I have  finished my travelling for now after arriving in Augsburg last week, we have settled into our apartment that will be our base for the next few months. It is nice to be able to unpack and start to get in to more of a normal routine.

Augsburg Eiskanal

We have travelled 6,000kms in the last month so it is also nice to be out of the car.

My injury problems are starting to clear up, my shoulder has been responding well to the copious amount of exercises that I have been doing for it but I decided not to race in Merano this weekend as I do not want to push it that hard yet. Christian and Kate are going to be racing along with the Under 23 team. The link to the race website is here.

The water levels here in Augsburg have meant that the main channel, the “Eiskanal” had not been running for a while. The whole of Europe is going through a bit of a drought at the moment and so it was a nice change when it started raining two days ago and there was enough water in the river to turn on the Eiskanal. Hopefully this will continue although there is still excellent training here regardless and I am going to be doing a lot of paddling in the next few months (shoulder permitting) and I might even be able to get some of the moves on this course, which I find particularly challenging due to the narrowness of the course and the variability in the water.

The whitewater has just come back on at the Penrith Course after a two week break for winter and today was my first session on the course since I dislocated my shoulder about 10 months ago.

Unsurprisingly I did not feel fantastic! You forget how physical and specific slalom paddling can be.

I knew I was in for a tough session when I found it hard going walking back up to the top (as the conveyor belt wasn’t working). It was nice to be back out there again and hopefully next time it won’t be quite so hard.

The Canoe Slalom Worlds are on this week and I am looking forward to seeing the Aussies do well.

Still no news on who is going to be running Australia after our election although I was happy to see that David Bradbury scraped home to hold onto Penrith. In the Senate the party I voted for was way out of it but under the strange Australian voting system, my vote then went to the Australian Sex Party which I thought was hilarious.

I have been down at the AIS for the last week working on strength training. The facilities here are absolutely amazing.

The other thing that I find unique and refreshing here is the amount of support that is available to you. I can speak to Strength and Conditioning, physiology and recovery specialists in a morning of training.

It is also inspirational to see all the world class athletes training. You pretend not to care but when you see a “big name” you can’t help but stop and stare!

It is times like these when you wish that the Slalom program could be in Canberra and that we could have this all the time but then I suppose it might not be as special to experience it.

I am here for another week before resuming “normal service” up in Penrith. This will mean being able to get back on the Whitewater which is really what all this training is for.

The Slalom Team will be competing at the Slalom Worlds from the 9-12 September and you can follow their progress here. I am sure there will be some great Aussie results.