Welcome to the latest adventure at TC SURFSKI. I’ve decided to launch a Podcast series centered around achieving Peak Paddle Performance. I know many of us are on a constant journey to eek out that next bump in paddle performance, whether it be catching more runs, improving your flat water time trial speeds, or just getting across the line in front of your nemesis. Regardless, the journey is what makes paddling so exciting and keeps us constantly searching for more
- Forward stroke technique
- The Zen of Downwind Paddling
- What a day in the life of the world’s best looks like
- Optimal strength and conditioning strategies and how they help us improve
- Race day strategies
- Finding the optimal diet and nutrition strategy that works for you
- Taking advantage of the most effective, safe, and proven supplements
- Whatever else our fascinating guests want to share…..
In this first episode, its all me as I try to give a complete background on myself to set the stage for where I’m coming from and what my experiences have been. It is on one hand an interesting story, and on the other, probably a pretty common theme for many of us. Some little known facts – I grew up in Kodiak, Alaska, famous for notoriously rough, cold, and deadly water.. I don’t know of any surfski paddling up there, but I can only imagine some of the raging downwind runs that could be had with the all the right safety gear in hand. This is probably where my obsession with waves all began! Here is a link to Season 12 of the Deadliest Catch, a blockbuster Discovery Series show that sparked the obsession with Alaska. My neighbor growing up on Kodiak owned the Cornelia Marie which has been one of the main boats featured on the series.
Below are just a few of the highlights and many great references to items I cover in this introductory podcast
- Several years removed from Alaska and actually living around water that you can swim in, I got the bug for triathlon and learned to swim forever with minimal effort using the Total Immersion approach
- Once comfortable in the water and burned out on traditional triathlon, it was time to get my first surfski and spend my days falling into the water
- From my vegan days, one of the best gourmet Vegan cookbooks I’ve ever seen by Tal Ronen. If you’re willing to put in a little work and want to experience unbelievable animal free flavor, check out this book
- Zsolt Szadovszki was a big inspiration for me at a pivotal point when I transitioned from high carb/vegan to low carb paleo. More recently Zsolt gave me some tough love coaching pointing out how poor my paddling posture looked, but at the same time, making me believe I had a lot more untapped potential to go faster. If you’re fortunate enough to end up in Hawaii, connect with Zsolt for some lessons
- As I transitioned into very low carb and began preparations for Molokai, I read and reread all of the very thorough blog posts on Peter Attia’s blog. Peter is a legend in the low carb endurance performance arena and a brilliant doctor and self experimenter who has pushed the envelope and opened a lot of minds to a new way of looking at low carbohydrate performance. Here is a link to the guys that were instrumental in inspiring Peter
- With the coldest winter on record leading up to my first Molokai, I couldn’t have done it without training on the Kayak Speedstroke Pro
- A well known surfski paddler in New Zealand, Simon Longdill, turned me on to Phil Maffetone’s Big Book of Training. Phil was way ahead of his time and has now become legendary in the training approach he used to help Mark Allen own the Ironman podium for several years
- Another technique introduced by Phil was nasal breathing. I read more about this on John Douillard’s blog and it turns out I was an early adopter of something gaining a lot of traction right now with the release of Patrick McKeown’s book. And if you decide to give this a try, and can’t recommend enough the Turbine as a significant aid to nasal breathing, this thing is incredible!
- The last few months I’ve been drinking from the firehose with a wealth of information and inspiration from the following podcasts : Tim Ferriss, Ben Greenfield, Rhonda Patrick, and Power Athlete, to name a few
That’s probably enough to keep you occupied for now… lots more to come, so make sure you subscribe to the Podcast and stay tuned, it’s going to be an exciting season for sure.
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