Martin Marinov on defining a real target, planning long enough in advance, tapering properly, and avoiding race-week decisions that belong in the bin.
Originally published on Medium, now republished here as the canonical Paddle Smarter version.
What counts as a “big race”? For a handful of paddlers, it is an Olympic final. For everyone else, the answer is more personal, but Martin’s point is the same: every athlete should have at least one proper target each season.
A target changes behaviour. It makes training decisions sharper, turns rough-weather excuses into less convincing theatre, and gives structure to the season instead of leaving the year to drift.
When athletes know which race matters most, they are more likely to:
Without a target, training tends to flatten out into something average. Competitive paddling rewards direction, not vague good intentions.
Martin is clear that major goals demand long-term planning. If your long-term aim is years away, the early years should deal with the changes that take time:
Those are not details to bolt on at the last minute. If you need a major technical change or a serious strength block, it has to happen early enough that the rest of the programme can stabilise around it.
One of the most useful ideas in the original article is psychological rather than physiological: by the time the main race arrives, most athletes still feel they could use more time.
That feeling is normal. Improvement is open-ended. There is always another area to sharpen.
The job before a target race is not to become magically complete. It is to accept your current level, maximise your current potential, and race honestly from there.
For the last few weeks before the main competition, Martin recommends lowering training volume while keeping intensity and quality intact. That balance matters.
If you simply stop working, you might feel rested but not ready to race. If you keep too much volume, you arrive tired.
The point of the taper is to freshen the athlete without blunting the work already built. That is why the final stretch should feel controlled rather than chaotic.
As the main race approaches, routine becomes useful:
Martin’s advice here is excellent because it is so unflashy: do not experiment during your main competition. If it has not been tested in training, race week is not the time to pretend otherwise.
Reducing training volume also reduces energy demand. Athletes often forget this and keep eating like they are still in the heaviest block of the year.
The adjustment should mirror the training:
That matters for everyone, and Martin notes it can be especially important for athletes who are sensitive to small changes in body mass heading into competition.
Getting ready for a big race is less about finding a magical final-week trick and more about doing a long list of ordinary things properly:
That is not glamorous. It is simply how athletes give their best work a chance to appear on the right day.