Mary's Goals and Long Distance Race

You're right about the goals, I haven't written any down in a while.

Long-term goal- I think I'm okay at this weight, but I would really love to get some muscle that you can see in my abs. I think I'm at a point where you might start to see some muscle if I started lifting. I'm going to start small though-

Goal #1- Run at least one time this week. (It's been a while and I'm getting lazy)

Goal #2- Do push ups 2x this week. We're supposed to be able to do 3 sets of 20 (I think, Joanna correct me if I'm wrong) according to the paddling coach, Dan.

Goal #3- Pullups after practice 1x this week. Again, I've been lazy, but I can at least do it one time this week.

Darn it, now I really have to do these things.

Will report back on these goals later.

This weekend was my first real long-distance race. (With Changes). 24 miles. It was pretty incredible. It started at Kailua Beach and ended in Waikiki. We changed out several times over the course, and overall it took about 4 hours. All I know is that our other Kailua team had a time of 3:19 and they got in way before we did. It was absolutely beautiful on the escort boat, but I was so freaking nervous every time we had to jump out of the boat and change in. I was so nervous that I wasn't going to be able to get into the canoe. It was pretty scary because there were actually waves and it never looked like our steerswoman was going to get near enough to us. Of course every time she would end up heading right past us exactly in the right spot. It was definitely a difficult race, there was not a whole lot of waves and it was hot out. Usually the waves give you something to think about, so you don't have a whole lot of time to think about how much paddling hurts after the first hour. There was a couple of stretches where it was pretty smooth and you just felt like you weren't moving. A lot of the race was a challenge to mentally stick with it. I kept thinking about our trip on the Makani Olu, Myia, when we went around Rabbit Island, and were still going past it, and still going past it.... The land just didn't seem to move very fast. I did what I do when we did our long distance runs and picked out spots on the land that we had to get to and just focused on those spots.

Thank God Derek was the coach in our escort boat, he was great. Mike was with the first string boat. Dan went with Joanna's crew. In our boat was Ananda, me, Mele, Stephanie, Sheila, Leyla, and then three girls I don't know as well- Mehana (different from the Mehana from regatta season), Leona, and Angie. Oh, and then Christie (Derek's wife) was steering. She steered the whole thing, it was really cool. She had a bladder with her with water and some gatorade and a couple of power bars and some gum in the back of the canoe with her. I guess she must have taken a few quick breaks.

Leyla had an underwater camera and she says she's going to put some of the pictures on myspace. When she does I'll steal some and put them on this blog.