Wednesday 30 May 2012

NINA & PETER IN KADAN

After the competition in Plattling we moved to Kadaň, in Czech republic. They had the first event of their Cnawr rodeo tour. The hole in Kadaň was very powerful. You had enough of training after 30 minutes. Peter and I enjoyed this competition a lot, especially because we met many of our Czech and Slovak friends there. It is very nice to paddle with your friends and spend some time having fun and not just training and focusing on the event. After Saturday's qualification and semifinal Peter and I ended up on first place. Next morning I woke up and felt very bad. I had stomach problems and couldn’t eat for a few days. I was worried if I had power for the final, but after all I did my best and won the first place. Peter had very strong paddlers in his final and after a really tough fight he won the second place. I think he was overtrained as I was in Plattling. It happens many times to us, that if one of us wins the second one can’t. We are not sure why, I hope we will change that habit next time. :)

Our next competition is in Graz, Austria. We already went there and spent three days paddling on perfect waves. I think the water level will drop for competition but there will be still a nice strong hole. Right now we are at home, having a few days of regeneration. I feel I have been training too much and my body is refusing now. I need to slow down a little bit, which is quite difficult a few weeks before Europeans. I just hope these few days will be enough for me to rest so that we can continue our competition tour. I really like Graz so we are looking forward to this one too. After that, we plan to go straight to Lienz and spend there a week of training for Europeans. I hope water level will be optimal so we can go on fully.

See you on the river.

Nina























Monday 14 May 2012

PETER AND NINA roudtrip #1


In April the opening of our white water course took place in Cunovo. Divoka Voda asked us together with Jana Dukatova (slalom) to make the promo talk about the course because of the relations we have to the media. It was really well organised and we met many people from all kinds of newspapers, TV and radio stations. We also had some nice food and program like jetski, paintball... Here is a short report from the TV.


After the opening we spent a few more days at home, because I had to finish my diploma work... by the way I hate it :). However working on it means morning and night, sometimes only night, because we are already packed with trainings (often twice a day). 

Freestyle kayaking is a difficult sport, not only because of learning new moves, but also the trainings are specific and the body has to work in Lactate intensity which is extremely hard. Trainings twice a day cannot be the same, because it might happen that the body loses the glycogen out of the muscles and of the liver and the recovery then takes a long time, up to even half a year. This happened to me a few years ago and I really had big trouble with my body and also physical condition when I was trying to push onward instead of recovery.
Because Nina and I, we are coaches and we should be aware of many things like this, we decided to establish a ‘’secret’‘  training plan for us, based on the knowledge we get from trainings and on factors which we need for the intense training plan. We asked adidas for http://www.adidas.com/de/micoach/ made to be a personal coach. We use it to check the intensity and time with heart rates. It’s also perfect to use with running, biking, hiking...I really can say that it helped a lot!


In the end of April we left to Plattling again where I was coaching freestyle for Austrian kayakers. It was again an awesome week there because Plattling is an easy spot and we could increase their skills.
Straight after that we went back, because we had to go to The High Tatra in Slovakia for a mountaineering course for my school, which was my last subject before the final exams. We took our best adidas gear and we went to the mountains.
It’s incredible how well the functional gear works! It really kept me dry and warm. We went really long tracks during the whole day. One of the longest was 27 km, we also had to climb on the stairs about 200 m straight up. I put Puko to the back bag and did everything with him! Check out the pictures.
Again we didn't stay too long at home. After two days I finished my diploma work and uploaded it to the school server, so basically we were ready to leave again. The direction was Plattling again. I am really getting bored from this hole but nothing else is working yet. Actually we went there because the German championships took place over the weekend.
The competitions could be called ‘’small Europeans’‘ because there were many people from different countries. It was definitely a good proof, whether our trainings were working well.
I won every start and in the end I finished on first place in man category. Nina however, she seemed to be really in the best shape I’ve ever seen for her; she finished on third place.
I mean we know what to improve now, how to prepare her for the big events. She really was kayaking awesome three days before the competition, but the energy was not enough till the competition came and she was overtrained then. That’s okay, I mean it was our fault, but this is also part of the training. 
Now we are sitting in the car in Czech Republic, training for next event which will take part over the weekend.







See you
Peter Csonka