Spring Training (starts in fall)

Frustrated with your race results?  Wondering if improved technique will improve your speed?  In workouts, do you have difficulty applying 100% of your body's power to forward speed?  Spring Training may be for you.  Spring Training helps intermediate and ambitious kayak racers apply focused technique work to advance themselves to the next level of achievement. 

While a one-time video-coaching session will expose your paddling flaws and target areas of improvement, it takes time to change long-term habits, and change is accelerated by continuous feedback and coaching.  Spring Training is based on the philosophy that habit change occurs over time and is accelerated by regular on-water coaching, periodic video feedback, exposure to a variety of drills and techniques, practice in simulated race conditions, regular time trials, and cohort-based workouts.  The expectation is that participants will engage in between-session racing and year-round on-water training, applying what they've practiced as they continue to train between sessions in their usual race conditions. 

Each season of nine sessions covers . . .

• Basics

• Optimal force

• Drills, drills, and more drills

• Loading and leg drive

• Starts and strategies

• Baby-bumps skills

• Annual training plan

• Ergometer critique

• 2-3 video sessions and critique

• Time trials and more time trials

• Surfing

• Open house and games

• Individual attention and more individual attention

• Bonus alumni workouts

• Bonus outings in bumps and rivers

The three-hour sessions typically begin with a race-pace warmup, usually followed by a timetrial so paddlers can compare their speeds over time.  We then focus on technique for at least an hour.  The session wraps up with at least an hour of aerobic/anaerobic or technique drills. 

Trainings begin in October and take place Saturday mornings (other than race weekends) and run from October through April.

Paddlers who race throughout this period earn points toward Master Classes, which are very small group workshops in highly specialized skills or elite technique.

Please email inquiries about Spring Training 2012, starting in fall 2011.  All applicants, including returning paddlers, should apply by emailing or mailing (Box 1722, Sebastopol 95473) a brief statement about your winter on-water training goals and your future racing intentions, as well as either or both of the following:

• A minimum of two race results from the previous twelve months (send all the results, not just your time), OR

• four time-trial results over the same distance, OR

• video

The group will include six to nine participants and admissions close when the course is filled and a 50% deposit has been received from six admitted participants or the start date, whichever is sooner.

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