality and buried in a game, they just interact differently than the gray-hairs do. Watch a group of kids after practice or after a race and they'll be actively on their phones with their friends across the country or even world, via snapchat, twitter, instagram or messenger, sharing their experience. Like as not, half of the people standing/sitting around with them are part of that experience.

Join a guild.

This year, as they have for the past few years, I'll be out with a group of 8-10 young athletes who are on the water at 6:00 AM 4-5 mornings a week, and back at 5:00 PM 4 days a week. They have a variety of reasons for being there, but mostly it's to belong, to strive, to excel. And mostly, they come because they know they will have friends out there with them, sharing the experience and also striving to improve. Norman Bellingham, past USOC Exec Director, and I think the last US athlete to wear Gold for sprint kayak (with Greg Barton) called it "Joining a guild" - a community of like minded people striving to improve at their craft, learning from each other, their 'guild masters' (coaches) and sharing their knowledge.

Learn the game.

Want to do something about kids racing? Find ways to help people like Steve Corlew get their club started up and racing. Find an old sprint boat or two and get a group of kids out to paddle. Need help or ideas? Yell. I'll be happy to help you find a club near you, or help get one started.

What if???

It's race day, and you've got your kit all packed, your boat has made it through boat control last night, you had a good breakfast, and you are ready to head to the venue with time to spare.  You meet your teammates in the lobby to catch the van, and...  No van.  OK. "Dave" must have overslept.  Somebody call him...  Now the really bad news.  Dave's been in an accident - nobody hurt, but the van is dead.  The hotel manager agrees to run you to the venue, but it will be a few minutes until the day shift person gets there.  What do you do? How do you react? Have you ever even contemplated this scenario?  Probably not. Most people focus on the 'race prep' part of sport - the things directly related to your sport and getting across the finish line.  Depending on where you are in your career, this usually means thinking about finishing, or maybe visualizing having won.  All good and appropriate techniques.

This is where situational preparedness comes into play - thinking through, but not dwelling on, actions to take when things go sideways.  I've written earlier about "Thought Circles" and focusing on the positive.  Situational preparedness is simply another aspect of this positive patterning.  What would you do in the above situation? If you've thought through it and how it impacts your normal warmup, you might do some dryland laps of the parking lot, do your pre-race stretching and neuro-prep exercises now, so that when you get to the venue you can focus on collecting your boat, grabbing your lane number and doing a good on-water warmup.

It really doesn't matter what the situation might be, if you think through some of the common things and how they might change your preparation for race time.  Some of the most common like traffic and weather can occur whether you are at Nationals, or a weekday practice.  In fact PRACTICE is the perfect place to sort these things out and mentally plan your 'escape route'.  And thinking about the really common scenarios can help you react when the major ones happen.  It doesn't really matter that much what sport you play, there are similarities in all aspects of the game.

Traffic - It really doesn't matter what sport or venue, traffic is a part of modern life.  I've been stopped in the country by a sheep drive, had trains block the highway in the middle of Montana, and had rain shut down the city in multiple locations.  Traffic is a common blight, and the cure is usually simple - leave early and since the advent of apps like Waze, look at the alternate routes.  You know the issues at home, and you can usually research conditions between your hotel and venue *before* you leave home.  Simple - pull up your favorite mapping app (Google maps or Waze for example) and check conditions between your hotel and the venue for a couple of similar days a week or two before you leave.  And remember - traffic in Atlanta or LA on a Friday afternoon may look quite different than it does on Tuesday!

Weather - I hear "I hate racing in the rain", "I hate a windy course", or "I don't like the cold" far too often.  These are negative expressions and will actively work against your mental preparations for a race.  Weather is not something to fear, it's a fact and you need to start preparing for weather as part of your normal training program.  There are occasionally things that only impact a few people in a race - for example, winning from Lane 9 at the OKC venue on a windy day is highly unlikely, or starting in the last group in an individual time trial - and having a cold front whip through with 10 riders to go can have a dramatic impact on  results.  That's beyond your control. Accept it and move on.

What you *can* control are things like cold, rain and general wind.  If you've thought about them you can turn all of these to your advantage.  Generally, wind impacts everyone about the same.  If you practice starting and going hard on windy days, you can learn to balance your boat or ride your bike better than most people in those conditions.  Practice starts into the wind, with the wind, across the wind.  Have your coach hold you, not hold you, practice sculling sideways in stiff winds. Get to the point that it's automatic - you know where to put the boat, if you need to try and arrive early, late, or near the lane edge.  Practice getting your bow in the boot and holding the boat straight.  It all adds up, and when it does, it's going to favor you.

Rain and cold.  Unless it's 90 degrees, rain is rarely something you look forward to racing in, but it happens.  Know how to dress for it. Do you need to wear a long sleeve or a shell? What about socks to keep your feet warm?  Do you need a hat?  If you usually race in glasses, are you better or worse off with them on?  What about wearing a skirt? Hint - if you don't practice with one, you won't want to wear it on race day.  Get used to it.  On a really bad day, a skirt may keep a quart or more of water out of your boat.  That's 2+ pounds of uncontrolled weight rolling around in your boat working against you.  It can also raise the temperature on your lower body by several degrees - you generate a lot of heat in that enclosed kayak!
KNOW what combination of clothing works, and go with it.  Don't do your race training in a long sleeve spandex and then decide (under identical conditions) that you don't need it on race day.  You need to *know* the combinations that work best for you.  Again, thinking about these challenges days/weeks/months ahead of time means they don't require thought on race day - it's automatic and you'll deal with them on autopilot.  You'll automatically pack all the stuff you *might* need, not just what you think you'll wear.

Me, I love the rain. I love knowing that the last 200 meters of a crit punches you straight into the wind. I love ski racing on days when I know klister is the right wax, and everyone else hates the sight of a klister tube.  I love seeing the waves rolling on the lake before practice.  But I also love those bluebird days when there's a slight tailwind on the course and perfect racing temps. The hard days make the perfect ones even more enjoyable.  But the hard days win races.

What if???