My Weekend

So while all the excitement of Busso was going on over the weekend, I happened to get up to a little bit of racing myself. No my racing wasn't an Ironman, or even triathlon related, but it was pretty solid in its own way. This is what I was doing:

King of the Cut

24km of racing a stand up paddle board downwind. To put that in context is took me about 2 and a half hours. Ironman it is not, but not exactly a walk in the park either. Something a little different I guess you could say.

It would accurate to say that my day wasn't exactly earth shattering, I came about 42 in the field of 71, about 40 minutes behind the winner. However, taking part in the race on the weekend wasn't really about winning for me, but rather taking on a challenge and completing it.

Last time I saw my Cardiologist, Dr Stobie, he said it was okay for me to race, but suggested I try something where I had no expectation on an outcome, an event where I could just enjoy the challenge of competing. That is pretty much what the race on the weekend was about.

Most of my training over the last couple of months has been targeted at simply completing this race. I am not sure how well the linked video above conveys it, but paddling a stand up paddle board in a rough ocean is not that easy. Getting ready to do this race has been a challenge both in terms of physical fitness and in paddling ability. I have plenty of improvement that I can do, but for me simply getting to the point where I was able to start and finish the race has been a real success. It has been a challenge that I have thoroughly enjoyed while also giving me a chance to do something a bit different.

Obviously I would like to get better at this, my personality is not one that copes with average very well, and hopefully this is a skill that I improve with time. But for now I am going to be satisfied with the simple joy of taking on a challenge and completing it.