Great Shape After Winter Training
Written by Nick Dempsey | 22 March 2011
On Monday (21 March) I fly back to England from Brazil after probably the hardest, and best, winters’ training I’ve ever done.
Since Christmas I’ve divided my time between Miami and Buzios and had just one week back in England, which I spent unloading containers from Perth and Miami as well as attending the RYA Volvo Dinghy Show.
I’ve never done a winter like it where there have been so many back-to-back overseas trips but it had to be done and I feel in better shape now than I have ever been sailing wise. I really feel I’m at the stage where I have got to go and race and I can’t wait to race again at the Palma Regatta from 4 April.
The training this month has been different to what we had during our three-week stint over here in February. There has been a range of different conditions, whereas in February it got a bit like Groundhog Day. When the conditions are the same you can work on technique but you can only do so much of that before you start going backwards.
We’ve been able to sail every morning and afternoon in good, breezy conditions this time - hard work but great!
It was nice to have a week with Sarah and Thomas out here after Sarah announced her retirement from Olympic sailing. I took that week off, bar a handful of quick morning sessions just to keep the wheels turning, and we just completely chilled out, went to the beach and surfed, just a normal, lovely beach holiday. We have NEVER done that before!
I think every holiday we’ve ever been on we’ve ended up coming home early because Sarah especially always found it hard to relax if she knew she had stuff to do and when you are doing an Olympic campaign, there is always something you could be doing. Coming over to Brazil was a great chance for her to just relax and think about want she wanted to do next, although there were still times she thought she should be doing stuff!
I then came back to England with them for a week. It was great to launch the 2011 National Windsurfing Week at the RYA Volvo Dinghy Show. National Windsurfing Week takes place all over the country between 1-8 May. On May 1 there is the Windsurfing 4 Cancer Research (W4CR) charity ‘Sunrise Sunset’ challenge where people windsurf for as long as possible at special W4CR events. I’ll be out on the water at Weymouth taking part in the challenge, hopefully managing to sail for 10-12 hours.
I’m looking forward to spending a week at home before heading out to Palma on 30 March. I do miss home and I just need to refresh a little bit. I’ve done enough sailing to know I’m in pretty good shape without having to do the whole Palma training camp.
Some aspects of my normal training routine have had to give while I’ve been in Brazil, like cycling, and light wind stuff, but the value of the time on the water with really high quality training partners has been worth it.
After Palma I’ll be back to my more traditional programme of fitness in the morning, sailing in the afternoon instead of just sailing, sailing.