Dear visitor, this is my web diary of things i don't mind sharing with you! Lots of stuff happens to me and i enjoy collecting all these stories. Here's the blog, then the news you can follow via Twitter, a slowlly growing photo gallery and even an experiment with the Youtube channel. I enjoy writing down about my jurney and i hope you will enjoy reading about it!
Monday 19 July 2010
Linz 2010 volume 1
I am now in Linz in upper Austria. I came here to train for 2 weeks and make a good block of base training before going back to some more intense training in the last month before the Worlds. I train on the course in Ottensheim, some 10km from the Linz center, where one can really find some good quality conditions for training with no distractions. Obviously we are staying again at the Dopplehamer family's 'Rodlhof'. This is the funny part of our stay as it is not exactly a 5 star hotel, but still has its own charm.
Training is going well so far. But with all the big volume on water and hard gym work you end up feeling tired and beaten up almost all the time. 22 sessions in the first week in Linz should give you a sense of what i've been going through. Well, as long as we cash the checque later, i dont mind putting money in the bank all summer long.
Our daily routine is made a little bit easyer with the only fun we can have around here (the many kayak teams that have stayed in the Rodlhof will know what i am talking about): • Going to Linz on a free afternoon – means: meeting some real life people and finding some WiFi • Having a BBQ party at the WSV place • Watching the wildlife on the fields around our hotel • The pig fest every Friday at 5.30am • Dopplehamer's food extravaganza
Posted by Jernej on Monday 19 July 2010 - 11:22:00 |
Saturday 10 July 2010
Light week
The past week was meant to be easy and refreshing. Well i have managed to stay not to close to my boat but neverthereless made some good and exciting sessions. I finally went and tried the long uphill to mount Kolovrat with my skikes. It took me more than an hour and a half to get up and almost an other hour to get back down. I also had a specially fun run to an other hill called Senica, was meant to be easy but i ended up setting my PB. But essentially the whole week passed getting ready for a race we would have with my friend Igor on Saturday. We raced with bikes to a mountain pass on mount Vršič (in the Julian Alps, 1611m). Didn't bother to check the course before the race like Lance does on TdF, so i had to sit quiet and attack only when i could spot the peak and our finish line was some 25 minutes away. Lots of pain and lots of sweating, the view on top was well worth it though! Allegedly we get to re-race it next year - a year will be just enough to forget how many serpentines there are on the way to up there. Tomorrow i leave to Austria where i will train in Ottensheim for 2 weeks. After this fun week i feel really eager to hit paddling hard again.
Posted by Jernej on Saturday 10 July 2010 - 18:32:12 |
Wednesday 07 July 2010
European championships in Trasona
Racing is now over in Trasona and with the distance of a few days time i can calmly look back and have a verdict on my racing. I finished my racing with a second place in the B final, a placement that doesn't really satisfy me. On the other hand in the light of my paddling this season (and perhaps the last too) i have to be positive about it. I had a solid heat with Aleh Yurenia going straight to the final and me finishing strongly in second. The semi was a good fight; i was far off pace in the first 500m where i couldn't go fast in those side waves but managed to stay composed, i recovered really well when water was calmer in the second half and powered from the back of the field straight into third place, only to be pushed back to fourth position in the last 100m. With some more luck i could well make the final but on the other hand at the moment i believe i finished where my present paddling belongs to. A hard pill to swallow but that's sports and in sport one of the biggest strenghts you can have is to be able to persist when things do not go your way. I did and i continue to train hard in order to be ready for fast racing, but all things fall into place only when the right time comes. For me it is the time now to be patient and persist. And as sport is not only training and racing but also about experiencing life and the beauty of every day moments i should report also about the fun we had as a team in the Asturias: we had some great baths in the Atlantic sea at the beach in Gijon (technically it was the Bay of Biscay), playing with the waves on a sandy beach is something i don't do often; we watched the Spain-Paraguay game in a tapas bar in Gijon, a special experience of the football euforia; had some good tapas and as we've blindedly chosen them form the menu in spanish it was more like a surprise meal, anyhow you can't really go wrong with this snacks; Sunday night we had a great dinner and drinks in a local sidreria, the owner put up a show for our multinational company and we were introduced to the art of pouring and drinking spanish cider; a final 4am swim in the Atlantic made so that i left Spain happy again. Seems like Spain always manages to put me in good spirits in a way or an other. Gracias y adiós!
Posted by Jernej on Wednesday 07 July 2010 - 12:36:36 |
Wednesday 16 June 2010
WW world champs Sort 2010
After the European slalom championships were cancelled in Bratislava due to heavy floods it was up to our downriver team to bring home some blink from the Downriver World Championships in Sort. They were more than up to the challenge and returned home with 6 medals!!! Luka Božič and Sašo Taljat stormed the field and took gold in classic and sprint event. An amazing feat for this duo that is basically only training for slalom. A week later at the wildwater world cup 1 they repeated the same double-trick on their home course in Trnovo. Awesome! It is the first ever time we take a medal in C2 after the legendary duo Srečko Masle-Andrej Grobiša was owning the podium in the '80s. The quest continues for them as they are racing C2 slalom at the U23 Europeans and at the slalom Worlds in September… Nejc Žnidarčič was undoubtedly in the form of his life. The pure sprinter showed this by finishing 3rd in the classic event. He was then pipped out into 2nd place by a very small margin in his favourite sprint event. He also got one more bronze in the team calssic. While a week later he has won sprint and classic in the Soča world cup. Jošt Zakrajšek racing C1 finished 3rd in the classic and 4th in the sprint, wich is a great result given the fact that he spent a lot of time his year training for flatwater. But for me the biggest surprise was the team bronze in the classic. Though they were defending world champions and Žnidarčič was in great form, Jernej Korenjak was having lots of trouble with injuryes in the lead up to the race, while Lovro Leban hasn't spent any time whatsoever in the downriver boat this year and travelled to Sort straight form the Szeged flatwater world cup. I guess they are a class on their own! Add to all this the two world cup bronzes of our flatwater prodigy K2 Lovro Leban – Rok Kuk and as a team we sure had a thrilling start of the season. As always after a canoeing medal, the celebrations in Most na Soči where loud and unique (check it here)!
Sašo&Luka
Nejc Žnidarčič Jošt Zakrajšek
Lovro & Rok
Posted by Jernej on Wednesday 16 June 2010 - 13:05:45 |
Friday 11 June 2010
2010 World Cup Tour
The 2010 World cup tour hasn't gone even close to what i wished and expected. After my worst ever placement in Vichy i was really not happy with myself. I struggeled hard to put my paddling in France in a proper perspective but managed to get quickly back into some good training rythm leading into the Szged world cup race no.2. I've been having some good sessions at home, Kiwis were training here on our lake at Most na Soči and nice summer temperatures finally arrived, things were looking good again. Then, with no apparent reason, i got a bad cold and had to stay in bed for a whole week. So instead of using the roar of the hungarian fans to lift me up and have some good racing in Szeged i ended up drinking tea, following the results via internet and trying to get well for Duisburg. Luckily i recovered just in time, did a few easy paddles and off we were to North Rhine-Westphalia for the last world cup race of the season. I still struggeled a bit with the feelings in the boat, but managed a second place in the 1000 Bfinal and a PB on 500m. Result i have to be satisfied with after the rollercoaster of the whole month of May. Lately life is definitelly teaching me to be more patient and more confident. Wich is good. And as future is a mystery one should only try to do the best he can out of the present moment.
Posted by Jernej on Friday 11 June 2010 - 13:15:12 |
Monday 17 May 2010
TV fun
This Sunday me and Špela Ponomarenko were one of the guests at the Sunday afternoon show called TLP on national TV. It was on air live and we had a cool interview in their studio somewhere in the middle of the show. I enjoyed a lot to see how such a show is being produced and how all this glamour looks like from behind the scenes. I had the pleasure to have a few words with the 2 ladyes (Tjaša Železnik&Mateja Janežič) who conduct the show also before we were on air and that was quite cool too. I was spending the Sunday with Michael Jacob Walker (Beijing 6th place finisher in K2 1000 and today seat 4 in the Kiwi K4) so he also came there with me and played my manager. He really does walk the walk after talking the talk so he set me up with the make-up ladyes in order to have the best possible treatment and i could really deliver my A-game on the show. Good fun for a cold Sunday afternoon in our capital!
This is the foto we took during the live show after one of the conducters took my camera with us on stage:
..and the foto we made after (me really enjoying myself with all these ladyes around):
Posted by Jernej on Monday 17 May 2010 - 22:02:58 |
Wednesday 12 May 2010
World cup1 - Vichy
The World Cup in Vichy was a good experience. First of all it was good to see how the site of 2011 Worlds looks like, experience what can the conditions on the water can be like and feel the vibe in the host town. Most importantly it was a good smack in the face for my present paddling. In a blast from the past i did repeat some old mistakes again and ended up a shocking 8th in my 1000m semifinal. Not a nice feeling at all. But if it had to happen it better happened now! I had some more mojo in the 500 meters where i finished 4th in the semi and 6th in the B Final. Nothing exceptional neither but at least close to standard for my first world cup race every year. In the finals where the real action was going on, the usual suspects were playing the lead roles. And as always there were some newcomers, including our new K2 Rok Kuk – Lovro Leban who finished on an amazing 3rd place in the K2 1000m, plus a 7th place in the 500m. Way to go mates!
Posted by Jernej on Wednesday 12 May 2010 - 21:48:48 |
Sunday 25 April 2010
First racing
Just back from the first race on the new olympic distances. We had our national selection races at the international race in Mantua (Màntova) in the Italian region of Lombardy. I was racing the 1000 and 200 meters. The 200 meters were more of a training and warm up distance while the 1000 meters were my main goal. I felt good in the last 10 days of the lead up to the race, so i was really relaxed and in good spirits. Despite i had to race the largest and strongest competition ever in my own team i managed to win the selection and the race and was pleased with my paddling at this moment. We are still quite far from racing form and haven’t worked yet at all on any kind of racing speed and intensities, neverthereless the racing didn’t hurt as much as i expected and i held my technique and raceplan together quite well. Our Swiss-Austrian-Slovenian training team did quite well overall too: Rok Kuk finished in 2nd, Jošt Zakrajšek in 3rd, Fabio Wyss in 5th, Charly Lohnitz in 7th…leaving to the Italians only 2 places in the K1 1000m final. Nejc Žnidarčič did well also in the 200 meters where he dominated the semis with a 36,51 but finished only 3rd in the final due to some begginers techincal mistakes (but what can you expect from a downriver guy - even if he is the European champ). The team's best performance of the weekend was definitelly the K2 1000m win by Rok Kuk and Lovro Leban who inflicted 2s to Beijing bronze medalists Facchin-Scaduto ( Pierotti-Ripamonti in 3rd and Piemonte-Ricchetti in 4th). Definitelly a nice weekend and a nice and gentle wakeing up before some serious mambo-jumbo racing in Vichy next week!
During the warm up (old city center in the backgound):
Posted by Jernej on Sunday 25 April 2010 - 18:58:23 |
Friday 16 April 2010
Back from Italy
This was a hard camp and i loved it. Finally the time has come for some more intense training on the water and i am sure all the athletes in the team have liked that too. After a long winter and beginning of spring stuffed with steady aerobic sessions( mostly wash leads) it was really time for a change. We do work on pretty much all the intensities all year round but the focus changes through the season. So far i have done almost 3000km of pure aerobic work and from now on we will spend less time in this zone, work more on anaerobic threshold and VO2max paces (called by our german coach GA2&GA3) and come back to GA1 only for endurance maintenance and technical work. I have been also working on eliminating some bad habits in my tehnicque and at moments i still struggle to put it all together, but it is a great challenge and i am not going to give up on it. It was a pleasant camp also off the water. I managed to do a good bike ride twice. One was during Easter and there were amazing numbers of people on racing bikes on the local roads, perhaps more than cars!!! The second ride was along Lago di Como wich is a spectacular venue for bike riding (haven't managed to reach George Clooney's house though). There was also Stefania Cicali (2008 olympic finalist in K4 and marathon world champ) training on the lake. As last year we were eating at Eupilio where i really enjoy the everyday pasta, the atmosphere and Guilio's (the owner) hospitality. While for the rest of our stay Mr.Mario Pizzi (from the CKC Lago Pusiano) and Antonio Rossi were taking care we weren't missing a thing. And when Antonio Rossi - haven't checked with him if he prefers the nickname 'bell'Antonio' (given to him by the Italian media) or 'il Turbodiesel' (given to him by the TV legend Gianpiero Galeazzi) – keeps bringing you the morning donuts, you know you are training on the right lake
Training group lined up for a 250:
Having a glass of Bibock beer. Left to right: Antonio Rossi, Simon Blaževič, me, amico 1, Stefania Cicali, amico 2.
By the Como lake:
Underground gym in the Beauharnais palace in Pusiano:
On the Pusiano lake:
Posted by Jernej on Friday 16 April 2010 - 13:48:39 |
Monday 05 April 2010
Nelo power boat
I've picked up my new Nelo Vanquish XXL a few days ago. This is the boat i will be racing the coming seasona and as i am on a training camp some 40km north of Milano, the guys at Nelo kindly delivered me the boat to the Idroscalo. It was really easy to pick it up this way and i have been enjoing to ride it for the last coupple of days already. It is slightly bigger than the L model i was using last year, while i kept the rest of the fittings the same as in the past ( the Rotofix seat with some comfy airex padding and a full plate footrest with the crabon pull bar). It is the 5th (the 'all white', the 'chinese letters', the 'fast forward', the 'sun on dark surface' and finally the 'white with a red line' one) boat i got from Nelo (not counting those they landed me just for racing) since i use these boats. They had delivered me custom made boats to places like Greece, Germany, Portugal, China and now Italy. Since when i have visited their fabric in 2007 i also know how much effort is put in making these boats top notch. It's a pleasure to ride one of these every day! So again a Big up and a big Thank you to guys at Nelo.
Posted by Jernej on Monday 05 April 2010 - 17:34:22 |
