Woo Hoo!

I was brave and followed through with my decision to race in the Van Dusan today. I had resigned myself to falling in and just wanted to do the race for experience. In the meantime Mark had been talking me up and telling everyone that I was going to blitz the field. No pressure. I was handicapped according to my last race (time of 1hr12min) and was due to start at 9:18am. The start went well and I felt good almost straight away. I got into a rhythm early and was only a couple of hundred metres into it when this 'mantra' came into my head. "Right here, right now" which I kept chanting over in my head (along with "Get Shakey" a song that Clayton now likes and has a good beat to paddle with, and I couldn't get out of my head).

Anyway, the "Right here, right now" stood for concentrating only on myself. Everything else is out of my control. Boats may come, wind may come, but I'll just deal with that when it happens. It's useless trying to predict (and worry) about what may or may not happen, it's best to just focus on MY paddling right here and right now. When I paddle and particularly race I tend to think about too many other things - like what other paddlers are doing, if anyone is coming up behind me, if I'll come across some wash from other kayaks or boats, if it will be windy and choppy at the turn around point, etc. For the whole race I just focused on myself and didn't worry (or think) about anthing or anyone else. I was so "In the Zone". It was hard to maintain for the whole 11km, but I did it. Of course other thoughts popped in, like "I might actually win this", but I tried to stop them as best I could.

I did win (by about 2 minutes) so Mark was right. I finished in 1:07 (hr:min) with an average speed of 10.15km/hr which I was very happy with, but I was most happy about the fact that I stayed upright the whole way. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. I'm so glad I had the guts to give it a go. And now I'm even tempted to race a K1 at state. We'll see.