La Seu d'Urgell training
I believe that most of the slalom community would be with me in saying that La Seu d’Urgell is one of our favourite parts of the world. A familiar venue on the international circuit too. The (pretty much) annual visit and warm reception give me that ‘second home’ kind of feeling. I always look forward to going back to La Seu. Eagerly anticipating walking everywhere, mountain views from the warm-up pool, and the sparkling water! (Vichy Catalan. Some people find the mineral content a little salty. Granted, it’s an acquired taste, but I love it!)
The World Championships will take place on this historic venue from the 25th to 30th September this year. This is the third time La Seu has hosted the event (1999 + 2009) after first being constructed for the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. This year’s also has a certain amount of Olympic flavour to it with it being the main opportunity for nations to qualify boats for Tokyo 2020! Not only that, but a most nations will use the event as part of a selection series to determine which ONE(!) athlete gets to represent in each category. Great Britain is one such nation. Serious stuff! In light of that, we are all committing a lot of time to the venue before the main event.
We just returned home from a two week training camp. For the most part, these operate as training does at home in Lee Valley except we do end up spending a lot more time together! One of the main video review spots in the hotel came to be known as ‘Love Island Corner’ with some athletes choosing to keep up with affairs in the villa during downtime. Some athletes (and coaches!) needing to be more careful than others around meals is always a reliable source of banter... Richie showed us his ‘will power’ one morning by not giving into the peer pressure (support from the team) telling him not to break his no-donut streak. Woodsy leaves us all fascinated by her disgust with cucumber as the only human in history to be put off it by the smell! However praise where praise is due, she did try a number of new foods this trip including a flat peach, tofu, and octopus. #kimvsfood
Amazing to see the whole team out for a run together before the final dinner. An awesome show getting everyone to the top of ‘The Church Run’. A steep climb around 5km to a church you can see from the course. Everyone except me that is unfortunately... I was found by ‘the search party’ some time later having ran much further up the mountain! Nobody told me I was supposed to turn left! Oops!
For the most part, the team are back at Lee Valley for three weeks before heading out for another La Seu training camp where I’d expect us all to be fine-tuning what was learned at the last one. Off the water, I have unfinished business now as the only athlete on the team who hasn’t completed the church run yet! Safe to say next time I’ll stay with a group who know the way! (and there’ll be a cold sparkling water in the room on my return!)
