As the year draws to an end, the Slalom Season is over and its time to review. There is a lot to chew on this year and a lot of good stuff to take away. Its been another tough year with some family comitments which has been hard to get through but lifes for living and its all part of my journey. I tried to break away from it all with a training camp abraod but breaking down in Austria on my Birthday saw an end to that. The cost of repair and travel etc blew my bank ballance so upon my eventual return work has once again taken a large priority.
I have been training most days which is shown in results

The Rankings have now been published and I'm now Ranked 13th In the UK

A hard Winter of training is now before me after finally clearing myself of a Minus bank balance... I will be combining work and training again this winter but the financial preasure is now not as great as its been so hopefully I can finally reduce the hours that im working.

I had the pleasure of being part of the White Water Kayaking Championships this year in Austria which although Snapping My Paddles in the Quater Finals and finishing way down the ranks, was an incredible experience and I look Forward to Participating again in 2012

I will be getting in a creek boat more so this winter with High hopes for full rivers in the Heights of Scotland and Depths of Wales

I will be Splitting my Slalom Training location this winter between Nottingham, Cardiff and London

With Nottingham being the perfect Setup with access I can work around training more freely, so I think the bulk of my training will be based there.
Cardiff hosts a World Cup in 2012 so a lot of training to be done there and with Team GBR and Olympic Selection being held in London prior to the Olympics its self I will be getting on there as much as I possibly can!

Let the Ice try and break me!

After Competing in Cardiff I left for mainland Europe. The plan was to spend a couple of months touring around Europe and competing in a couple of ICF races. First stop Slovakia for the 2011 Danube Cup. Unfortunatley I never made it. I broke down in Austria and it turned into quite a mission just getting Home.

Its back to working and training as much as I can around that. I have been up in Scotland training for my raft guide qualification. I have now achieved a Level 2 award allowing which has opend many doors in terms of comercial rafting so hopefully a new avenue for a better income, alowing me to work less and train more effectively.

My next competiton will be the Paul Mckonkey Memorial Slalom race which is acting as an Olympic Selection Qualifier and Prem Race in Nottingham in september.

After that I will be competing in the World Championships for Creeking , Addidas Sickline Competition which will be held in Austria at the end of September.

It's again been a while since an update, Its been a stressfull couple of months.Team Trials were well contested. I was out of the mix by a few places. My general performance was pretty good but with a few technical mistakes leading to some time loss and penalties which was reflected in the results.

So its now back to training mode. Im looking forward to Danube Cup in June and pushing myself in training over the summer.

Heres a video from Team Trials:

This weekend hosted the 2nd National Ranking Race of the season. It was also the 1st of two oportunities to qualify for the GBR Senior Team Selection Series 2011. To qualifty, I had to be in the Top 6. I havnt been in my new kayak for long and have been finding it quite dificult to adjust to its very different style but I had to ignore this and perform. I finished in 4th place gaining me the Senior Selection Wild Card I was looking for.

Next weekend I will be competing for place in the GBR 2011 U23 Team, so that will be a real test.