My last 5 years

Here is an insight into my last 5 years of training. You can see the load changes based on the goal. As well as how the successes relate to the overall training load.

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2019. Training was pretty casual, I went to the 2019 KOTH in Auckland and finished 6th. I was in the race. I felt like a little bit more training and programming would help me push for the lead. Dec 2019 we can see there was a large increase in training hours. As I had targeted the Bhutty Moore race and nelson event in February 2020

2020. January was other big month of training, largely focused on over getting used to training over 100km per week. This paid off very quickly with getting my first national series wins at Bhutty and Nelson races. March shows lower training stats because of training for SLS nationals. Soon after, COVID hit NZ, and training became largely indoors. This turned into a chance to recover. It worked out pretty well as summer arrived when things started to open up again. September 2020 was another win at the poor knights crossing, also in December I managed to win my first KOTH.

2021. I got a couple of second places in the February events and at ocean ski nationals. The body was feeling tied and a change was needed. With a focus on recovery and back to strength work with a niggling shoulder injury. I did a deep dive into technique and prehab work for shoulders. Started to build up my training again coming into summer.

2022 – I worked hard over the last 3-4 months. I hit some big KMs. I wanted to win the NZ ocean ski title in Nelson. The strength work over winter was crucial. The prescribed training helped me reach another peak in my training at the perfect time. Winning the 2022 nationals and subsequent able Tasman islands race. I also went on to win my second KOTH later in April/May.

Having won almost all the major surf ski races in NZ I tuned my attention to Australia. Specifically WA race week with the opening of the boarders. I had about a month off and took on a NZ winter in training for a world class event overseas. Training through that may-sep period is difficult due to weather. Getting good downwind conditions is even harder at this time of year. It was a bit of a grind and I had a static load over the winter. This was on purpose and somewhat reflected the weather dependent training. At race week I felt I struggled to perform well and was a little disappointed with my results.

2023 – Searching for new ideas after Perth. I kept going albeit unstructured and did some good runs on our local track “the raspberry bun run”. Although I was disappointed with my WA race week results, there was a silver lining. I seemed to have benefited from the world class top level competition. Also probably gained new skills in paddling in new conditions not found in NZ. I managed to get a good win in the Nelson event again in February. This success may be because of the “back to enjoyment” strategy, which involves just getting out and enjoying down-winding over summer. I also managed to get some good results racing in Australia in April at the Forster race weekend. Finishing 4th overall.

Not wanting to be defeated by Perth I went back for round 2. I took a slightly different strategy into my training plan. I also had a better understanding of the logistics involved as was able to better plan the week. The week this year also doubled as world champs the following week. Over 2 weeks in Perth racing. In the build up I also managed a trip to Sydney to compete in the 20 beaches. Finished 12th overall where I probably let a couple of positions go being new to the course. In Perth I felt like I performed much better. However, the results at race week probably don’t reflect what I felt was a better performance all round. I did also come away with a 3rd in the world in the 35-40 yr old age group which I was pretty happy with. With such a big build up December was low key recovery.

2024 – Did another block of training coming into Jan. Funny how much paddling you can get done while you are enjoying yourself. Got success in nelson event again. KOTH was a tough flat event where I finished 4th. I paddled well but the race didn’t go my way but I was still largely happy with how I performed.

Coming into winter I started working with flow kayaks and did some river racing in the local scene. This was a new experience for me and certainly learned a lot. My the end of the series I managed to win my first river race. Followed by a win in the Queenstown ocean ski nationals and win in the classic river race (Avon addition). As you can see, I kept my training load lower through winter for recovery. I built it slowly over September and October. I skipped race week this year. I wanted to save some energy for the NZ summer. I also had a new opportunity to race locally with help from Flow kayaks.

2025 – to come 🙂 Its interesting to look back at old training records and let it tell the story. My training history clearly shows a periodisation cycle. I have distinct performance peaks which relate to the overall load well.

Need some help with planning your season? or maybe you need a block of focused training, or just some advice. Please email ben@strongpaddler.com

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