Growing up as a paddling prodigy in North Carolina, Evy Leibfarth assumed that in order to become a champion athlete, she had to focus on her sport 24/7. Thanks to her intense determination (and major talent), success came quickly: With a mother who was a paddling instructor and a father who was a slalom racer, Leibfarth joined the professional circuit at just 12 years old, racing in both the canoe and kayak. By 14, she was the top-ranked female paddler in the country. The following year, she became the youngest-ever World Cup medalist in her sport.
But along the way, she realized that what might seem like distractions are actually essential to blowing her competitors, well, out of the water.
“I feel like it’s really healthy to have things outside of [your sport] to focus on, so that when you’re being an athlete, you can do it with full joy and full energy,” says Leibfarth, now 20 and sponsored by Red Bull. Today, even while she’s traveling to races and training camps, she’s completing school work (with hopes to major in biology) and painting in her off time.
Well+Good caught up with Leibfarth from Paris, where she’s getting ready for the Olympics as the first-ever U.S. woman to qualify for the Games in three different canoe/kayaking events: women’s canoe, women’s kayak, and women’s extreme slalom. She gave us the scoop on her five favorite “distractions” that fuel her record-breaking successes.
1. She does other sports
During intense training blocks, Leibfarth typically takes one full rest day off from training every week. But “rest” for this athlete means something different than what it might for most of us.
“That’s the time when I get to go to the beach and surf or do another sport,” she says. Sometimes that includes running or yoga to keep moving, but in different ways. For her, a day off can feel even more necessary for her soul than her body.
“It’s so nice to have that mental break and reset for the next week, to come back reinvigorated,” she says. “It’s really easy to get burnt out if you don’t take time to do other things.”
2. She takes advantage of travel opportunities to explore
Leibfarth’s training and racing schedule has filled her passport with more stamps than most passports of people twice her age. Whenever she’s got a pocket of time to herself, she makes sure to soak up what each place has to offer.
“I love exploring cities that I’m in,” she says. In Paris, that’s included visiting multiple vintage shops, where she’s picked up a bunch of ’90s and early 2000s shirts.
3. Brunch takes top priority
No matter where in the world she is, Leibfarth uses a rest day to refuel not only physically, but socially. “Every single off day, I get my friends, go to brunch,” she says.
Her go-to order is an egg sandwich with some yogurt and coffee, and she’s been exploring the cafe scene while in Paris. Leibfarth considers it self-care to relax with friends, “talking about things other than training,” she says. Fortunately, two of her best friends, who are each competing for their home countries, are currently right nearby in the Olympic Village, and some other friends from home are flying over to watch her race—and, yes, have brunch together.
4. She paints and draws
Another way that Leibfarth relaxes is by painting. “I feel like I can really get in the zone almost the same way that I do when I’m paddling,” she says. “I feel like my brain just kind of turns off and I’m able to just be in the moment—I paint for like 7 hours and not realize that it’s been more than 10 minutes.”
She mostly creates portraits with oil paints, but is working to branch out more; one of her recent favorites is a painting of her friend going down the Tomatita waterfall in Chile.
Another one of her go-to mental reset strategies is journaling, which for her is another chance to create art. “I try to do a page every couple of days,” she says. “I’ll draw something that happens, and then just write about my day around it.”
5. She keeps paddling—but for fun
At the end of the day, paddling is Leibfarth’s first love. So while it might seem surprising, one of her all-time favorite ways to decompress from training is to … go paddling. “All of our training happens on artificial rivers,” she explains. So when she’s at training camps in beautiful parts of the world, she can’t help but take advantage of the nature on offer.
“We did a training camp in New Zealand this year, [and] there’s a really cool river with some little waterfalls a two-hour drive away,” she says. “So we go out there and instead of training for racing, we just get to paddle fun rapids.”
And at the end of each season, she always takes a week or two off from training to take a paddling trip for fun, without any of the pressure of preparing for races. “It’s a good reset, even though I’m still paddling,” she says.
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