David is a former World Champion and World Cup Champion and is a five time Olympian in the sport of Whitewater Slalom Kayaking. In 2003 he was voted Canada's Male Athlete of the year.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Gold Medal Plates

What an amazing evening. Gold Medal Plates has become the must attend Olympic fund raiser and the sold out event in Vancouver surely demonstrated why that is the case. Twelve of Vancouver's best Chefs squared off against each other and the result was tasty indeed . The true winners of the evening however had to be Olympic athletes as the proceeds raised go to the Olympic Excellence fund which aids Olympians across the country in there preparation for upcoming Games. I was inspired by the enthusiasm in the room and had the opportunity to mingle with old friends and make some great new ones as well. I can't wait for next years event.

Friday, November 09, 2007

Daylight savings?

It is getting harder and harder to do the number of workouts in a day that my schedule calls for and still have enough light to see what you are doing. As the light faded during my workout yesterday afternoon I started to have to guess where the rocks and waves were. When I looked up after one run down the top section I noticed the coach having to use the LCD screen on the video camera to light up his clipboard so he could see the times that he was writing down. That definitely made me wonder if being out on a whitewater river at that time of day really made sense. Maybe being able to see where you are going is over rated anyway, I will let you know.

Monday, November 05, 2007

Back in the swing of things

Home again after a great camp in Beijing. It was nice to get on the course for a couple of weeks and not have to worry about volume accumulation. The course has changed a little bit since the pre Olympic race in august and will likely stay in flux until June some time. I was amazed at how very little changes to the configuration of the obstacles really changed the flow dynamics. With the river being so challenging it is difficult to get used to a certain section and then have it changed from the morning to afternoon workout. Hopefully things wont change too often out there.


My legs are finally starting to recover from the riding in Beijing. Foreigners are not able to easily rent cars so we were left with either paying through the nose for a shuttle to the course or riding a bike back and forth a few times a day. With a bike costing only around 20 Euro's the choice was clear. We encountered some bewildered locals as we rode by every day.


It was strange to be the lone Canadian at the camp in Beijing, and while it would have been nice to have team support there I think the work that Eoin and I did with Jim Jayes was extremely productive.


Now it is back to the grind stone, lots of volume in the gym and on the different energy systems on both white water and on flat water. Hopefully the weather will hold here until travel starts again in December to Charlotte and OZ in January and February.