December 10, 2009
Me and Gary broke out our dusty racing kayaks and finally headed out to Juan de Fuca Strait after an 8 month break. Thank god he was into some interval training and more of a race pace – I finally got my heart rate up. Its been a year and a half since I stopped training with Hicham’s Ladies at Oak Bay Track and Club Mud where we trained on the many rain forest trails around the peninsula. The cardio workouts were so textured and flowing – breath in, breath out…
I knew something was different about this paddle as soon as I saw Gary warming up – he looked more serious, more focused and there was a sense of urgency about getting started. We started with a warm up towards the West Bay and out into the Strait.
The tippy race kayak made me a bit nervous as we headed into the choppier strait with the cold water and no thermal protection. Soon we were doing short sprints as float planes landed near by and Great Blue Herons fished off of the rocks. Across the way a freighter was loading large cruisers – probably from people touring the coast from Asia or Europe. One new one boat built in Seattle was being shipped to Hong Kong.
As a Helijet flew over head just a hundred feet up I thought about what the people on board thought about us – seeing us kayaking – were they business professionals or government ministers dreaming of paddling freedom and encounters with nature or perhaps they’re just wanting to move their bodies in the fresh and spacious Pacific air?
More intervals and sprints on the way back to the Ocean River Sports dock. It was a cold morning – we couldn’t use the hose to clean our boats at the end – but it was so good to be in the sun and to train with another…athlete…
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