Week 1 of intense training begins… 4 hr endurance paddle this morning. Thanks Stacy for keeping me company out there! I feel good so far (although I did have to take a nap today because I could barely keep my eyes open). 3 hrs of strength training, 41/2 hrs of cycling and 10 hrs of paddling… not to mention some surfing here or there. Looking back, it doesn’t seem like enough!

Earlier in the week we had insane winds. It was one of those days that only comes around once in awhile and when it does you have to take full advantage. So, with a building northwest swell and the 25mph winds, we loaded up the Mana (which wasn’t easy given the conditions) and took off. We got dropped off 3-4 miles upwind and took off. It was unbelievable. The swells were easily 8-10ft. I kept wishing I had taken my camera but it’s hard to paddle and take pictures.. the ground swell was rolling in to my right but the wind swell was pushing directly behind us… you had to catch the wind swell and surf into the bigger groundswell… it was so fun out there. Based on what it was like we decided to do a longer (12 miles) downwind run in town.  Unfortunately, by the time we loaded up boards, drove there and launched, the wind had backed off and what we thought was going to be an easy downwind paddle ended up being a lot of work… but it’s training, right?

Check out Desination3 and our blog for more info on our island crossing adventure. Also, become a fan of our facebook page – over 1,000 fans in just a week so far!!
Jenny