The journey begins

By jim on Monday, May 3, 2010 - Related Tags:- dream, westley

My 'real' paddler career started after doing a freebie surf session with Jim Walker.  He pushed me well beyond my comfort zone (out the back of Bondi Beach) but I saw something, in his coaching style, that I liked and thought I would chase him up for follow up lesson.

At that lesson I discovered that the technique that I had used all my life was completely wrong and basically was doing little but keeping my bad back bad.

Jim showed my a few tips introducing twist mainly and adding one or two more hints - I was hooked.

My first real 'hit out' was in an Ocean Series race.  It was 20 kms down wind.  I had begun to work with Jim on this website and had just put the podcast together for Jim on 'Chasing Runners', so had watched it all week many times (that was to prove a master stroke). 

Before the race I listened to the chat of the better paddlers and the tip was to get out to sea and ride those runners straight to the finish line.  That sounded just fine so, with that plan, I headed out.  Being a novice, I was concentrating on staying upright, so really only focussed on the two paddlers in front of me who just happened to subscribe to the same theory.  They headed out with me in pursuit.  What I didn't see was that the majority of the race turned right and hugged the coast.

The two in front of me were slowly pulling further away.  I continued concentrating on the chop and not falling out, heading out and out and out.  Eventually the two paddlers disapeared and I got the confidence to look around.  

It was slightly unnerving to then find myself about 3kms out to sea with no one around, no lifesavers, no competitors, no helicopters and no idea where to go.  Yep I got pretty nervous and shaky and was wondering if I had gone a bit far this time.

I hung in there (like I had a choice) and paddled keeping the coast on my right.  I finally spotted another paddler ahead and absolutely pushed it to catch him.  Basically it was catch him or die.  It took me about twenty minutes with a lot of energy and concentration but I finally caught him.

He was considerably older than me and looked like he had paddled forever.  I asked him if he knew where we were headed and he answered 'long reef'.  That was great except I had no idea where Long Reef was.  I looked down the coast and saw about 10 headlands.  "Which one of the headlands", I asked, "Easy", he said, "the last one". 

My heart sank but off I plodded.  I started to reflect on what the video 'Chasing Runners' has said and started to actually relax a little.  I started to catch some runners!  After some time one would join another and I was getting some significant runs.  The first 15ks was hell but the last 5 was fantastic - I actually got it.

I could see the finish line and felt so proud that I was actually catching runners towards it.  My traditional big finish and I got to the beach.  A mate at the finish, said to me that I must have had a big night out to get that time.  Still I was happy to be alive and felt I had learnt a bit.

I hung around for the prizes and actually won one.  I won a prize that was awarded to those who had never won a prize!!!  Nice shirt and the career had started.