Mariann Saether is on fire. After swooping in and grabbing gold at her first-ever Sickline race in 2015, we caught up with Saether and learned there’s way more to this powerhouse than paddling. At 35, Saether is a full-time teacher, a writer, an academic and more, on top of being a pro athlete. Here’s how she makes it all happen.
GET FIT
Saether attributes her success at the 2015 Sickline Race to a simple fact: “Being fitter than ever before.” Getting to that point was no easy feat, but Saether seems to see athletics the way most of us see breathing—a basic part of everyday life. Growing up in Otta, Norway, she played handball, rode horses, performed in dance shows and musicals, did synchronized swimming, snowboarding and, finally, baton twirling. “It’s a Norwegian thing,” she says with a laugh.
On top of paddling every single day, leading up to Sickline Saether hit the strength training hard. “Circuit training, weight lifting, push- ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, squats—it all makes a difference when I’m on the water,” she says. Rounding it out was her routine of running, yoga, on-water interval training and slalom practice.
STAY CENTERED
“Before a competition I can’t really talk to people. I need to be really focused on myself and contain my energy,” Saether says. The habit got her into a bit of trouble when she first started competing in the U.S.—as others chatted in the eddy and cheered each other on, Mariann sat quietly on the sidelines. They thought she seemed too serious, even unfriendly. As time went on, they learned it’s just how she needs to prepare. As others throw high fives, Saether quietly imagines every stroke of the course. “I think about where to pull and where to relax, and I make a plan B—if I fuck up that move, what am I going to do?” she says.
“It’s the same whether it’s a race or just running the river. At a big rapid I don’t just walk up to my kayak and jump in and go. I always take a minute to visualize.”
FIND BALANCE
“When I started kayaking it felt like people just started seeing me as ‘the kayaking girl,’” says Saether. But there’s much more to her life than that. In her nine years of post-secondary education, Saether has earned a degree in medieval history, studied philosophy, psychology, Norwegian, English and Spanish. “I think maybe the next phase of my life has started, where I’m not satisfied with just being a kayaker for the rest of my life,” she says. This year Saether is teaching history, science and Norwegian classes to 16- to 19-year-old students, and she hopes to one day make her living as a writer.
REMEMBER WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT
“When I go out on the river, it’s a place to breathe and it’s a place to relax and it’s a place to forget about all the normal real-world stuff. It gives me a chance to reenergize. It’s an inner thing—I just have to do it,” Saether says. Though she loves other sports, Saether says nothing compares to the bliss she feels when she’s paddling.
“There’s no other time my mind is completely blank. Especially when I run a big rapid—it blacks out everything else. When I was heading in to the crux of the Sickline course I could hear the crowd start cheering and yelling and whooping, but as soon as I entered the whitewater part, I heard zero. Nothing. In a way it’s meditation—a way of kick-starting the brain. It gives me a lot of energy. It gives me a lot of peace.”
This article originally appeared in Rapid Spring 2016 issue.
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