I Did It!!!

I am officially an athlete stud. Or as my coworker just told me, I'm really Kama'aina now.

Yesterday I paddled the 41 miles across the Molokai Channel (that's open ocean folks!) with nine teammates. We completed it in 6 hours and 46 minutes. And we rocked it!

It was one of the absolute best experiences of my life. I can't exactly put it into words or put my finger on what was so spectacular about it but it was terrific. And fun! Crazy to think that extreme physical activity and pain could be fun but it was. I had a blast out there.

So here are all the details for those of you who want to know or have nothing to do at work today....

I caught a 6:45 AM(!) flight to Molokai on a little puddle jumper plane on Saturday morning. I was super bummed to have to get up that early and spend my entire day on Molokai doing nothing. But whatever. That's how it goes. And actually, it was great. I ended up getting a terrific breakfast at the Molokai Lodge with three of the "open women" on my team (they're the advanced girls). They were super cool to me and very supportive of my first long distance race (everyone else on my team had already done two similar style races. I did not get to do them. Visit my previous posts for the details). Much of paddling for me is the social aspect and these three girls really made me feel welcome and 'loved' in a way I don't always find in paddling. So my Molokai weekend started off very strong.

We stayed in tiny condo units on the very far west side of the island and pretty much did nothing all day. I napped a bit, walked the beach, watched my local teammates pick opii off the rocks, swam in the pool a bit and napped a bit more. Pretty boring actually. But let me tell you, Molokai is gorgeous. And we were on the dry side. At night we all cooked a massive spagetti dinner together, ate in a circle on the grass like we were in grade school and laughed and had fun. Then we had a team meeting, I burst into tears because I was so nervous, and we were in bed by 8:30.

The crying actually helped a lot. I think it let me get my nervous energy out that had been building for weeks. So on Sunday morning at 5am when we left the condos in a shuttle bus, I was ready to go. And everything else after that just got better and better. We were some of the first to arrive at the beach with 70 canoes around and the sun rising. We had great energy and gave hugs all around. I took a few picture of the experience on a digital camera so I'll have to post those later. Every race always starts with a Hawaiian prayer and for the first time I got teary. And then they were off.

As I mentioned before, each team as 10 paddlers. The canoe holds six. So four girls ride on the escort boat (think nice fishing boat) at all times. We take turns rotating in an out of the boat. Each person paddles about 40 minutes at a time and then rests for 20 minutes or so. We did about 12 "changes" throughout the race and I personally did about seven. I started the race in the escort boat but got to finish in the canoe which meant I got to cross the finish line.

Anyhow, there's not much else to tell you. We left Molokai and could barely see Oahu. But we got closer and closer and the whole time I knew we could do it. It was definitely a situation where I hit my exhaustion point a few times and had to overcome it. I never thought I was one who would particularly persevere in a physical activity but I proved that I am. If I was a runner I might try a marathon next!

Oh, I should admit that I hurt myself pretty good. My body hurts all over today. My entire right leg is banged and bruised. My left knee is super sore. And my mind is still complete mush. But I am one of only 700 women who get to do this experience every year. So I'm psyched.