I am Adam Van Koeverden and iRun to paddle faster
Name: Adam van Koeverden
Age: 27
Occupation: Olympic champion kayaker
Birthplace: Oakville, ON
Resides: Toronto, ON
World-record holder Adam van Koeverden has been running long before he ever picked up a paddle and intends to continue long after he’s retired from international competition. And when he runs, he runs hard. And also pretty fast for a guy who, out of necessity, doesn’t exactly have a runner’s build. So if you’re running in Algonquin Park or on the streets of Toronto and you hear approaching footsteps, you just might be on the verge of being passed by a three-time Olympic medallist.
Why do I like running? Because it’s there, I suppose. Because it’s within my grasp. The same reason why I like doing everything that I do that’s active: mountain-biking, kayaking, running, cross-country skiing. Because it’s not going to get done if you don’t do it.
I’ve been a runner longer than I’ve been a kayaker. I ran cross-country in 1994 in elementary school. But I really wasn’t an athlete until I was 13 or 14. I was a pretty lazy kid. At a certain point in my life, I decided I wasn’t being productive and all that time spent in front of the television was a waste and I wanted to change that.
I fell into kayaking. Right away, I recognized that all the good kayakers in the world and all the good canoers at my club and everybody I was training with were running quite a bit. You can’t be on the water all the time as a kayaker with the weather in Canada; running in the winter is a lot easier than breaking the ice to be in your kayak. I became a serious runner the day I became a serious kayaker.
I remember doing runs in the slush with our coach at the time, Larry Cain, who was an Olympic champion in 1984. This guy’s a legend in my sport, both on and off the water. This is the kind of guy who could run a 10k in 33 minutes and then go bench press 225 pounds 50 times. I’m not even exaggerating. The guy was the fittest guy I’d ever met and running was a big part of his life. I learned how to run with him. I learned how to run hard with him.
When I was in high school, I was running three times a week at school, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. And Tuesdays, on my day off from running, I was doing track workouts at another high school. Fridays, I was running 12k in the morning at school and then I was down at the canoe club running with them, another 14 or 15 kilometres at night. And then I would do another one on the weekend because I liked it so much. That’s in addition to all the weight training and kayaking I was doing. Running five times in five days through the week and then a weekend run. Running twice on Fridays was pretty killer, as much as 10k in the morning and 18k at night or something like that.
I’m glad I’m not doing it any more because it’s a lot of kilometres for a guy my weight. But it made me tough. It made me really tough. This was when I was 15 or 16 years old and just plugging away at the kilometres. Racing wasn’t important to me. I would do 5k races just to see how many people I could beat in my age class.
I was touching the 17-minute mark for a 5k. For someone who was 185 pounds, that’s pretty good. I was better at cross-country. I remember lining up in cross-country in high school, looking over and thinking, “These guys are 140.” I was pushing 190.
I still love running and I still run often. I went for a run in Central Park recently when I was in New York for an interview. That was the first time I’d run in Central Park and it was amazing. What a great place to run. I ran for 70 minutes. That’s longer than I usually go but I was looking around and enjoying it.
Whenever I see somebody in front of me, it doesn’t matter how far away they are, I just love chasing them down. I don’t care how fast they are, I want to get in front of them and pass them.
Right now, especially in the fall and winter and spring, it’s part of my training program. But it used to be a bigger part. I’ve isolated that as something that’s probably waned too much in the last couple of seasons. I’m interested in getting it back as a rudimentary part of my program, so I’m not fitting in runs when I can. That’s generally what I’ve been doing for the past few years.
It’s the best aerobic training and the most accessible aerobic training. It might be six 1k efforts, or 10 400 metre efforts or a steady 60 minutes or running on a hill. We do all sorts of stuff. I used to do a lot of track workouts, one or two a week during the off-season. We couple that with all sorts of different kinds of training. It’s always variable. A hard workout’s a hard workout. Anytime your lungs are burning and you’re sweating, you’re going to see a benefit.
I finished the race season in August. We were only running once or twice a week. When I was off training somewhere, I’d run more often because I don’t have other things to do. When I’m in Sweden for three weeks, why not go for a run because I have the time, and there’s a ski hill I saw on the drive in that I’d really like to see how long it takes to get up.
My new favourite place to run is down mountains on scree. But they’re not really that available. Scree running is so cool. You run down the face, it’s like a 45-degree incline. It’s just the accumulated debris from the mountain eroding. So it’s just like pebbles or like parking lot stones. It’s like a metre and a half or two metres deep. You run down the mountain full blast. As long as you’re hitting heel first, you don’t fall on your face. It’s so steep you can’t even walk back up. You bomb down. You get like a thousand vertical feet in five minutes.
I like to run anywhere. Algonquin Park is awesome. Central Park is one of my new favourites. Anywhere in the woods. I went running once in Beijing, it was like 4k. It was like five or six days away from my first race. I just wanted to make sure my legs were still in good shape.
Having the opportunity to run with guys like Simon Whitfield and other triathletes, that’s cool. Just to be able to share that with somebody who’s so good at it. I’m not as fast as him, obviously. But we can run together and catch up.
I will always be a runner. Even if I go a year without training in my kayak, at some point in my life. Running is just so accessible, I’ll always do it. It doesn’t matter where I go, I pack a pair of running shoes. Even if I’m going somewhere for a night, well what if I wake up and want to go for a run? I can’t leave these behind. I’ll always enjoy it and I’ll always live somewhere close to trails and I can always just get on to the trail and give ’er in the trees for a few minutes.
The fastest half-marathon I did was a sub-1:18 and I wanted to die afterward. I love being able to tell people I did a 1:18 half-marathon, but it didn’t feel good. It friggin’ hurt.
I don’t want to do a marathon until I’m sure I can crack three hours. I just don’t want to run for three-and-a-half hours. I’d much rather run fast and be dead. But I’ll have to lose some weight. Towards the end of a half-marathon, it’s starting to hurt a lot in my joints. A 2:45 marathon would be awesome. I’d love to be able to run 2:50. I think that’s within my grasp if I get down to like 170 to 175 weight category. But right now, I’m pushing 200 and it’s not happening. Every step is just too much.
My avidness for running waxes and wanes throughout the year depending on what my other priorities are. But it’s always there. And I always look forward to my next run. I could go on at length about the feeling you get after a run and the high that you feel and the sense of accomplishment that you get for days after. Even if you just did a short one, you just have something to reassure yourself that you’re doing what you should be doing and getting the most out of your day.
I’m a big believer in maximizing one’s day and making sure that from dawn to dusk, you are being productive. I can’t think of anything more productive than exercise. In terms of your health and overall enjoyment of life, I don’t think there’s a better investment.
I look at all of these problems in the financial markets right now, and it sounds like everybody feels it’s a total catastrophe and it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened. From my perspective, the things that are worth enjoying are free. Running shoes aren’t free, but it doesn’t cost anything to get out there and go for a run.
---
credits: http://irun.ca/issues/article.php?id=132&intIssueID=8
