Today is the final day of USA Olympic Slalom Trials.     Dane and I are racing for our best results again today- and top 10 is looking good for me but not top three.   That is OK, as I am having a lot of fun, and really learning a lot competing against the top USA and Canadian paddlers.

Emily, however, pulled off a win on her second run yesterday, which was a game changer for her.   She started off in 4th place on her first run of the first day.    This first place now has her solidly in 3rd place behind Caroline Queen and Ashley Nee who she beat yesterday.     If she has another good day today, she’ll be on the USA Senior Women’s Slalom Kayak Team and be able to compete in the World Cup this year.    She will also be able to compete in the Under 23 World Championships in Wausau, Wisconsin.      If she does well enough today, she’ll have a shot at being the top female and being on the Olympic Team, but that is still a long shot.

Krsitine and KC were there yesterday and are here now, making my life much better, as I am not used to racing or competing without them.  I really enjoy having my whole family together for these events.    Kristine was at gate 16 and I was able to look up and say “Hi” as I went by to here and KC and apparently KC went nuts… cool.

I am very excited about this final day of racing as I still haven’t had a run that I consider to my potential.    I have many theories as to why, and that, truly is one of the most challenging, important, and worthy questions to ask yourself and find the actual answer and implement it.    There are some simple answers,  “train for 10 years straight and you’ll compete much better”  yes, that is true, but that doesn’t mean  you compete to your potential.      Given all of the assets, skills, and motivation you have inside of you today, lay them on the line and put down a run that employs all of them to the level they can be employed.     That is where I am at today.     I have that down pretty well in freestyle and many games, and the game of life.    One of the main keys is to admit out loud, that the results are far less important than the journey.  THat if you have the worst performance possible, you will have zero regrets, because everything you did leading up to it you would do again, even if you had poor results again.

People who “train for the Olympics” often don’t follow this rule, they train, with the idea, that “IF I Win, it was worth it,  If I don’t I sacrificed so much for so little”.   That attitude haunts people their entire lives and makes performing consistently well, very difficult.   it also allows people to do things their entire lives that they don’t enjoy.

I am not get performing at the level I hoped.  I wanted to have at least 1 top three finish and finish top 5 overall.  I am sitting around 9th place overall right now I think (really hard to tell unless you have super computer as the use system leaves much to be desired)

Today is my last day to perform really well.   While I am fine either way,  I want to strike that formula in my head and lay it out there.   One thing I can say is that I believe I have had the cleanest runs of the competition, with 3 out of 4 runs with no penalties.   Pretty cool.  I am quite happy about that.

Got to go!  Race day is here!
🙂

EJ

p.s. Wish Emily Luck… her results today will have a big effect on her 2012 one way or another!