The road to the Olympics
August 5, 2008
By Ryan Cuthbert
Editor’s Note: Starting this week Olympian Ryan Cuthbert from Carleton Place near Ottawa will be writing a column for The Carleton Place Canadian and gtaalthletes.com on his experiences leading up to and at the Olympics. He leaves today (Tuesday August 5) for Beijing.
CARLETON PLACE -- After finishing racing in the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, I had seriously contemplated not paddling the following year and beginning my post athletic career. The hype and the buildup leading into the Olympics that year was so overwhelming and then actually having the chance to race at the Olympic Games, which was my childhood dream, pretty much made the decision and fuelled me to keep training and racing for another four years to try to make the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Needless to say, I was rather glad I qualified for the team earlier this summer in June and would have been rather disappointed if races had not gone as well as they did.
Training during an Olympic year is a little bit different then any other year. Pretty much everything is put on hold until after the Olympics and the main goal throughout the year is to be able to train well, to be in impeccable shape to qualify and then race at the Olympic Games. After taking a few weeks off in September after a long summer of racing last year, I travelled back and forth between Ottawa and Montreal putting in hours on the water trying to avoid frigid morning temperatures at all costs before I left to train in Florida for Nov. 1.
The beginning of last November was the start of a six-month training camp that had a few weeks break at Christmas and then resumed to lead up to the Olympic qualifying race in mid-May in Montreal. The six months of training down south consisted of an average of three workouts a day.
A typical day started with getting up and eating at 6:30 a.m., paddling at 7:30 a.m. for up to two hours with the rest of the team, come home and eat, read, check my e-mail, eat again, have a nap, paddle again for up to two hours or so with the team, lift weights for an hour to hour and a half, eat, watch a movie, go to sleep, and repeat the next day.
Weeks after weeks of training like this definitely takes its toll on your body, as well as your mind. The purpose of all the training is to allow your body to be able to adapt, as well as handle the stress you place on it, as well as be able to paddle with excellent technique regardless of how tired you are.
Technique is what every kayak racer relies on while racing. If you can manage to paddle well at the end of every race even though you are absolutely spent, that is what is going to keep you moving your boat fast. So being able to combine a high fitness level with flawless technique is what makes you win kayak races.
I am heading to Beijing, China today (Tuesday, Aug. 5). I will be racing in the K2 – 1000m event with Steve Jorens from Aurora. Our first race where I will be attempting to combing high fitness levels with excellent technique starts on Aug. 18.
Each week, during my Beijing Olympic experience, I am going to submit an article to The Canadian to let everyone know how things are going and to keep everyone up to date on my few weeks leading up to and during my races, in order to thank the Carleton Place community for all the support over the past couple of years. I have been overwhelmed with and greatly appreciative of the amount of good wishes and support from the community and the town and, as a result, I am proud to represent Carleton Place on the world stage.
I will have access to Internet where I am staying in China and would be open to answering any questions anyone might have in my submissions to The Canadian. I can be contacted at cuthbertr@hotmail.com. Thanks again for your support.