Firsts

Total Newbie...again!

Beauties as fan club! Thanks, gals!

Trying to come in with respect, holding off 6th!

Post race, talking story...spent!

First off, I want to send big thanks to my nephew, Marcus, USMC serving a tour in Afghanistan for serving our great country because, if not for warriors like him, we could not be having these fun events.

There are not many times in life at this age where I'm going to have a first time experience, athletically speaking. Ask anyone who really knows me, I'm a bit set in my ways. Stop laughing now. When I first found out about this SUP race, Gulf Coast SUP Championships, I wanted to sign up. I haven't been able to race any tri's for a full year now so, being as competitive as I am, I wanted to do something.....anything! Even if it wasn't a competitive thing that I might excel at, I don't care! I have grown to love SUP'ing and the lifestyle that comes with it..... think, beach bum! I wish I was a beach bum but, unfortunately, I have a stressful day job. Makes this event just more fun! How better to end a stressful week than this! We show up to the beach and I felt like I walked on to one of the many beaches we've been to in Hawaii....really! They had a live band playing really good Island music which was awesome. Anyway, race time came around and I was more nervous than I have been for a really long time, even more than either of the Kona IM races! Crazy and I don't know why I was nervous, this is our teritary, fun sport, after all. Well, it's 3.5 miles of paddling and luckily, we had absolutely perfect conditions! The horn goes off and I go straight to the back - I don't want to ram into anyone with my board and piss anyone off! Having never done this before, I'm not sure of the etiquette involved so I get in the back an mind my manners til the first bouy. The course is a huge triange, basically. The far bouy is way off shore! I got off ok, well in the back and stayed up the whole way, which was one of my goals. Had a pod of dolphins guiding us out the to off shore turn bouy and that calmed me a bit. The sea breeze began to kick in just a touch prior to the off shore turn bouy and the water chopped up a bit there but when we turned that buoy it was hot, hot, hot!! Paddling downwind is a different being altogether! Get around the scary off shore buoy and now we are looking at land, thank God! Balance is tested a bit here but rhythm comes pretty easily. Got word from a boat following the gal in front of me that she was in 5th.....REALLY??? I had no competitive thoughts about this event, I just wanted to do it and finish in one piece. Now, I find out I'm sitting 6th, well, you can just imagine what happens in my head. No more shaking knees, no more worrying about falling off and making an ass of myself, I'm now focusing on top 5! Crazy how that happens. The last mile or so got really hard. I was shocked how tired my legs were! I was even with the gal in 4th for the longest time but she had a better line on the last turn buoy and I couldn't catch her. The finish worked like this - you leave your board on the beach front and run up about 50 meters of soft sand to the finish. Well, being the jogger that I've had to be here lately, I have no sprint at all so but I forgot about being injured and ran up the beach with my trusty paddle in hand for my fifth place female finish - way more than anything I expected or trained for!! I had some great friends there to watch and I appreciate you guys! Thanks so much, it really meant a lot to me to spend this time with ya'll! I'll just let the photos and videos say the rest cuz I'm tired! The Dane has Mad Beach Tri tomorrow so he was my super photog/vidoeg for today. Enjoy!
Cheers