Deciding to challenge myself and have a go at the molokai channel
was not a hard decision after hearing the stories from mates ,it will test your endurance ,mentally and physically and your wave knowledge .The history of the channel ,stories and legend are a lure itself,you start to think well it sounds like a good time [the event,and people]so your already on the plane in your head.But its only after you get your board and start to train that you start to wonder if you will make it?And all the talk of it seems to be forgotten.I decide that im going in the stand up division and ill ride an unlimited board which is around 16,5 feet with a foot rudder and go solo.After hearing mate jamies tales of doing it prone[laying down}i decided againest that.Which having been a nipper and followed in the surf clubs when i was a grommet too like jamie ,it could of been easy to go prone,but i was hooked on the sup side now,so that was that. So to the training,i started about 4-5 months out from the race ,i would consider myself pretty fit so that should be enough time to prepare,i had done a paddle on maui early in January ,called the maliko run that is a fun downwinder, so i knew i could make that,but you have full wind assist on that one ,molokai can be hell on earthwith the conditions so i was being told. .Not having done any big distances i started with a few 5-10km paddles,over a few weeks ,slowly built up to 20-30km.Once at 30km i started to try and built speed,Jamie would leed off and he would be in the distance the whole time but it was great to gauge speed from watching him,the year before i had also taken my jet ski out and watched jamie and billy watson train at the
same distance as i was at, so that helped heaps .In between my training i was also surfing alot on smaller sups and doing a few events which kinda disrupted training a bit ,after returning from tahiti in may, june i had got cut up pretty bad on the reef and had caught staf out of the water, so i was out of the water for 3 weeks when i returned back home .
After recovering from staf i begun training again ,and i felt great,i was doing a 30 plus km paddle every week along with suping every day this went on for another month then getting closer to the middle of june i was doing 40kms paddles it seemed to be working well ,i also had my fluids and gels worked out, the gel gives you a kick every 40 mintues or so in the paddle ,and is needed over 4-6 hour paddle ,this doesn't work for every one and trial and error is important,i was using an endura sport nutrition gel that you mix with water. I also would eat 2 protein bars whilst on a long paddle so i was happy with how it was all going ,and was preparing to start a few 50km paddles.I had done 1 52km paddle and did a good time so mentally i knew i could do it but i wanted to do a few more.
Surfing and training for a race would work well i thought kinda cross training ,but thats kinda when i hit trouble ,i was out on my 7,11 surf sup and got hit by the rail in the ribs hard, 6weeks out from the race i had broken ribs ,i couldn't paddle for at least 3-4 weeks this was not what you want if your going solo across the channel in 14 days time , so i decided to go to Hawaii early 5 days before to stay with good Hawaiian mate steve to get ready,which meant the week before i was going i would just rest,i had done alot of the work needed ,and i was only going to hurt myself more that week anyway.
So off to hawaii and i had not paddled in 6 weeks.To be continued.........next time the race,the channel,the good times.....thanks justin
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