"After the Sydney Olympics, I was mentally drained," four-time Olympian Steven Ferguson admits. "I'd trained so hard for so many years and I didn't do as well as I wanted and I was on a big downer. I decided to make some life changes and do things that made me happy and surf lifesaving was one of them."
Ferguson, who started his Olympic career as a swimmer before getting into kayaking, is also heading to Adelaide, with the 12-strong New Zealand team for the world teams component of the championships. Two days after returning from London, where he and Darryl Fitzgerald finished seventh in the K2 1000m, Ferguson was back in the pool, regaining his swimming skills.
"The Olympics is such a pinnacle event and such a high point, a lot of athletes struggle after that and get a bit depressed. They don't know what to look at or what to do and start having a few beers with mates - before they know it, they've put on 10kg and struggle to get back into it.
"For me, it's quite exciting - I'm getting straight back into it and changing my focus to a world championship with a great team environment. I feel like nothing's changed and I've carried my momentum through the Olympics to now."
Carrington's kayak coach Gordon Walker, a three-time Coast to Coast winner, reckons it's unlikely his star charge would've had time to have a "downer", even with the six weeks off training he gave her following the Games.
But he was more than happy to let her tackle the surf lifesaving worlds; after all, the multisport guru knows better than anyone about the benefits of cross training and keeping fresh.
"The great athletes are the ones that keep evolving but still have that simple, burning desire that once got them into stuff and competing as a kid," Walker explains.
"When you achieve a big goal, afterwards you feel pretty satisfied so the motivation to get up and do what you once did needs to be quite different.
"The reasons you got out of bed and went hard previously change. You can't really plan for that - it's just a matter of developing a new purpose as time passes."
Ultimately, however, the surf lifesaving dalliance comes down to one thing for Carrington, who only got back into serious kayaking training last week: fun. She hopes that will help sustain her through to another three-letter word; Rio.
"I've never been able to do anything internationally with surf lifesaving and it should be a lot of fun."