Rise & Glide, Episode 9: Emily Evans
TRANSCRIPTION:
Maddi Leblanc: Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Rise and Glide podcast brought to you by Paddle Logger. This week we are super stoked to be having a conversation with Emily Evans. I had the pleasure last year of actually racing with her at the ICF World Championships in Poland and I can honestly personally say that racing her, she just has this unique sense of determination and grit and... I just loved getting to meet her, getting to know her, and in this episode, we're super stoked to share with you what makes Emily such a unique and phenomenal athlete. She now lives near the coast of South Wales. She's also been paddling since she was about 10 years old, and she got into kayaking first out of all the paddling sports to get into and later on in her career, transitioned into whitewater rafting. She's gone to world championships for whitewater rafting, as well as triathlon, and doing really well actually at both of those world championships. The coolest thing that makes Emily so inspiring and unique I believe, is that she's taken everything from her athletic careers so far and has applied it very well into her stand up paddle board racing career, whether that be her warm up, her pre race routine mindfulness and visualization techniques. We really hope you enjoyed this episode with Emily, as much as we enjoyed having a conversation with her.
Holly Pye: Hey Emily! Thanks so much for joining us on Rise and Glide. So excited to have you and so excited to have this conversation. How are you doing?
Emily Evans: I'm really good, thank you. Thank you very much for having me on the podcast. I'm really excited and yeah, looking forward to having a chat. Yeah, how are you?
Holly Pye: Yeah, I'm good thanks as well I'm really good. You are a stand up paddler, you've been, you've got a huge background in kind of whitewater rafting, kayaking, all kinds of paddle sports. For anyone who's listening who doesn't know much about you, can you tell us a little bit about who you are, your paddling background, your personal background, and what you're doing at the moment?
Emily Evans: Ooh, yeah, okay. I've been taking part in like paddle sports for quite a long time. Since I was 10, I started kayaking just recreationally and had a really good time at the outdoor centre. So I started volunteering there from as early as I could and really got the bug for instructing just in my teenage years, so went through the whole kayak instructor system from like early teenage years and got to do little bits of whitewater, canoeing, windsurfing, lots of lots of water sports and stuff and then I was really fortunate to be living just down the road from where they built the whitewater centre for the London 2012 Olympics and they needed whitewater rafting guides, so I got into whitewater rafting and yeah, worked there for a long time as a raft guide and had an absolutely great time, and worked there as a whitewater kayaking instructor as well and then, yeah, during that time I got into the whitewater rafting racing scene. That kind of developed from there and then sub developed after that too. Just working my way through all the paddle sports. So now really into the stand up paddle board racing and surfing and absolutely loving it. Moved away from some of the whitewater rafting just because of a job really. I don't work in as a raft guide anymore but I did actually take part in the whitewater rafting selections earlier on in the year with some of the girls I used to paddle with, and it is just so much fun. It's just so social such a laugh, and I had a really good time, so yeah, so currently, as my sporting passion is Stand up paddle board racing.
Holly Pye: Awesome! Were you always into water sports and paddle sports even as a child or did you just get into it as you got a bit older?
Emily Evans: No, I was always into it. I actually started with sailing and I didn't really take to sailing that well to be honest. My mum was really into sailing and she had done loads of sailing trips with her dad and we had a little boat and, she, said "go to the outdoor centre, take some lessons, and then we can all go out together". But I was much more taken by the kayaking. It just looked so much fun and that's how I got into kayaking, and so I ended up doing that rather than sailing. I still dabbled with the sailing and windsurfing, but kayaking was really fun and do you know what? Actually, I wasn't really too keen on going in the water. All the other kids were like, super keen on falling in the water and, I just really didn't like it. But I absolutely love being in the water now. I'm glad that I either persisted or was made to persist. I'm not really sure which one it was. But yeah really fortunate to have that opportunity to get into paddle sport at such a young age because... It's formed a love for paddle sport and here I am now having done loads of it. So yeah, super grateful.
Holly Pye: That's so cool. It's so good to hear about how much time you spent in the water over the last few years. When you started rafting, what kind of got you to that competition level? What took you from just going around a course to being in a competition? How did you get involved with a team? I'm really interested to hear more about your rafting background and what it was like to be part of a team and train as part of a team, compete as part of a team and go through all the competitions that you did.
Emily Evans: Oh, wow. That is just... do you know what it's such a cool story because I was working at the rafting centre in London and there was a lady called Bex there and she's she's a really good friend of mine, she lives in North Wales and I've lived with and she's super awesome and she said to me, she was working at the centre as well, we were like the first two female raft guides at the centre and She was like, "oh, there's this competition on the weekend. Do you want to come and take part?" and I was like, "oh yeah, okay". No, she said, "you can do the endurance even"t. I was like, "oh yeah, okay". She wouldn't tell me what this competition was at all. I had no idea. So I took part, she said, "sit, there you go, sit in the middle because you can be six people in a boat, two at the front, two in the middle". She just plonked me in the middle. She goes "just keep paddling. Just keep following can't remember who was in front of me, but just keep paddling in time. That's all you need to do" and we did laps and laps of the course and then it turned... I had no idea what we were doing... it turned out it was the British selections and then we came, oh, I think we came second and so she said "oh, it's amazing, we can go to the European Championships in in the Czech Republic, in Lipno" and that was, so they were the Welsh team actually, because all the girls on that team were based in North Wales. And so that was it was just such a laugh, everyone was like having a joke and but we paddled really hard as well and that's like the theme of rafting, everyone has a real laugh, has a proper joke on the river, but paddles really hard too, and it's fiercely competitive and just really good fun. So that kind of progressed from there and I went to my first European Championships in 2012 in Lipno. We had an absolutely fantastic time and so we were the GB2 team, so you can send two teams to the Europeans and one team to the world. It's a bit like stand up paddleboarding and other sports. So yeah, I went to the Europeans and then with those girls and had a fantastic time. It's so whitewater rafting is a sprint event where you go as fast as you can. It's a timed trial and then there's a head to head event, which is absolutely fantastic. You literally go head to head with the other boats. You're opposite sides of the river and then you paddle as hard as you can off the line and then there's loads of bumping each other, as you're going down the river and then the first ones, obviously, get to the other end, wins. That's changed a little bit over the last couple of years, and you've put some slalom gates in as well, so it actually becomes very tactical, which is really good fun and then the third event is a slalom, so a bit like canoe slalom, where you have to go in and out of slalom gates and that you have up to 14 gates, I believe. So you'll have some upstream gates, which will be in the eddies, and you'll have downstream gates, which can be in the flow. So it'll be very tactical around features on the river, and what have you and some of them might be in quite compromising positions, you might have to go quite close to a stopper or something.
If you get it wrong, it might flip you or whatever, so you've got to be pretty on the ball. And then the fourth event, which is normally the next it's over two or three days, this kind of international competition, the fourth event is the endurance event and it can be up to about 15 kilometers of white water so you could be going up to class 4 white water which is which is really cool and that might be so that might be an hour of like hard paddling or if you're paddling at a an artificial stadium you might have to do laps. So there's a really cool race in Bratislava in Slovakia where you have to paddle along the canal, you paddle down the white water, around the lake and then you have to run up the hill with your boat. So it's like super hard work, but also like really good fun. Yeah I feel like I've got a little bit lost in mine. I don't know where I am with that. But yeah, so that was my first experience and then later I don't know, it was a couple of years down the line I started paddling with the the GB1 team. So this was or the PALM team, sponsored by PALM Equipment that and that was the team that I paddled for the longest with in the end. The girls that's in the team where we won the World Championships and the European Championships and I paddled with them for about three years, three, four years, something like that, from about 2016 to about 2019. So we made that kind of transition from like the team with the Welsh girls and then I went for the team with the British team and that was very different because we had quite a regimented training plan and that was something that really appealed to me as well. So we still had a laugh and we still had that really great time, but we got, we knuckled down to a bit more of a training plan and we had a coach for Slalom and we met. Once a month for a really tough training camp once a month. We were always knackered at the end of it, and it was really intense. The whole year was planned out, and that works, because we were successful and we... It was just amazing. We really made such huge improvements in that time and obviously, we came away with world championship status. We won a gold medal in slalom in Japan in 2017. Then yeah, won the European Championships in 2018. Having that consistency and that team atmosphere where everyone trains really hard and bounces off each other and motivates each other. That brings that I think contributes to that success. So yeah, that's the progression. That's quite a lengthy lengthy talk about it.
Holly Pye: No, it's really good to hear all about it. That's the whole idea of this. I think it's really great to hear the differences between, I mean I, I've only ever really done kind of individual sports apart from when I was a kid doing hockey at school or something and so obviously you're like totally in it for yourself, you are completely responsible for your own training. If you don't do it one day, you're the only one who pays for it. But also if you're working really hard, you're the one who gets all the results. So it must be a completely different dynamic when you're working as part of a team. Yeah, and you hope that everyone else is also training as hard as you, but also when you're all pulling together, it's really cool to get those results.
Emily Evans: Yeah, 100%. There's obviously highs and lows in a team sport as well, because you share the lows as much as you share the highs. There's a couple of times that I can think of where one person had a mishap, I wouldn't say made a mistake because actually that's not really fair like we're all human and whether you're doing an individual sport or a team sport something can happen, right? So in stand up paddling you could like your paddle could slip out your hand and you could have a terrible sprint start. So actually we had we did a head-to-head race we were in... I can't remember... it was gonna be a medal position race, and one of the girls fell out the boat and, which is funny looking back on it, but like in the moment when I forgot to say that all these events, they actually add up to the overall placing. So you have to take part in all events if you want no full placing. So we were in a medal position, it would've added to our points and yeah, she fell out of the boat and actually, we got her back in, but it meant that more than 50 percent of the boat were not paddling and obviously, we were beaten in the race and out of our medal place and we didn't talk to each other, I think, for about half an hour after that event, we really didn't, we obviously got it back. We just all needed some time to just digest and take in what had happened and actually in rafting it is, it's really serious. There's a lot of protests that happen and people film like all the runs and protesting is a really big thing. So if something like that happens and you think that was caused by another team people are straight to the officials with making their case and trying to get like the best results. I can't remember what happened, but yeah there's downs too, but there are like incredible highs, and you say that with the training as well, motivating each other I think the best motivators for us were those training weekends, because they were also really nice time to catch up as well I remember when we were doing at our best most of us were living in London, but there was a couple of girls that were based elsewhere, and we would go to different spots, so we might have had a weekend in London, and next weekend's in Cardiff, next weekend's in North Wales, next weekend's in Nottingham and it was really nice just to travel around to all those spots, we'd probably do about five training sessions throughout the weekend, but then in the evening we'd stay at someone's house and cook dinner, or go out for dinner or something and then have a get together about planning the trip as well and everyone had a different task to help us get to the international competitions, whether it was, like, looking into flights or how much things were going to cost. No stone was left unturned on the team tasks as well. I do miss that, actually. I've like you were saying, you've been an individual sport person. So was I before, I was like doing triathlon and that's very individual, you're left to your own devices all the time. But I really, and I do miss that team atmosphere, actually, and I miss those training weekends and planning all the stuff. But it, at the time, it certainly seemed quite intense too.
Holly Pye: Yeah, I'm sure. What was your training like? What kind of things were you doing for training? Were you just paddling a lot or when you, I guess when you're on your own, you can't practice paddling in a boat of six. It's only really those training weekends you can do that. But so what was your training like in between?
Emily Evans: So we had I think we had to do about two paddle sessions a week, two other cardio sessions and gym session, if I remember rightly. Excuse me and the cardio could be, we made it so that you could also do what worked for you. That so the cardio was like left open. You could bike, you could run, but that was on on the list. But the paddling people would go and kayak, or if we, there's a couple of us that like live quite locally and have a similar time schedule. So we would, there's myself and Fika, we'd often paddle in a boat together. We'd go and do our paddles as an R2, opposite, just sitting opposite each other and that's actually how a couple of us got into stand up paddleboarding, is that we'd do our paddleboard, we'd do our paddling sessions on the paddleboard and then the gym sessions, myself and Lizzie set them and then they'd just be progressive over a month, and then we'd change them. They were often kind of circuit based, or contained similar exercises that would help with the paddling, or if we had had a race coming up where we had to run with the boat, it'd be a lot of shuttle runs, we'd be lifting kettlebells, and jogging with stuff, making it really high intensity to simulate the intensity that was going to be in the endurance race. So the paddles that we had, there'd be like a a long paddle, an interval paddle and a sprint session and the sprint sessions were like really hard, but they were also really important because the sprint start in rafting is one of the most crucial parts to get you off the line, especially in the head to head, because we love the head to head races such a fierce battle, and you really want to get away first. Yeah, that's what our training looked like and then on the training weekends, it would be similar stuff, it would be actually putting that all into practice. There'd definitely be an endurance paddle at some point, often on a Sunday morning and there'd be lots of technical slalom work, the stuff that we didn't get to do during during the, yeah, in the time that we're not together.
Holly Pye: Cool. How long were the endurance races? How long would they take you?
Emily Evans: Oh, they could be for anything between about 40 minutes to an hour. Oh, what was a really good one? So that my first one in lip, no... that's one of my favorites. It's that was a mixture of flat water and an incredible white water between, in between the forest. It's just really amazing. So where else did we have a long downriver? Oh, when we went to the World Championships in Argentina in 2018, that was an incredible downriver. That was about an hour of continuous whitewater. That was like, that was just absolutely amazing. 2 rapids, which are like ripples and a few rocks, to probably 3 plus. There's four kind of rapids, where there's like big boulders, tight bends, big waves and and for that kind of downriver event, you actually paddle it a couple of times throughout the week because for these events, you're often there for a week, like preparing and getting to know the river and we would study it, then make sure we all knew exactly where we needed to be on each turn. So we could have the fastest line and make sure that we weren't going to get stuck on any rocks or anything like that, but yeah, the more gruelling ones definitely, they were definitely the events where we were at an artificial site like Lee Valley or this course in Bratislava because it's just so intense running with the boat, it's it's so heavy and then you have to throw it in the water, get in and paddle again, but yeah, I guess there's some part of us that obviously enjoyed that.
Holly Pye: So it sounds really tough. I can imagine it's tricky. Cause it's not just a case of getting in the boat and paddling. You've got to do a whole lot of problem solving, thinking about it, where you're going next and obviously communicating as part of that team as well. How did you transition then from rafting into SUP? I guess you used it as your course training, but what made you get into SUP racing?
Emily Evans: Do you know what? I obviously like just really fell in love with SUP as I was using it for cross training and I did just start off like kneeling down paddling with my rafting paddle and then at some point I was like, "oh, do you know what? I'm going to stand up and paddle" and then when I started standing up and paddling I was like "oh, this is really good fun" and when I when I moved to Cardiff I was like, "oh, do you know what? I think I'm going to continue doing this as something to, was that something to do?" and of course, being competitive, I immediately tried to look up online can you do races? And I found, I think it must have been one of the GB SUP races in Tamworth. So I went and rented a 12 foot 6 race board, and popped it on the Tamworth, and this race just happened to be, like, during a storm and I thought, "Oh it's going to be a good test" and just took part in that. It was like a proper upwind, downwind kind of thing. I didn't really know like how to do turns or anything and it was like a triangular course. But I met a lot of people that I paddle with now I met, like Sarah and I met Ginnie there as well, and it was really nice and then actually from that point, from meeting a few people then, and everyone was really nice. Meeting Sarah and Ginnie as well and they were just like "oh, come paddling with us in Cardiff". So that kind of progressed from there and I got to, yeah start paddling in Cardiff Bay and, booking the next race and it wasn't really... I do tell people this, like, all the time that progression in SUP wasn't really... It wasn't like I just got on a board and it was super easy. I remember paddling across Cardiff Bay so many times with Ginnie and Sarah and I just couldn't keep up at all. I had jelly legs, they were just flying and I was like, "Oh my God, I'm so scared". It's like quite a big expanse of water going across Cardiff Bay and I remember borrowing one of Sarah's race boards once because I still didn't have my own board or paddle or anything and I was just borrowing stuff like as you go and I was thinking, "oh my gosh, they like I can't, I don't think I can do it. I literally can't get across the bay" and but it got better and it got better and it became easier of course, as these things do and they, just, yeah, I think once you get the bug, you then start looking for the next thing, or like looking for a board to buy. They're just all snowballs from there.
Holly Pye: Yeah, for sure and you've come so far since then! You did the ICF World Championships last year which is was that the biggest event you've done so far?
Emily Evans: Yeah it was. Yeah, definitely. It was a huge event. It was an amazingly organized event. Everything was really on time, wasn't it? You you were there too. We had to, you just couldn't be late for your race, could you? So you had to keep an eye on the... On the time, like it was mental.
Holly Pye: Yeah, that was something. So I went to the ICF World Championships in the year before in 2021 in Hungary and that was my first experience and I was gobsmacked at how on time, like the schedule was tight. I think the technical racing the heats, it was a one kilometer race. I might have actually said this before in a previous episode, I can't remember, but it was one kilometre technical heats and the heats were due to start every seven minutes and I was just like, seven minutes to get around a kilometre is like top speed. I don't know if I can even paddle a kilometre in seven minutes at the time, let alone with six or seven turns. If I fall in the next heat are going to be starting right behind me. And I was like "how is this possible? That's a really tight schedule. Surely they're going to be behind" and honestly, it wasn't, it was literally like bang. I was not used to that. I think coming from a way more relaxed environment like even our qualifiers a couple of weeks ago, we were both there. It was like, due to the weather, but it's you're on, you've got an idea of what time you're starting, but give or take a little bit, everything's super chilled. Whereas, yeah, I guess there's so many people there, they have no choice but to be on time.
Emily Evans: Yeah, it was, there was something like 500 athletes, I think was there, taking part, which is amazing for participation in stand up paddleboarding. You just think it's so nice that the opportunity is there for that many people to take part, to enter such a big event, and for the ICF just to roll with it, they're just like, "yeah, come and, everyone come and take part obviously, you have to, you can't just get into a final, that, you have to work your, you have to work your way up" especially In the men's that division, there's so many competitors and I think it's brilliant that you can, if you're, even if you're just starting out and you feel bold enough to to take part, then come and pitch yourself against, world champions. Come and pitch yourself against Conor Baxter and, and Yeah, see how you do!
Holly Pye: I find it really motivating, I don't know if you agree, but I find it so motivating going somewhere like that, and it is, I think, I guess the idea of it is a little bit intimidating, because you're like, "oh, I don't know if I'm good enough to step on this world class stage" but then suddenly you're surrounded by all these amazing people you look up to, and people who you want to be like, and you get to paddle at the same time as them, on the same race course as them, and just see the difference. It is, it's really motivating, and it's a really good way to get out there. Better and better in competition.
Emily Evans: It is and, yeah, you can pick up lots of different techniques. You can watch people. It's more, it's a lot more than just taking part and you can make some really good friends as well, it's really nice to meet people with that common interest of paddling. You'll find those often the friends that, last a lifetime from events like that. I know that from the two weeks, because I did the the European Championships the week before, as well and there were quite a lot of people that went from the Europeans to the world and the two competitions were very different and they were in very different locations. But it was really nice to... it was almost like being back in that kind of rafting setting, where you had that real team atmosphere, going from one thing to the next. That, that competition buzz. It was so fun it was like the best two weeks. It was really good.
Holly Pye: How do you find the difference? Then in kind of competition between rafting and SUP, it is an individual sport, but what's your kind of, is there any changes that you've made in terms of like training, preparation, racing?
Emily Evans: Yeah, I think because stand up paddleboarding is like, especially the racing is really technical and yeah, rafting is really technical and that was like what I really enjoyed about rafting, especially the slalom and and of course all the preparation that we did rafting as well was like leaving no stone unturned in that technical aspect. So that's what I've really enjoyed taking from rafting to stand up paddleboarding. The preparation is like a little bit different, because it's not that like team team element, but I've stolen everything that I did from rafting and brought it to SUP anyway, like the the warm up or breaking down the technical aspects and practising them, especially for actual technical racing in stand up paddleboarding. But also the preparation, like the physical warm up and the mental warm up and that kind of thing, I found that's actually really helped keep focused and create focus for the short events like the sprint and even technical is quite short, isn't it? Like you said, some of them are only a kilometer long. Yeah, so that's what I've tried to bring from raft up.
Holly Pye: That's cool to hear. What's your pre-race routine then?
Emily Evans: So before before a race I like to have a think about what the course is. So if it's a technical event, then I think this is the best one to explain because there's quite a lot of elements to a technical event. If it's a technical event, I'll go and have a look at the set course and I'll see, how the wind is affecting the turns, or how the swell is affecting the turns, and which, just have a look at where the buoys are, have a look at what the start line looks like, how is the wind going to affect the start and then just start having a think through that in my mind about what I'm going to need to do. So once I've had a little look, then, then I'm actually going to do start a physical warm up. So I'm going to do a little bit of cardio I quite like to go for a little bit of a run. I like to get my heart rate up and in that run, I like to just do a few little sprints, or some shuttle runs touching the ground being a little bit more dynamic, just to get my body going, get the heart rate up and then just try and warm my... warm the rest of my body, warm the arms, warm the legs. Just get a full body warm up really using everything, aren't you, in stand up paddling. Yeah, and if I can get on the water, then I will try and paddle, even if I can't, because, we often can't do the actual course, but when I get on the water I'll try and paddle in all the different angles to the wind and the swell, just so that there's nothing a surprise during the technical event. Then once I've done the physical warm up, I actually take a little bit of time to prepare, do a bit of visualisation. So I'll just go and find somewhere quiet and then have a think about how I want to paddle the race. So I'll just think about the start, I'm going to visualise myself actually running with my board from the start onto the water, everything going smoothly, getting my board. What's it going to look like around the first turn? I might just pick a couple of key elements that I want to focus on, and I might just replay those a few times in my head. So if I'm a bit worried about the start, I'm a bit worried about a turn, I'll just replay them a few times until I'm feeling good about it and something that I include and I was talking about it a little while ago, is just, I just try and create some gratitude for being there at the event bring myself Just be grounded because I feel that brings me, personally, brings me focus I've just been grateful for my journey of taking part in stand up paddleboarding, from those like wobbly leg days crossing Cardiff Bay to like being able to take part at whatever race it is I'm taking part now and that just makes me feel like a little bit more humble and just oh yeah, this is great, there's actually nothing to worry about because paddling is like really fun. So that's the kind of elements that I like to do is like the physical warm up and mental warm up and then a bit of gratitude and then just go and get back into the action of the event and chat to a few people and get on with the race.
Holly Pye: That's really detailed. It's cool to hear. There's so much evidence kind of supporting visualization and stuff, but I've not really tried it, I either forget or haven't really thought about it or I don't know. I don't really know. I don't have an excuse. But yeah.
Emily Evans: Do you do you do anything similar?
Holly Pye: I've been getting better and better at having more of a routine. Generally the day before the race I try and do a bit of an on the water warm up. I don't want to do anything too strenuous the day before, but definitely get my body moving. I guess if it's a smaller race or if I've not been training that hard then it doesn't matter so much. But if it's a really big, important race, then I try and two days out I try and have a rest day. Say if the race is on the Saturday, I try to rest on Thursday, on Friday I'll go for quite a light paddle, just with some like slow kind of builds, start off really easy, and then go a bit harder, and then he's off again just to get the muscles like back in action but not go so hard that I'm going to be tired. Just a really short like 30 minute paddle, 45 minute paddle or something and then pre race. Like the morning of the race or the day of the race. Less good at being prepared usually because I'm either running a bit late, which is really bad or I try not to schedule it too much because I find that actually makes me a bit more anxious or a bit more nervous If I'm like I must do this and then I must do this and I must do this because you know what? It's like when we go to races, there's so many people to talk to and there's so much going on that you just you can't always do exactly what you want to do so I try to chill out and just let it happen. If I can, I really like an on the water warm up, but it's really hard. Just like you said, you can't always get onto the race course and also, I think sometimes if the weather's bad, an on the water warm up might actually make you really cold. When we were in Poland or even when we were in Falmouth it was super windy, rainy if I was to get on the water, I probably would have just got wet and cold maybe fallen in and like I would have actually come out worse off but if the weather's nice, it's great to test out the conditions for sure. So yeah, just doing some warm up, warming up on the beach, like jumping around like lunges, squats, that kind of thing, just to get my legs moving. I guess it depends if it's a flat water race or a choppy water race as well. But yeah, my on the day... Preparation is much less effective than the day before, which is why I really wanted to talk to you and learn about how you do it. Cause you always seem to manage it really well and yeah it's really interesting to hear how other people do it. I find that really beneficial going to events like the worlds to see how the really well and learn from them. So do you, I know in the last couple of years you've done more coaching, more SUP coaching, do you bring that into your coaching as well? Do you do more like technique, physical coaching, or do you do some mentoring and chatting about the mental side of it as well?
Emily Evans: I have tried to bring it in a little bit. But I think I think people have to be open to it as well. I don't know if, one, I've done enough coaching sessions to bring it in. That might sound funny, but that the most of the things I've done in the last a couple of, or a year, that's probably about a year actually, not a year and a half have more been the technical side of technical racing, beach starts and turns and coping with little bits of choppy water and stuff and I think most people want that at the moment. I have tried to feed in some visualisation and breathing and being grounded in a workshop I did at the end of last year and I don't know, I would love to do more of it actually so yeah, if there's kind of demand for that and people want to know more, I'd be really happy to like, get stuck into it. And do you know what, I'm still learning as well, and still adapting adapting like the techniques and the way that I'm using their visualisation and like this, I haven't really had chance like personally to use those things that much this year. I've only done a handful of races and you certainly I certainly get out of practice. So I think it's like a bit more of a refined technique and it's a little bit different for everyone as well, it might be that breathing works for some people, it might be that like mindfulness, like listening to the sounds around you and stuff works for other people and create grounded feeling or that, that kind of thing might not work for people at all, that might be too relaxing, I'd be really interested to know if if that wouldn't work for people at all, they might be like, "Oh, that's just going to make me really relaxed, how could I possibly relax a race after being that relaxed?". Yeah, maybe, so I was actually, I've got a coaching session on Saturday this weekend and I was thinking of putting some more like visualisation stuff into our warm up because I know most of the people taking part yeah, I'll have to like get back to you on that, that would be really interesting. Yeah, so that's what I wanted to do really when I came to doing some SUP coaching was really get into like the nitty gritty stuff of technical stuff of SUP.
Holly Pye: I was chatting to someone the other day who, about SUP racing and it was really interesting because they were saying how, in, in their opinion the top athletes whilst it is about fitness and VO2 max type stuff. It's much less about that and it's much more about technique and the technical elements. Even if it's a flat water race and it's like a straight line, tactics and having those good technical skills really do separate the good from the average and much more than fitness. I think we've seen that when people who are totally new to SUP but have really good background fitness from other sports come in and they don't do as well as somebody who's maybe not quite as fit but has a wealth of experience with their technical skills and that's definitely something that I want to implement more and more in my training is going out and doing different technical skills rather than just like intervals and kind of distance.
Emily Evans: You've got a wealth of water sports experience under your belt and you're always on the water and different kind of craft yeah and that's really nice to, that's really nice to see. Yeah, I think you...
Holly Pye: Yeah, my turns don't agree. My step back turns disagree!
Emily Evans: It's actually I remember, was it a video or a photo or something? I saw of you doing some step back turns maybe last summer and I thought, "Oh, gosh, I need to like..." It's like the Instagram effect as well, I was like, "Ah, no, I need to like, get on my turns Holly's really really smashing out the turns at the moment". I was like I think it was like on one of the Starboard boards, and the nose was in the air and you were like, spinning around. I was like, "whoa, my board doesn't do that. Holly's really got it".
Holly Pye: That's definitely the Instagram effects do it 10 times, get one good one, show everyone.
Emily Evans: No, not at all, but you're right, isn't it? When you've got a feel of the water as well, I think paddle sports and water sports, it's all about feel, isn't it? And you can't teach feel. So if you have like incredible fitness, but you haven't really spent much time on the water, then being connected with the water and your board and your paddle, and it is gonna take a bit of time. Like feeling the board under your feet or feeling where the power actually is applied to your paddle or riding the bumps on a technical wave or a downwind or something like that, that's what takes the takes the time, isn't it? And I've seen it in when I've been doing like kayak coaching and doing whitewater stuff as well is that... People theoretically understand how to eddy in and out of the flow, but they haven't quite got the feel of the water. They're not connected with their boat and the water, but then at some point it just clicks, and then you see them light up and that's what's amazing about coaching as well, also seeing people suddenly get that connection with their board and the water, and you're like, "ah, you've got it" and yeah, and it's and that's when it all starts, the magic starts to happen. And I guess for you as well, because you do quite a lot of wing foiling, don't you? So that's something I haven't tried at all. But that must be an incredible feel on the water. Is that, is that kind of the same thing? How did it, how long did it take you to I don't know, to master it?
Holly Pye: Yeah, that was really weird, actually. I just went for it, which is probably really bad advice like I didn't do any lessons or anything like that I think it was quite early days at the time and not that many people in the UK were doing it so there wasn't really lessons and stuff available or courses. Whereas now there is and there was lots of things online about giving it a go on an inflatable SUP first just to get the feel of the wing. I do have some experience not loads, but some experience of wind sports anyway, so I knew which direction to point, which was which sounds really obvious, but to a lot of people, I think, with no water sports experience they don't know which way that you're supposed to aim.
Obviously, you can't go directly upwind and going directly downwind is a bad idea and yeah, I had one go with an inflatable paddleboard and just got so frustrated. I was like, "this is totally pointless, I don't really get it, like not doing this again" and the next time I had a go was a few weeks later and it was just on a foil board with a foil and it was so much easier because I wasn't trying to get the foil up and out of the water and I wasn't getting the foil up and out of the water partially because the wind was too light and partially because that was too much, but kind of having that mast and the foil acted a bit like a big daggerboard which you'd have if you were learning a wind surf so I wasn't going just straight downwind whereas I was on the SUP so I found that load easier and then I guess got the feel of what the foil was like I had one go behind a boat which was really bad because the guy driving the boat was like, I think he was like 90 years old. He had no idea what was going on. He'd never even seen a foil before. We were just like, "oh, you've got a boat, like any chance we can borrow it". So he didn't know how fast to drive. And yeah, so you were either like, it was too fast or it was too slow, so it didn't really work. So it was literally just trial and error, trying with the wing and the board and the foil. Which now that I can do it, I'm really glad that it was like that. And I feel like if I'd done lessons, it probably would have sped the process up a bit. But I guess I wouldn't have quite so much trial and error experience, which is then good when something goes wrong later in the journey.
And I guess SUP is a bit like that as well. I've not really had any one to one coaching. I've done maybe like a couple of clinics a few years ago and I'm now working with Glenn Eldredge from Ocean Sports who's helping me direct like my training in terms of different sessions to do but It's been great. I guess the same kind of thing, you could speed it up by doing technical coaching, just like you offer but it's also cool to try it yourself, and maybe it does take a bit longer, but you get real satisfaction out of learning the different skills but yeah. I was thinking though the kind of visualization and routines and breathing techniques and all of that. If, like us, you don't get the chance to race that often, you could definitely practice that with your training sessions, like imagining your training sessions almost as races. Cause I get super nervous before races. I didn't used to, but I do now. And to try and calm myself down is really difficult because I race like a few times a year. So I don't feel nervous before I go training and so I don't have the chance to calm myself down or practice calming myself down. So I find that really hard but maybe practicing kind of those calming techniques before a training session would help make it more, more normal and help me get better at it. Do you think, do you agree? What do you think?
Emily Evans: Yeah, I 100 percent agree. I think it's really important to try these things as well and that's how you work out what, what works for you because if you apply them to your training sessions, you can apply them to a race. And that's, and then, if you're doing something in training that you're then going to do in a race on that race day, it's going to be second nature and it's probably likely to reduce those race nerves and race anxiety because you're just going to go through the same routine that you would during training anyway. So therefore you're just like... doing the actions, doing the routine, and then you can start paddling. But, then during racing, you can then recall on stuff that you used in training anyway, and you can start to use, I don't know, something like positive self talk during racing, because you know that you know that during your training, when you work hard in intervals. And then it's really hard in a race. You can go, "Oh I know that this feels hard right now". But rather than telling yourself that you're a rubbish paddler or something, you're like, "no, it hurts. It's fine. I've done this in training, so I can do it in a race" and also I think sometimes we're always trying to cram in our training, going from work to training, or doing it quickly before work, or in a lunch break or something like that, but I think taking the time to just pause and appreciate your trainings, like you would appreciate going to the races, because it's something like you're choosing to do with your life, you choose to do it like you, you're able to, you're able to do it. It's not just a necessity, it's something that you enjoy doing, and also the same for being at a race, you chose to do it because you like the sport or for whatever reason you choose to take part in racing, so pause to appreciate it, I think it's really important.
Holly Pye: That's a really good point, and that's similar, I was chatting with Elaine, my physio, when I was getting back to paddling after my injury. And I was complaining because I'd go paddling, when I was a few months ago getting back into it, I'd go paddling and if it was like a gentle paddle, I wouldn't have any pain, which was great, but I'd get off the water and those first few steps, literally after getting off the water, it would really hurt and then maybe an hour later it would be fine again. It was just those first few steps off the water, and I was like, "why is this happening? It's really annoying" and she was like, "do you ever just get off the water and stop for a minute?" Yeah and I was like, "no, to be fair, I'm always in a rush I get off the water, run straight back to the car, or walk straight back to the car put the board on the roof, head off. Rush from here to there" and since I came off the water and just stopped put my board down, look at the water for a few minutes, maybe do some stretches, just chill out. That pain just went, which was really cool.
Emily Evans: Ah that's really interesting. That's mad, isn't it? How your brain can do that. I think it's really awesome. So what do you, how has that changed for you then? How's that changed your training? And actually, how's that made you feel about training and paddling as well? Do you enjoy it more?
Holly Pye: Yeah, I really enjoy it. I definitely get stuck in that kind of rushing around situation that you just mentioned like especially if I'm trying to squeeze in sessions before work or after work and balance lots of different things like some days I guess it's easier than others if I don't have any plans in the evening I can finish work come home chill for a little bit then go paddling. You know take my time and enjoy it other times. It really is a mad rush, but I definitely find it much easier. That's something that I'm slowly getting better at give or take the odd week, but definitely like planning things like... Meals, it sounds really basic, but having something in the fridge so that if I do go for a long paddle or if I do take my time, when I come back I don't then have to stand there for an hour and cook dinner and then it's suddenly 11 o'clock at night and I'm late to bed before getting up early the next morning to go training again, it's everything's. I try to make life easy for myself and that's something that I've learned as well through the injury is we've put quite a lot of focus on making life easy for yourself and how when you're in like a chronic pain situation quite often it's like your mental state causing physical pain which is really hard to explain to especially to anyone who's never gone through it themselves and I really struggled to understand how it worked until I went through it but definitely yeah making life comfortable and sticking thanks for watching! Knowing when to stay within your comfort zone and when to push yourself outside of your comfort zone. I went paddling with my physio we did an 'on the water physio session' and I was like at the side of the road unpacking my board from its board bag like squeezing in and out, rushing around. She was like, "you're really not making this comfortable for yourself, take up space, spread out, don't like try and squeeze everything into a small space just take your time, there's no rush", and yeah, even things like that it sounds really silly when you're not used to it, which I wasn't used to it.
But definitely it's made a big difference with creating, a relaxed state of mind, which helps relax your body. And I do, this is definitely off topic, but I do quite a lot of work with people who have insomnia and... Definitely the mind and body are linked, but we do a lot of, physical relaxation for mental relaxation and it's crazy how much of a difference it makes, and I think it's the same the other way around as well. People with insomnia need to relax their mind, and relaxing their body helps. Whereas for us, we want to prepare our body, and preparing our mind is like that cherry on the cake. Yeah, what do you do to make life easier for yourself when you're training?
Emily Evans: I just, firstly, like on that topic, I think that you can't go to sleep with a busy mind, can you? And you can't do a productive training session with a thousand things on your mind. Like the same thing if you just like pause, take a breath, be grateful for a couple of like nice things in your surroundings or a couple of things that have happened in your day and just and like empty your mind and do a short just like mindfulness minute before you start your training session, then you're probably more likely to have a productive training session. Like hopefully you'll fall asleep better but yeah, so being more productive actually, like on a Sunday night or I like to haven't, I'm getting back into it actually. I've been out of the loop for a little while, but coming back to it now, I plan my week just write Monday to Sunday, write what work I have on, what after work commitments I have on, and just write the sessions, training sessions down on the days that I'm going to complete them. And I think that also gives some accountability as well to getting them done, because all you have to do then is stick the bit of paper on the wall, and you just tick the sessions off as you go.
You could get super detailed with it as well. You could write down what you're going to eat on those days and whatever, and shop accordingly. And then this is what I stole from the rafting competitions, is you can do the same thing before a race. The day before the race, you just sit down with a bit of paper, and you write down what time you need to be at the event and all the things you need to accomplish before the race start time itself. Just write down what time you want to wake up, leave the house or what time you want to have breakfast, what time you want to warm up, what time you need to register. I've probably said those all completely out of order, but that you get the idea so that then, all you have to do then is once you've arrived at the event is follow those things. I know that you said that, often at these it's so social and you don't see people so often, so you are chatting, but it's still quite, you can just yeah, have a little chat and then go, "Oh, nice to see you I'm going to, I'm just going to go and do my warm up now. I'm going to register". But I know it's really hard to turn yourself away because I enjoy catching up with everybody. But yeah, I think just staying prepared, like in those ways, it might, I know some people, it seems like quite over the top, but if you do want to and achieve some stuff. Being organised is really important and it doesn't just happen, these things don't just happen there's a lot of work that is behind achieving stuff, isn't there? Whether it's It doesn't even have to be a sporting accomplishment, does it? Like people that, I don't know, complete studies or, play music, incredibly well. They've done so much practice and been so organized in their practice behind the scenes that you only see what's the final piece, don't you? But it's like behind the scenes work that makes a difference.
Holly Pye: Yeah, for sure. It's so easy to talk about talent, but you're definitely right, talented musicians aren't... they don't just wake up and be able to play piano really well. They put hours and hours of practice into that. Yeah. And it's really interesting to hear your thoughts on that. Cause... From an outsider's point of view, somebody who doesn't always chat with everyone about their routines, some people look like they're really organised, and other people look just so relaxed before a race. Almost the complete opposite, they are so unorganised that they're relaxed. They don't have to stress about what time they're waking up. They just rock up, something will get done, but probably, behind the scenes... I expect they've got it all planned out or they're like sitting in their car for a few minutes just to take some quiet time and chill out before going for it.
Emily Evans: Yeah, and that's where everything is so different, isn't it? That's really true, this is my take on it, isn't it? It's what works for me, but it might not be what works for everyone else. And that was one of the things that we always had in rafting as well, because there was like six of us or four of us we would just be really open with each other about what we needed, because everyone looks different when they're worried, when they're about a race or whatever. Some people are quiet some people want their own space, and I think doing a team sport was a really big learning curve in that respect for knowing how people operate on those, in those stressful environments. Or, that pre race stress. Yeah, of course, everyone's different, aren't they?
Holly Pye: Yeah, for sure. How do you take that into after a race? Do you finish the race and just then enjoy it? Or do you reflect on your performance good parts and bad parts?
Emily Evans: Yeah do you know what, a post race routine was something that I wanted to do a little bit more of this year, especially in the way of nutrition and stretching and that kind of thing. But I do quite like to have a bit of a reflection on my performance, because before the race, I quite to set a task that is, or an intention that isn't not outcome based it's not like time based or placing or anything like that. It's based around the feeling that I want to have on the water. It might be, like, a big one that I've been using is like positive self talk. So what my reflection will be is like, whether I've carried out those things. So was I able to talk positively? Was I able to maintain good technique or something like that? That's one that I've been using as well is like, when you're tired, like your efficiency and your paddle stroke can go a bit like skew. I've been, even when I've been tired, I've been trying to just keep a good technique. So actually my reflection at the moment, I know there's more I could do, but it's just to analyze like whether I've done those things and then if I've done those things I'm actually, I can be like really happy with my event. So yeah, what about you? Do you have how do you like analyze your races or know what you need to improve on?
Holly Pye: I guess you're totally right. At the end of the day, we're all here because we enjoy it, no one's forcing us to be here. The most important thing to reflect on is whether or not we had a good time. This is something that I didn't used to do, and then Glenn recommended that I start. And I am sometimes better at it than others, like last year when I was more serious with my racing I was doing it way more than this year, but I think as this year is getting more serious for me in the next few months it's definitely something to bring in as, as well. I tend to look at, firstly, I think about things that went well, because I think it's most important to focus on those rather than the bad points. And even if you had a bad race, there's often really good things that happened. So starting off with maybe you had a great time. That could be one or whether you worked well as part of a draft train whether you were happy with your balance and your skills, whether there was a particular turn you did really well, whether you had a strong start, finish if you felt like energized throughout or whatever as opposed to like having a big energy slump. So I guess there's so many different elements to it. It's not just about your result, it's about what your skills were like throughout or how you felt or yeah, all sorts, all different points of your performance. But then after thinking about what went well, I think about what didn't go so well or what I could have improved on or maybe what I should have done better. And there are things that then over the coming weeks or months or however long it may be before my next event, I can really focus on during my training. So if I, for example, think that my poor turns were a big influence on my final position, that's something that I know I need to work on. And literally writing it down makes such a big difference. And that's my main reflection I guess is just things that went well and things that didn't go well but also that's something that I've been thinking about with training as well again I used to be better at it than I am at the moment and I guess I'm better at it sometimes than others just depending on how much time I have.
But I try to reflect on my training sessions. So something I've started doing more recently, rather than just going out and doing what I've told myself I'm going to do, I really think about the purpose of the session. Like what am I going to gain from these particular intervals? Is it like improving my I guess power output, is it improving my like aerobic engine? Am I improving my skills? Am I like, what am I working on today? And am I in a good position? Am I feeling good too? And then reflecting after a session on whether I was able to achieve that did I feel good or not? But yeah what went well and what didn't go so well and how I felt during the session and just about the session in general. I think that really, it's important to look back sometimes, you might think that you haven't come very far but then you look back to a few months ago and you look at any notes you might have made in a training diary and you realise that, two months ago you were really struggling with a particular technical skill and today you managed to smash it so I think it's good for confidence boosts but yeah, it is another few minutes on the end of a training session so time permitting. It doesn't sound like long, but when you're rushing around it, it's something to think about.
Emily Evans: But there are things that you can add on. You don't need to make all these changes straight away, do you? If there's anyone listening that wants, thinks that some of these things are, like, a really good idea, you could just add one thing, and then the next thing, couldn't you could start thinking about it and then you could next, maybe the next month you could start writing it down and see if these things help because I think that's wonderful because all the things that you're talking about they're amazing because they help you become more in touch with yourself as well, don't they, and then you can start to know like whether whether, yeah, like how you're feeling is, like you said, going to be productive to your training, or whether you need to actually take some rest time, or you can just start to yeah, make your training the most effective it can be for you, and then you might start relating that to nutrition as well, and like how you feel, like maybe, nutritionally, what you've been, what you've been eating like during the day, if you're like training after work, is it sustaining your training and is it going to sustain your racing and that kind of thing, just make one change at a time because it'll become habit over a while, won't it? You'll just build in all these fantastic things and then eventually you'll be doing them all. All the time, if you want.
Holly Pye: Yeah, absolutely. And every training session is an opportunity to practice those things. You don't have to do them perfectly. And if you did do them perfectly, there would be no point racing for the next few years. You'd just be on top of your game and then you'd call it a day. It's all a good long learning experience. But on that note, what are your plans for the rest of the year? Have you got any kind of... Any races coming up or have you got any races coming up or anything new that you're doing? What does the rest of this year look like for you?
Emily Evans: I think the rest of this year might just be UK based for me. I am going to go to Biednol in September, beginning of September. It's a really beautiful location and Anna Little's putting on a race up there and that's going to be super fun. It's like a technical race. And then, what am I going to do? Oh, and then I think in October I'm going to head... To what's the one in Sorkham that we did last year? SUP THE CREEK! SUP THE CREEK! Yeah, because that's a fantastic two days of racing as well. Again, stunning location. And I think that's it that's going to be me. I might do a last minute trip to Thailand, but I don't think that's affordable for me this year. Yeah, we'll have to see really. But hopefully just like lots of SUP surfing as well. Yeah, hopefully just lots of getting on the water and yeah. Lots of training. All the fun stuff. Yeah. What about you? Are you heading to... Where are you going? Are you doing all of them?
Holly Pye: Yeah I really struggled with knowing what to do this year. I wasn't expecting to do anything at all really, I always wanted to go to Thailand but throughout the spring, my back wasn't getting any better, or it was getting better so slowly that I just thought racing this year was off the cards. And I chatted with my physio about it and she was like, "okay, let's just take this year back to base training basically, just do slow stuff, don't try and push it think about the future" and we chatted a lot about how, in other sports, they don't always push hard every year. Like the Olympics, for example, are once every four years. You spend several years building up to then do really well at a certain point and so there didn't have to be a mad rush to get back to full fitness as soon as possible. So that was my plan. And then, yeah. Suddenly I was doing okay again, like I wasn't really training, but then I came to Falmouth just to see where I lined up. Qualified for the sprints, which I wasn't expecting. I wasn't really sure whether to do it or not just because I'm not at full fitness. However, I have come to the conclusion that every race is an opportunity to learn and although I might not be at my best right now I might learn stuff that will help me in the future when I am at my best so I haven't made any solid plans yet as in like I haven't booked anything for any of the races but I'm really hoping to go to to Thailand that's my main one and then if I can make it to The Europeans and the worlds in the meantime, then great. But we'll see.
Emily Evans: Fantastic. Oh good!
Holly Pye: Yeah. But I'm excited to put everything into practice that we've spoken about today. Hopefully it'll make a big difference. .
Emily Evans: I hope you get a chance to go to all of them because you'll have a fantastic time and yeah, it is a fantastic opportunity to learn and it's amazing to be, given those opportunities to go and take part, you're such a strong paddler and actually to have recovered and to paddle, even to, if you, to paddle at Falmouth as well, was absolutely lovely to be on the water with you and I really enjoyed our draft train actually in the, in that really hard upwind endurance race, yeah, so I hope you get the chance to go to all the internationals.
Holly Pye: It was great racing with you in Falmouth and I'm really excited to see how the rest of your races go this year. So good luck in Beedon and in Solcombe and hopefully we'll catch up soon. So thanks for joining us today and thank you, enjoy the rest of your week.
Emily Evans: Thank you for having me. No problem!
Maddi Leblanc: Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Rise and Glide podcast, brought to you by Paddle Logger. We really hope you enjoyed this conversation with Emily and Holly, I know I really enjoyed listening to it, and I took away a lot of valuable lessons that I know for sure I'm going to be applying to my own training. We hope you can too, as well, and that you really enjoyed this conversation. Stay tuned next week for another episode that we cannot wait to share with you and have a fantastic time out on the water. Rising Glide is brought to you by the team behind Paddle Logger. Get more from your paddling with the Paddle Logger app. Find it on the Apple App Store today.
