I'm officially training full time

Last Friday, I wrote my last highschool exam, officially marking the beginning of my full-time sailing campaign. Unfortunately, this exam also happened to be on the same day as day one of the Laser Pacific Coast Championships being held at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club.  Although I was disappointed that I would miss the first day of the regatta, it would have taken a lot more than that to diminish my excitement for the road ahead.

The second day of the Pacific Coast Championship (My first day) was a bit of an anticlimax. I came out and made a series of mistakes that I have spent the last 8 months working with my coaches to train myself not to do. There are very few things that are more frustrating than doing the exact opposite from what I have trained, realizing that I made a mistake- and then doing the exact same thing in the next race. After the racing, I took some time, and wrote down all of the things that I had done incorrectly that day. Then, I spend some time visualizing myself doing these same things, except, doing them right. Whatever I did must have worked. The next day, I successfully executed my training and won all three races by a comfortable margin. I ended up finishing the regatta in 15th, which isn’t all that bad, considering that I missed four of the ten races. Congratulations to Graham Harney for the regatta win!

The morning after the Pacific Coast Championship, I flew out to Toronto, where I am now, to begin a three-week training block. For the first two weeks of this training block, we are training in Toronto harbour with the focus on learning the trends of the venue. Although I am not personally competing at this venue, we are training here to help one of my training partners prepare for the Pan American games that will be held here in Toronto. Toronto harbour is one of the most complex venues that I have sailed in, making it more difficult to learn, but also that much more rewarding when you start to spot the trends. It’s been interesting to see how much thought the top sailors put into understanding all of the intricacies of a venue and I have learned lots of skills that I will be able to apply when I am preparing for my peak event, the Canadian Youth Nationals held in Kingston in August.

This weekend, I am competing in the Laser Great Lakes Championships. All of the wind forecasts that I have seen are calling for over 25 Knots, so this is shaping up to be an epic regatta! Check back next week to find out how it went, or follow my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/karimlasersailing. 

Thanks for reading and until next week,

Fillah